Chapter 23
With Shikaku
Shikaku stared down Kakashi, waiting for him to have the first word. When it looked like that wasn't going to happen, he spoke up, "what are you here for?"
Kakashi shrugged his shoulders, "I want what I always want on a mission, a smooth job, but we both know that that's not going to happen now, don't we?"
Shikaku nodded, "right, well, I don't know how I can help you out with that if I don't know what your job was. Mind enlightening me?"
Kakashi shrugged his shoulders again and turned his face towards the window, the moon outside was round and looked heavy. It also seemed like if a person were to stand up on the tallest building in the village, and with a bit of luck, they may very well touch the moon itself. The night was still and the village was quiet, the villagers sleeping happily in their beds, no longer fearing the one-tailed demon container, Gaara, roaming the streets and killing people. However, although Kakashi didn't know this in detail, Shikaku knew that everyone else at least had an idea of the Ichibi's leaving the village a few years prior. Finally, Kakashi spoke, "what do you know about the night that the Ichibi left this village?" He asked as he turned his lone eye back onto Shikaku, his expression blank and hidden from Nara's head.
Shikaku raised his eyebrow at the turn of the subject, "what does that have to do with me at that moment?" He asked, even though he had a pretty good idea.
"Oh, don't play games with me now...I thought that we were on the same page. Smooth jobs are so much better when the target co-operates, don't you agree?"
Shikaku chucked, "smooth jobs are nicer, but to have the job done right, well, that's just pushing it. Don't you think, Kakashi?" Kakashi chuckled at that, Shikaku got serious then, "what are you after? More importantly.....who sent you?"
"What do you mean? I told you, Minto sen-"
"Cut the crap, I know damn well that Minato-teme didn't send you with me when back at the village, it only looks like he did. Come to think about it, you weren't the one that was following me on the way over here," Shikaku narrowed his eyes, "who are you?"
The room went deathly quiet then, "who am I?" Kakashi asked, "so you don't know? Why I'm hurt, Shikaku," Kakashi, or the person that was pretending to be Kakashi slowly started to change, starting with their voice and going onto their appearance. Silver hair changed from defying gravity to obeying its laws, lengthening itself to a slight wavy waterfall. Their height shrunk down half afoot to its original size. Strong, muscular build turned to a thin, petite, feminine body, "to think that you wouldn't know the chakra signature of your wife." (I but you all forgot about her until now, didn't ya?)
Shikaku gritted his teeth to keep from saying anything nasty that would accidentally give away the information from his side of things. Instead of freaking out over his ex being here, instead of the man that he thought would be with him on this mission, he calmed down. "So...did you ask to go on this mission because you knew that I'd be involved, or were still holding out hope that my son would also be found on this mission somehow." It wasn't a question, they both knew this, but still, Yoshino played along.
"It was a fifty-fifty percent chance on both, but you were the higher fifty, so I went with you. Even though I was told many times that everyone had given up the search on baby boy, Shikamaru, and Naruto and Hinata also seemed to be a bit of a lost cause, I had to take my chances. It was only a matter of time until I got you alone and found out what you knew," Yoshino gave a sly smile, "I want to know what you know."
"And that would be?"
"I told you, don't play these games, you won't like what happens if you do." Yoshino threatened.
"You are delusional, even after so much time has gone by," Shikaku stated with a sigh, which wasn't a good thing to do in front of his ex.
"Hold your tough," Yoshino snarled, "what do you know about my love?"
"Nothing, apparently," Shikaku said in a bored tone as he leaned up against the wall again. Putting his hands in his pocket, he went on to say, "I've known you for as long as I can remember, we went to school together, we became ninja together. We learned new things, hell, we even fought in the war together and still made it out alive." He shook his head, "back then I thought, 'even though she's a bit rough around the edges and slightly controlling at times, at least no one's forcing her to like me. So why not?' And that was when I made the choice to make you mine, but what I didn't know was the painful secret that you were hiding from me."
"What are you talking about?" Yoshino asked arms folded, angry.
Shikaku shook his head, "the secrets, the lies, for what? What was it for?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Yoshino said, even though she had a sinking feeling that she did.
"Yes you do, why hide it? Now that I've caught you red-handed," Shikaku went on, not wanting to look at the woman in front of him any longer.
"What are you even-"
"I know why you wanted to have sex with Shikamaru," he said, cutting her off.
"Wha-y-y-you do?" Yoshino's voice wavered as the feeling grew larger.
"You can't hide it anymore," came a voice from a darker part of the room, scaring one out of two of the occupants, "you can't hide anything anymore." The person from the shadows slowly walked forward to reveal a second Shikaku.
Stunned, Yoshino looked between the two Shikaku's in the room before getting angry, "I thought you said we were alone, isn't that what we agreed on?"
"Oh, but we are alone, Yoshino," the second Shikaku said as he walked more into the light, he stopped in the center of the room, between the two of them. "We were always alone, you and me, and a shadow, all alone in a dark room together without any interruptions."
"What are yo-" Yoshino said before sensing a change in the chakra of the first Shikaku, the one that she thought was the real one. She watched as the first slowly turned a dark shade of black until he looked like nothing but a shadow on the wall without anyone to cast it, the shadow deformed into a shapeless blob. The shadow soon melded with the floor, flowing across the carpeted ground s if it came from a spilled glass of water until it flowed under the second Shikau's feet where it took it's shaping once more. Yoshino looked up at him, "what jutsu was that?"
Shikaku gave her a sly smile, "that was my shadow, which I told you it was," he chuckled. "Although, I suppose that you wouldn't have caught onto that with where your mind was at the time."
"What, that couldn't be, how could you have cast a jutsu without me knowing?" Yoshino asked.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Shikaku said as he turned away from his ex, he started to walk away until he felt the cold, metallic blade of a Kuni press against the side of his neck, "don't let me leave until you got what you came for? Or are you just happy I was the one that knows your little secret so that you can do away with me without anyone blaming you?" He looked back at a porcelain mask of a bear face, behind him was an ANBU with a dog mask and gravity-defying hair, like before, "well, at least I know that he was actually with me all along." He turned to his other side, there was the face of a cat and another bird, four in total, "well, now that you've got me, what are you going to do now?"
Yoshino walked around the bear and the dog masked ANBU until he came into his view, "you know what we came here for, not hand it over and all of this will go away."
Shikaku chuckled again, "I'm sorry my dear, but you have the wrong guy, maybe if you let me go, I'll take you to the right one," he said with a toothy grin, unlike himself.
But Yoshino didn't notice, "don't fuck with me, Shikaku, I know you have what we came for, now hand them over."
"Them? Why, who could you be talking about?" Shikaku asked, "am I hiding someone from you?"
"With your actions today, you might as well have," said the dog masked ANBU.
"What are you people talking about, I don't have anything to give you, nor do I know who you're talking about," Shikaku said with a frown."
"You know what we're talking about, just hand over the location-" started the cat masked ANBU but Shikaku gave a big yawn that interrupted him.
"Sorry, but I have no idea what or who you're talking about, what location? I don't know what that is, is it a bar, a shop? I don't know."
Yoshino looked at Shikaku closely, suddenly her eyes widened, "this is not the one we've been looking for."
"What?" Bear asked, he looked, they had him restrained four ways without any way out, how could this not be the one? "You were talking to him like a dog when he came in, we all saw it, how can that be?"
"I saw it all too, Shikaku Nara entered this room and never left, he did cast a genjutsu to hid from you in the first part of the conversation. Even though that stays true, this Shikaku has never left this room," said the bird mask ANBU.
"I sense all of our chakras signatures, but this man before us seems to be telling us the truth," said the cat masked ANBU.
"What do you mean, Cat?" Asked dog.
Cat stepped closer to the captured Shikaku, "I think that this guy may be a shadow clone that was somehow placed here without us knowing about switch out." He looked at Yoshino, "I don't know how he did it, but he seemed to have used you to feed off of and also mask the fact that he wasn't the real one."
"Bingo," said the captured 'Shikaku', "now why don't you guys be nice neighbors and let me go, huh?"
"No, that's not happening, not on my watch," Yoshino said. She pointed her finger in 'Shikaku's' face, "who are you and who do you work for? Who sent you?"
"Whoa, whoa, slow your roll girly, you're about a hundred years too young to be on equal ground with me. As for who I work for? No one, I'm a-what you call it, freelancer? Yeah, and also, I don't need to work for anyone because that shit's boring, why'd I let someone else tell me what to do when I can tell myself what to do instead."
"So who are you?" Asked the bird masked Anbu.
The fake Shikaku smiled, "wouldn't you like to know, dear?" Just then, the smoke of green and yellow started to fill the room. The Anbu were too busy looking for the source of the smoke to notice that the fake Shikau had tossed something onto the floor from his pocket. "It was nice hanging around with you, but I do have to run now,"
"Oh no you don't, you're not going any-" but before Yoshino could finish that statement, the fake went up into smoke that blended in with the rest of the smoke in the room. The room quickly filled with smoke that made it hard to see, let alone see, they had no choice but to leave the room for air, already knowing that they had lost their one good lead. "Next time, I won't let you slip away next time," Yoshino said to herself between coughs.
TBC......