Chapter Text
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words spit out, serpentine, falsify and deny
-o-
Itachi disliked how he could be pulled by strings so easily. He had been manipulated first by his clan, to embody the perfect son and heir. How dutiful he had been. He had been even better when his village leaders took their grip to his skeleton. Twisting and turning and slicing. A dutiful ninja, he was dread inspiring. A dutiful brother and he was a monster just as they wished.
He wanted, desperately, to be a man of peace. It was in his nature to take a path of least resistance for that reason, at least when allowed, and sometimes that meant acquiescing to the suggestions of others. Had he been too lenient in the past? Maiming and fleeing when he should have been raising any opposition? Had his softness been so obvious that Sasori was able to see through him? Itachi had revealed too much of himself, and the former-Suna nin had used this to his advantage. And so he had felt the strings pulling him again.
Sasori had spurred Itachi into going to Grass Country so fluidly. Without any effort, it seemed. Itachi had known it was manipulation and yet still he did as the man directed. The choice otherwise would have left Sasuke's fate to a perilous chance of ruin. Itachi was not going to risk it any more than he had already by leaving his younger brother within the Sannin's grasp for so long. Sasuke should not have spent years withering away under the tutelage of Orochimaru, and perhaps it was the guilt of that allowance that made him so responsive to Sasori's taunting.
His brother was his greatest weakness. He was resolute in the fact Sasuke would be his undoing - it had to be or else what would be the point of all this suffering?
And so Itachi had played into the hand dealt to him. Wary and nonetheless pliant, as he was ever wont to do.
The question of why gnawed at him. He could not determine why Sasori had laid the cards out in such a way. What had the man to gain from the charade? Was it spite against his former partner? What else?
Itachi kept his internal debate firmly there, and remained outwardly aloof.
They were gathered together once more - the disparate members of Akatsuki all in attendance for the meeting called by their "Leader."
Their Leader was administering a dull reproach for Itachi and Kisame and their dalliance in Grass Country. He was very mildly annoyed by the sudden departure from their other plans. He only sounded more lively when heard from Kisame about their former member, Orochimaru, and his apparent fate. It intrigued him.
Itachi refrained from reacting to Kisame calling the Yamanaka kunoichi a 'little girly,' which could have been rather insulting but then Kisame right after called the Snake Sannin a 'sad, wee-boy-oh' so it was a wash.
Deidara of Iwagakure was delighted at the twist of events. "Deep-throated himself to death, eh? The self-glorifying, patronising ass deserved it. Bastard had no vision, yeah."
Their Leader gently cut off the conversation before it delved lower, pre-empting what was sounding like a colorful addition from Hidan. "Do not revel in the circumstance. He is yet to perish from this mortal plane."
"Shame," Deidara concluded, with the finality of feeling anything but.
"I can impress that it is refreshing to witness the overturning of what we might consider to be things like institutions, in our world. A Sannin knocked low by a chuunin without bloodline limit or demonic energy. It is a spectacle of disruption to an order we have been shaped to be inclined to accept without question. It is...something to be admired."
"Yeah, I liked her, too," Kisame drawled in agreement. His eyes cut to Itachi, as if prompting him to say something, but then he very pointedly swivelled his head to look at the flickering facade of Sasori. Because he was one to find subterfuge intolerable, Kisame spoke without any tact. "The Leaf are full of surprises. Itachi saw your pet project, too. Was that on purpose?"
Itachi appreciated that Sasori was easier to read after shedding his puppet contraption that had served as his armor. Even when he was only a projection of himself in a dark cavern, there were more windows to his inner psyche. The whites of his eyes glowed from the ninjutsu that provided his form and Itachi watched them go from half-lidded amusement to fully closed. They opened and with a honeyed pace, looked directly back to Itachi. He said, "I can't move anyone by design. How absurd."
Itachi felt a twitch beneath one eye and was glad that movement, at least, would not translate through the ninjutsu connecting them for their rendezvous. He wondered if he had miscalculated, sharing his observation about the Fifth's Apprentice with his partner. He thought it was reassuring for the Leaf shinobi ranks to possess such an agile and formidable operative, and so he was pleased to spread word of the kunoichi's notoriety if it meant giving Akatsuki any bit of hesitation in confronting their village.
He suddenly, discordantly, had the thought that confirming her presence in Grass Country had only further sated Sasori's scheming.
"Did you accomplish what you sought out to do, Itachi?" Their Leader asked. He must have admitted to himself that he was unlikely to get a clear response from Itachi on the matter, so he revised the inquiry. "Can I expect any more interruptions?"
Itachi did not look away from Sasori. "No."
He watched the half-lidded eyes shape into narrow little slivers as if sitting atop a sneer.
Sasori had manipulated all of them, himself included, but he was bereft as to the reason why.
He was tiring of strings.
-o-
Shikamaru found that Sakura was not difficult to find, but she was difficult to get to. Almost anyone would have been able to track her down considering the current environment; she was in the hospital and busy reviewing notes in an otherwise quiet room. Not everyone would have the means of access. He nodded his chin at the two nin standing guard at the entrance to the secured wing after they approved his letter of clearance from the Hokage. She was a few open doors away, secluded at a work station and hyper-focused on reading charts.
It had been awhile since Shikamaru had spoken with Sakura. Years or more, he realized, and doubly so if he tried to recall the last time they had spoken one on one. Had they ever, actually?
Seeing Sakura again after so long demanded he try to make an adjustment of his mental image of her. She had gone from knobby knees and whispers from behind cupped hands to a straight-backed jounin Captain, Apprentice to The Fifth. Her hair was long again, pulled into a loose plait down her back. She was wearing long sleeves in her typical red and white scheme. She also had a flak-vest and skirt over her athletic shorts. She was a medic-nin leading a research team, everything ready with the allowance she could go into the field at a moment's notice. He had heard some rumours about her time in Wind Country, the hushed things that she had accomplished there. The rumours had been, somehow, unexpected. She was the disciple of a Legendary Sannin, but did she save the Sand village and its Kage from decimation? Did she really fight an Akatsuki member to a draw on her own?
Years and ranks and missions had gone by and Shikamaru had done little more than raise a hand in acknowledgement during the journey.
He had accepted her congratulations at his own jounin promotion ceremony awhile ago, but that was really the extent of it. At that time, he had noted that she hadn't made any snide remark or subtle jab at his expense, like he thought she might. She had always been smug and capable, and too eager to prove herself and assert some power or status when she otherwise had none. It used to be like that.
Even with the complete lack of effort he had put into his school work, when they were students, Sakura had always been particularly boisterous and nearly obliged to remind everyone that she was number one in their class. Number one for book results, at least.
"It's why her head is so big. It's where she stores all the answers," Ino had groused once upon a time.
"Does that make you nervous, 'cause you have a three-finger brow?" Shikamaru had been inclined to tease in return. He had never put any malice into the words. He just liked seeing Ino get all ruffled up like a little bird fluffing its feathers in the cold. "No room for any thoughts in that small head of yours."
It was unfair of him to say, because Ino was not far behind in her marks from Sakura. And she had been flipping back and forth with Sasuke for number one in practical application for most of their childhood at that point.
"At least I don't have a piece of fruit for a head, Pineapple," Ino had said, and flicked him on his head for emphasis.
Fuck, he missed her. A trio without its third was a triangle missing a side, so it was just an open maw left behind, perpetually hungry and unfulfilled.
As Shikamaru considered Sakura in the hospital room, her mind faraway from noticing him, he thought she had muted some of that eagerness. Maybe she finally felt confidence? Something had changed because the Sakura he remembered would have rubbed his face in the fact she was the first of their class to reach jounin. She would have gloated at his ceremony. All she had done was incline her head politely and smile at him. They had walked away from one another like strangers.
But he needed the passion she used to have, and hoped it remained somewhere beneath the cool facade.
Seeing her was making him feel nostalgic, suddenly. But there were other things, too, he allowed, that were dredging up the past for him. Shikamura glanced at the windows lining one side of the room, let his eyes adjust to the sunlight and he took a moment to announce his presence to Sakura.
They had been friendly at one point. Well, not rivals, at least. He tried to remember that, tried to appeal to the part of her that he knew back then.
"Ino would be disappointed in you," Shikamura said to her as he meandered into the room and settled a pace away from where she sat. Sakura looked up at him and he watched the words penetrate whatever thought she had been lost to. The flash of emotional pain pinching her expression confused him and he felt thick in an unpleasant way. A gravelly noise left him, uncertainty making his tongue dull. "Erm. I meant about your headband?"
For almost the whole of the time he had known Sakura, she had worn her headband off her face. Ino had made enough teases and jokes about this for even the boys to catch on to the significance of the placement. He felt compelled to acknowledge the sudden change to how Sakura was wearing her hitai-ate on her forehead now, as most nin did. "She might mock you for it, but she knows you're... Erm."
He gestured at his own face and then motioned to Sakura. "That it's all... Well-proportioned, actually. You're not offensive in that area, I don't think."
Sakura's flash of pain simmered into something like disbelief as he finished talking. Her cheeks were tinting with the influx of blood there.
"I'm not hitting on you," he also felt compelled to point out. He sincerely wasn't. "It's just that the change is ostentatious. Like it's distracting. Are you hiding something? You can always say your skin is breaking out, I suppose."
She broke their gaze with one another to look instead at the wall in front of the desk where she worked. There was nothing for her eyes to find, but she took a beat to consider the empty space nonetheless. Several beats, in fact. Then she turned back to him, composure regained, and smiled placidly. "How can I help you, Captain Nara?"
It felt fake to him, although it was a convincing act; he told himself she did as much to recover from his own social fumbling. Her blush was gone.
He spoke casually, not wanting the muck of formality to obfuscate his intentions. "You might have heard about Ino. What's happened. I know it's not your typical type of healing, so I'm not here to ask you for that."
“You are here to ask for something.” Sakura was impassive. Impenetrably so, and it was an unsettling and rapid difference from a moment earlier. "I am only aware of the situation in the simplest terms."
"And you're not really a specialist when it comes to mental trauma, so I don't need to share those details. Despite what this says."
He held up the scroll from Tsunade that permitted him the chance to speak with Sakura concerning medical-ninjutsu. He wasn't really after that. She did regenerative techniques, not anything to do with the mind especially.
Sakura took the scroll from him anyway and read it over, just to have the information it contained. She really was still a know-it-all, he concluded.
He had said he was there to ask for her help, so he watched her parse through his intentions silently until she came to a deduction. "The Sharingan?"
Shikamaru shrugged. "It's kinda annoying how everything seems to sluice right back to that shit."
Her eyes went from his to the windows, then back to him. "Kakashi?"
"Yep." She had seen through him too quickly, actually, and Shikamaru was affronted at how he shallow he was just then. Pathetic for a jounin, surely.
"Why have you come to me?"
"Tsunade won't tell me where he is or when he'll be back."
The lack of immediate response made him sour. He narrowed his eyes at Sakura.
"What? How am I supposed to help you? Like I would know how to wrangle a man who consorts with only ghosts." The flush made a quick reappearance on the tips of her ears but then it was gone again. Her musings were poignant and betrayed too much for her own comfort and she tried to ease past the discrepancy. "If he's not at the memorial stone, then I can't really offer any other alternative."
"I know you two are no longer on the same team, but weren't you all..." Shikamaru had started the sentence with an ending in mind and he felt as it fizzled out like a dud fuse. He finished with a lame effort, not convincing even himself, "Team Seven was close?"
Sakura replaced the cap on her pen and put her paperwork aside. She adapted a relaxed position as she leaned an elbow on the table and rested her head on her palm. The other arm crossed her front and he watched her dance her fingers over her bicep. It could have been a thoughtless movement. She said after a pause, "are we?"
"Look, Tsunade isn't about to tell Kakashi to dig into Ino's head when she's - she's vulnerable like she is. But her body isn't going to last forever with the shit it's going through. Ino'll turn into a husk. Even if she survives, there's no knowing if she'll want what's left of her."
The words were harsh, and he waited for Sakura to flinch, but the reality wasn't shocking to her.
Right, Shikamaru noted his error in judgement. He really needed to remember they had all grown up. And Medic-nin were something of their own league of fucked up.
"Is she still in there?" Sakura asked, her words leaving her without any edge. Hope or sadness or something else cushioning them.
"Kurenai and Ino's father seem to read as much from her chakra. It's almost cyclical. She's trapped in this..." He struggled, wanting to be specific and accurate. "I don't want to say a 'loop,' because it shifts sometimes. Somehow. It's not a perfect pattern, but it's also predictable most of the time."
"And what about Orochimaru's chakra?" Sakura asked, also leaving behind formalities and speaking plainly. So she did know more than the simplest terms.
Of course she would, he told himself. She's the student of their Hokage. And she knew about the other recent developments, too, obviously. He adamantly did not look to the windows.
It remained difficult for Shikamaru to admit to himself, though, that Ino was caught, literally and figuratively, by that scaled son-of-a-bitch. He swallowed down the bile he felt coming up his throat. "No one is touching that thing. His chakra is too toxic to survey. You don't even have to be sensitive to signatures to know whatever it is he's doing is contagious and fatal."
"Like he is one large curse mark?"
Shikamaru rubbed at his nape, swiping away the perspiration prickling on his skin. "Feels like it."
“And Ino is trapped in his clutches.”
He nodded. It was needless to say aloud, but he couldn't stop the omen from leaving him. It hung like a specter between them. “She is dying in there.”
Sakura stood up. It must have been a while since she had moved from her research. A tendon snapped and she groaned at herself for the stiffness. She stretched, pulling her arms above her and long, and he watched the way her cropped shirt rode higher over her ribs as her back arched. She had scars. Clean and simple for what Shikamaru suspected the truth behind them would offer. A part of him wondered if they were old, stitched up back when she had still been newer to healing, or they were recent and if she had chosen to heal them just so to keep the reminders of her battles without inhibiting her skin's elasticity. Scars were something to be proud of in their line of work, but something to be ashamed of in hers.
His classmate might have been more complex than he had previously afforded her.
The stretch was over with and Sakura was stepping away to stand by the windows.
"Shishou is going to crack Orochimaru's curse seal," she said with certainty. Then, more abstractly, she said, "maybe we can have an alternative to Kakashi before long enough."
Shikamaru did not join her at her new spot of observation, but he still followed her gaze to the courtyard on the other side of the glass. They were on the ground floor and it was no trouble at all to find the subject of her focus within the private garden space. There were many figures within it, most stood still like statues, and one deep into a training regiment.
"Regeneration is your specialty," Shikamaru agreed as he joined her in watching Sasuke.
The trouble he had gone to bring back the prick and now here he was in the flesh. It was not triumphant for Shikamaru, seeing their classmate as he was currently.
Sasuke moved through a series of sword movements, a wooden tool in place of steel, but otherwise unhindered by what the bandages wrapped around his eyes suggested. Unhindered by the change in his captivity - from the cells of Orochimaru's experiments to the cell of a hospital recovery ward.
"That guy still carries himself like none of us can touch him," he remarked, not quite heated enough to inflect bitterness. It was still there, though, despite his want for detachment. Chouji had almost died for that guy's selfishness. Prick.
Sakura didn't answer. When he spied her reflection in the glass he thought he saw a smile, something almost like fondness curling in her expression. She was pensive and too distant when she answered. "I suspect he knows differently."
And she was smug, too, just like she had once been, though Shikamaru for the life of him could not guess why. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she was playing at her shirt sleeve in the same place again.
Shikamaru pondered on the tell. He thought of her blush, her acting. He wanted to have a guess, though. He said to her, "We should catch up some time. Outside of all of - this."
Sakura laughed, and it was a practised, chiming sound. Her eyes were teasing when she turned to see him properly.
"If I protest again that it's not like that, it will only make you think the opposite," he said, and she lifted a shoulder as if in agreement with the assessment. Shikamaru huffed, and the honesty he wanted to snuff out from his words was too strong to deny. "That would be fair, except I'm here for my team mate, and you know that. I want Ino back."
The smile lost some of the amusement, but Sakura kept it and nodded. "I know. I do, too."
Shikamaru had more honesty shaking in his limbs. Wanting to hush it, he took his lighter from his pocket and busied a hand with it. He couldn't do anything else, but it was nice to click it open and shut, and open again and he liked the noise of the flint scratching. He wanted to say he was scared. He was terrified.
He thought she understood as much because she allowed him the nervous fidgeting without judgement.
Finally, she said, "I'll talk to Kakashi."
It was sort of easy how she agreed to a tiny bit of treason just because he asked.
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-o-