- 19 - I see Fire -
- 19 - I see fire -
-Shikamaru-
‘The damn world’s on fire.’ That was the first thing that came to Shikamaru’s mind once he could open his eyes in the strange place he had fallen into after touching Minaru’s shoulder. The ground consisted mostly of rocks, a few mossy patches here and there and a little bit further down he could see burnt grass. Almost no higher vegetation was in the area except for a few trees that had been burnt to coal. And all around him there were still fires crackling, licking at the remaining plants. The heat was almost unbearable. Maybe the heat in his room had triggered Minaru’s nightmare?
He shivered violently, before pulling himself back together. He didn’t know why he was so sure, but he just knew that he had somehow fallen right into Minaru’s nightmare. He had to find her and get her out. Immediately. His Shadow answered with appreciation and sent out waves of protective anger.
Shikamaru extended his senses and found a familiar echo not that far away. Moving over to the location, his terror only intensified because he could see corpses littering the ground, getting more and more the closer he got to his destination. Most of them wore Konoha headbands and some of the faces even looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t say, why. And then a massive explosion shook the ground.
He sprinted the few remaining meters and froze. A massive fox with red fur was crouched low over the ground, baring his fangs at an Uchiha, who looked to be around 20 years old. But Shikamaru knew his face. The second son of the Uchiha Clanhead, Sasuke.
He sneered. “I can’t believe you would fall so easily for a trap like this, dobe.”, the older Sasuke said.
A wheezing sound could be heard from under the fox’s belly and then a young man pushed his way up from the ground. He had one hand pressed to his left shoulder to stem the blood flow from a piercing wound that was there. Shikamaru guessed that it must have almost hit his heart. The blonde man wore an orange jacket and black pants. “I just don’t understand, Sasuke. Why do you want to hurt Sakura-chan and me so badly? We’re a team, a family.”
Sasuke scoffed. “If you still think that you’re even dumber than I thought, Naruto.”
The other man - Naruto, yeah he guessed he could see the blonde in this young man - just smiled. “Well, if being your friend and trusting you because of that makes me stupid, then I guess I’m a total idiot.”, he said with a strained voice.
Brat. Watch out. He’s totally crazed. Shikamaru could hear the dark voice in his own head and almost lost his footing because of the feeling of sheer power that radiated with every word.
“I know, Kurama. I know. But I have to at least try.” Naruto said and shot a smile at the fox.
That smile sent a shiver down Shikamaru’s spine. He knew this smile. That wasn’t Naruto’s full on smile they had seen so often in the Academy, but the smile that Minaru showed to him and Choji sometimes.
He took an involuntary step toward the scene. “Mina…?”, he whispered and ‘Naruto’ froze for a second.
Then he whirled around and his eyes fixed on Shikamaru. The cerulean blue gave way to sapphire, golden streaks appearing in the iris. “Shika?!”, he breathed and just like this the whole scenery was frozen in time. ‘Naruto’ stayed where he was, while Minaru’s own spirit detached herself from him and came over to Shikamaru, tears in her eyes. “What are you doing here? How did you even find this place?”, she asked, wrapping her arms around her body.
“I woke up because you were shivering in your sleep and I could feel something wrong with your emotions. When I touched you to wake you up I just fell into this place. What is this, Mina?”, he asked, reaching for her arm to make sure she was there. His hand met solid flesh and he breathed a sigh of relief.
She blinked a few times, looking at his hand, which was still wrapped around her arm. “You might find it hard to believe.”, she said.
He scoffed and shook his head. “Mina, we have a connection that defies every ‘normal’ human feeling. I think you should trust me a little more than that.”, he said.
She scrunched up her eyebrows. “Trust is not the problem.”
“Then what is the problem?”, he asked.
She looked at him in silence for a while before she lifted her hand. “I’m scared.”, she finally admitted.
“Of what?”
“Of losing what I have now.” She looked over to the frozen scene with the fox and Naruto and Sasuke. “What do you think this is?”, she asked and pointed at the scene.
“A nightmare?”, he asked. Even if it didn’t exactly add up why she would dream of being in Naruto’s place when he was older.
“Not just that.”, she said, shaking her head. She sighed and lifted her hand, snapping her fingers once.The scenery shifted around them to show a tent, filled with several ninja, the headbands showed they were from different villages, but everyone had a second headband with the word ‘ninja’. The adult Naruto was in the tent again, along with an older Ino, Sai and… himself?! “It’s a memory.” Minaru said in almost a whisper. The scene shifted again, this time to a battlefield that was filled with many more corpses then before. He nearly vomited when he saw his own body not far from where Naruto was fighting against a woman with long white hair. And then these figures both vanished, along with all of the corpses. “I know how Naruto suffers in his daily life because I lived through it myself in my last life.”, she said.
His mouth fell open and he looked at her. It made a strange kind of sense that she had an adult soul. Even if he would never have guessed it to be Naruto’s. “So, you keep reliving your memories from your last life in your dreams?”, he asked, rapidly putting the information into the right order.
She nodded. “Yes. Most of the time it happens because of a meeting with someone I knew in the Before or something that happened during the day. This is a special part of my mindscape. It contains memories I would have liked to lock away but that’s easier said than done.”
Shikamaru thought back at what he had seen. “Sasuke tried to kill you in this memory.”, he said.
She sighed and nodded once. “Yes. It was as difficult to kill me back then as it is now. But he got very close to actually pulling it off.” She looked at him from the corner of her eye.
Shikamaru stuffed his hands into his pockets and nodded while he thought the new information over. Several pieces of her puzzle reshaped themselves and formed an almost complete picture. “That definitely explains why you can understand Naruto’s situation. But I’m surprised you don’t hate Sasuke now.”, he said. Sure, she wasn’t friends with the Uchiha, but she also wasn’t reacting with antipathy towards him.
Minaru shrugged and sank to the floor. The scenery shifted again, this time into a lush green forest with several brooks gurgling in the background. Birds sang and golden light filled the area. It was such a contrast from the desolate plain they had been in before that he looked around in wonder for a while. “I had my issues first, memories like the ones I have are like poison. But I think I managed to find a way to make it work now. Just as I’m not the person I was back then and I’m not even the Naruto of this timeline, he’s not the Sasuke I knew in the Before. For a start he never lost his Clan.”
Shikamaru turned to look at her. “Your Sasuke lost his Clan?”
She raised one eyebrow and her lips twitched in a half smile. “He isn’t my Sasuke.”, she said. “But that doesn’t answer your question. Yes, this Sasuke lost his Clan when he was 8 years old. Itachi killed them, but we later found out that he had to do it or Konoha would have risked a bloody rebellion from the Clan. That’s how Sasuke came to be an avenger. He left Konoha about a year after our graduation and never came back.”
He sat down next to her and leaned his shoulder against hers. “He fought against Naruto...”, he said.
She nodded, leaning against him in turn. “On more than one occasion. The scene you saw there was from the war in which everyone the ‘Naruto’ me knew died eventually.”
Shikamaru looked at her. “What happened to this Sasuke?”
She smiled and turned to look at him. “The Shikamaru of my old timeline killed him.” Shikamaru’s eyes widened. Her smile widened a bit. “Hard to believe from your point of view right now, I know. But this Shikamaru was the sixth Hokage’s advisor and our head strategist in the Fourth Ninja World War. He led a team to hunt Sasuke down after he attacked my old self.”
“Did ‘we’ have the same connection in your last life?”, he asked.
She fell silent for a while and rested her head against his shoulder. Relieved, that she started to act normally again, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “No. At least not that I know of. But I don’t know if the ‘you’ then would have told me. We only became friends a few months after the Chunin-exams.”
He hummed and stared off into the distance. He shelved more information for later. A singular Nara didn’t hunt down another ninja without a very good, very personal reason to do so.
“How did you end up in this body if you were Naruto first?”, he changed the topic.
A small smile bloomed on Minaru’s lips. But before she could answer, a soft female voice spoke in his head. That would be my fault.
He startled and looked around, searching for the source of the voice. Minaru laughed and lifted her right arm. “Saving my life hardly counts as being at fault, Raya.”, she said.
He could hear soft rustling and then a bird landed on Minaru’s outstretched arm. Several long tail feathers moved in the wind and the light let the orange, red and golden feathers of the bird shine like flames. It looked at him with wise eyes. Several circles with spinning tomoe were visible in the golden depths of these eyes. I am Raya. It’s good to finally be able to meet the one who’s Shadow balances out my Light., the female voice spoke again and the bird bowed its head.
Shikamaru bowed his head before he looked up again and asked: “Your Light?”
Minaru nodded. “Raya was called the Phenix of Light before she had to be sealed away. I guess you were referencing that?”, she said, looking at the bird.
Raya nodded majestically. Yes. But like with everything too much light can be hurtful. I like your Shadow. He’s a bit possessive, but he knows his boundaries. He could hear her laugh.
Shikamaru blushed. Yes, his Shadow was more than a bit possessive. Especially where it concerned Minaru. And taking the glint in the Phenix’s eyes into account, Raya knew that. “I’ll pass the compliment on to him.”, he said. “Even if you seem to already know him.”
Raya laughed again. I can move more or less freely through Minaru’s family net. So, yes, I’ve met your Shadow. She stretched her wings for a moment. You were asking how we ended up in the situation we are in now., she continued then. Do you remember the white haired woman that Naruto fought at the end of the memories Mina showed to you?
Shikamaru nodded. “Yes.”
Minaru sighed and absent mindedly petted Raya’s feathers. “Her name was Kaguya Otsutsuki. She was the one who caused the Fourth Ninja World War.”
He blinked a few times in stunned silence. He had heard about this name in his studies with the Clan-Elders. “The goddess who gave the humans the ability to form chakra?”, he asked. That didn’t add up with the picture he had seen.
That’s the legend she had her followers tell to people. Raya said with clear aversion in her voice. In reality she was killed by her own sons because she tried to pull every last ounce of chakra out of the world, destroying it in the process. She was never a goddess, but an overly ambitious human woman.
“She sealed her own twin away into a pocket dimension because she would have been able to pose a threat to Kaguya’s plans.”, Minaru continued. “When Kaguya died, Kagome pulled Naruto me’s soul into her dimension. That’s where I met Raya for the first time.”
The Phenix trilled and rubbed her beak on Minaru’s shoulder. We came to this timeline in hopes of finding a way to stop the war, at least in this reality., she said then, turning to look at Shikamaru again.
He took a deep breath. “That… sounds like you chose a very lonely path willingly.”
Minaru smiled lightly. “Kagome asked me what I would sacrifice. My answer hasn’t changed. I would do everything I have to to keep this future from repeating itself. But I’m not as lonely as I initially thought. My family just being there for me helps immensely. And Sai remembers as well. He is a good ally.”
Shikamaru blinked, before he laughed. “I always wondered why you were so fast to trust him and Shin.”, he said.
Minaru smiled. “He is still trying to guess who I was in the Before.”, she said with a low laugh. “His guesses are quite funny sometimes.”
“You didn’t tell him?”, Shikamaru asked.
She shrugged. “He didn’t want me to. 5 years later and he still hasn’t figured it out. His last guess was Lee of all people.”, she said and chuckled. “And before you ask: Yes, my outside persona as Naruto was very similar to the Naruto you know. Maybe a bit less shy.”
Shikamaru looked at her. “But that wasn’t the real you?”, he asked.
She shrugged. “It was safer for me to be that way.” She looked up when a shrill whistling could be heard in the forest.
“What was that?”, Shikamaru asked.
“Time to get up.”, she said and got up from the ground, dusting off her pants. Raya once more nibbled on Minaru’s hair before flying off.
“What?”, Shikamaru asked, a bit lamely.
Minaru laughed. “You could say that that was my alarm clock.”
-Minaru-
She blinked her eyes open and stretched a little bit, her back connecting with Shikamaru’s in the process. It was the first time she didn’t feel absolutely spent after one of her nightmares. She only felt a deep relief. And she guessed, that was also because she hadn’t thought about sharing the burden of her memories, too afraid to lose their connection. But was it really okay for her to tell him all of that?
“Stop it.”, Shikamaru grumbled, sounding only half awake, and poked her waist with his toe.
She turned her head and saw that he had opened one eye to look at her. “Stop what?”, she asked innocently.
He sighed and pulled on a strand of her hair. “I can feel you overthinking the things that happened. Stop it.”, he said.
She blinked a few times. “But…”, she started.
He put a hand over her mouth. “No. I want you to tell me everything, got that? Sure, it will take some time to actually process everything I learned. But I think I’m better off knowing this about you.”
She sighed. “Knowledge like this can very easily be dangerous as well.”, she said.
He pulled her up against his chest. “Then we’ll have to be careful. But don’t you dare try and shut me out now, after I’ve finally been able to see the real you.”, he grumbled.
She blinked before her lips twitched in a smile. “I understand where Raya’s comment about possessiveness came from now.”, she said.
“Every Nara is protective of those who manage to get past their walls.”, Shikamaru answered. “Me especially so, admittedly.”
She laughed lightly. “Just so you know. Choji, Ino and you always knew the real me. I was pretending to be someone else in the Before. But not anymore.”, she said.
Shikamaru smiled, a small one, but a smile. “Good.” With a fond scoff she rolled over and reached out a hand to fish for her shoes. “What are you doing?”, he asked.
She laughed. “Getting ready for today, what else? The teams are announced in two hours and I don’t want to be late.”
He sighed heavily but got up as well. “Who do you think we will be teamed up with?”, he asked while they went over to the kitchen.
She shrugged. “No idea. It could be the same as before or totally different. The grades differ quite a bit from last time.”
Last time Ino and Sakura had been the best Kunoichi’s of their year, Sakura was situated more in the middle this time while Hinata - she had been a real surprise in every practical test - and Minaru herself had taken the spots at the top. Shikamaru was also a bit better than last time and she would bet almost all of her first money that Naruto wasn’t Deadlast anymore. That spot would go to Kiba, she guessed. Who would be the best from the boys? She didn’t know about that and didn’t even want to risk a guess. Sasuke was good, but he had a real rival in Shino this time.
“I would ask how in Kami’s name you are already up, Shika, but I can guess. Thanks for staying the night, Mina-chan. At least now he won’t be late.” Yoshino commented, once they entered the kitchen. She placed two trays on the table and went to prepare a third one.
“Hey, I’m not that bad!”, Shikamaru protested.
Yoshino scoffed. “You would have slept through your own birthday if Choji and Minaru hadn’t barged in when they did.”, she said. Minaru smiled at the memory. It was true that Shikamaru had still been sleeping when they had come over for the party. It was funny how normal it was for her now to have Shikamaru and Choji around her almost permanently. “Now eat up. You still got a bit of time before Choji and Ino wanted to be here.”
Minaru folded her hands. “Thank you for the meal, Yoshino-san.”
Yoshino sighed and came over to ruffle her hair. “At least one of you knows how to behave when someone is cooking for you.”, she said, ignoring Minaru’s scowl at getting her hair messed up again.
Once Yoshino had moved back over to the stove Minaru reached up to sort her hair. “I do thank people for a good meal.”, Shikamaru muttered under his breath. Minaru kicked him and smiled innocently when Yoshino turned and eyed her son quizzically.
“What did you say?”, she asked in a chilly voice.
“He said that he wanted to say thank you as well, I was just faster than him.”, Minaru piped in quickly.
Shikamaru put a hand on her knee under the table and squeezed once. “Yeah. Thanks for making breakfast for us, Kaa-san.”, he said.
Yoshino smiled, placated. “Of course. Why don’t you two...” She was interrupted by the doorbell. “I’ll get it.” The Nara matriarch moved to open the front door.
Minaru and Shikamaru breathed a sigh of relief and both hastily got rid of the mackerel Yoshino had prepared for them. The Nara matriarch could cook about anything at least decently. Except fish. That was just not her forte. Minaru shot a quick look at Shikamaru. “Saved by the door. You should know better than to provoke her early in the morning.”, she whispered.
“I forgot! I’m still half sleeping.”, he whispered back. “Thanks for saving that one for me.”
She turned and smiled. “Always.” They finished eating their fried rice and set the bowl down right as the door opened again and Ino poked her head in.
“You two finished? Choji and I want to leave so we can catch a good seat.”, she asked.
“We’re coming. Wouldn’t want you to be too late to get a seat near Sai, right?” Minaru got up, while Shikamaru carried their trays over to the sink. She cackled when Ino flushed bright red.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Ino defended herself.
Minaru laughed. “Of course you don’t, Nee-chan.” Ino just sniffed, but she couldn’t quite hide her smile at the familiar teasing, and turned to return to the entrance.
“Leave them. I’ll finish cleaning for today. Off with you!” Yoshino said to Shikamaru, coming back into the room.
“Thank you, Kaa-san.” This time Shikamaru was faster than Minaru and she just smiled at Yoshino before darting after him and Ino to the entrance, where Choji was waiting.
A/N: Next up: teams are being announced! Who will Minaru’s teammates be, want to leave a guess? :3