Naruto: Dreaming of Sunshine

It was … better. Something about her light and laughter made the kitchen warmer than it had been before.

By the time Mum had roused and come downstairs, breakfast was mostly ready and we'd even – mostly – tidied up the dishes as well.

"Oh, good morning dear," she said, surprised. "You're here early."

"Sorry about that," Ino said, flashing an apologetic smile. "I wanted to see Shikamaru, but I guess I should have figured that that lazy bones wouldn't be up yet."

Mum hesitated, torn between the usual response of going and rousing him and the way that everyone had been… careful around him recently.

"It can wait," Ino went on freely, not seeming to notice the moment – but I knew she did. "It gave me time to catch up with Shikako! We haven't done that in ages. We should go to the onsen together or something later on."

"We should," I agreed, though a little cautiously. That seemed a whole lot like 'we should talk' and that didn't go over well ever. As proven last night.

"He'll be up soon," Mum said, and accepted the cup of tea I pressed into her hands. "Did your mission go well?"

"It did!" Ino said cheerfully, then spun off a tale about the antics that Chouji and Shino had gotten up to on the way. I was almost envious but I knew that even from this mission I could spin off a dozen small stories that were equally as harmless – it didn't mean that nothing bad had happened, only that good things had happened too.

"Actually," I said. "You'll never guess who we ran into at the start of the mission."

After the exams, the Sand Siblings had to count as 'friends', surely. Besides, I had a feeling Ino would enjoy the improvised theater part.

I was just wrapping up the retelling when Shikamaru ambled down the stairs. He was rumpled and yawning and still half asleep, and Ino went totally still at the sight of him.

Then she pounced, launching herself up and across the room in one smooth move to tackle him with a hug.

"Oomph," he said. Then managed a wheezing, "hi, Ino."

"I told you to work on your taijutsu!" she said, voice slightly muffled into his neck, going high and shrill. "I told you-" her voice wobbled and broke.

"Yeah, yeah," Shikamaru groused. "I should have known you'd be the first one to say 'I told you so'."

I turned away, letting them have a small modicum of privacy.

"You're going to have to train so hard to make up for this!" Ino went on. "Don't even think about slacking off!"

I didn't know if she was just assuming or… if she wanted him to say, one way or the other, what his plans were. I didn't know what his answer was. I turned back, just slightly, so I could watch out of the corner of my eye.

He groaned. "Leave off, Ino. I'm injured."

"Not injured enough to get away with a pitiful face like that," she scoffed, pulling back just a little. Enough to give him a baleful stare. "Everyone's being too nice to you, I can tell. Buck up, mister. I'll drag you to the training field myself if I have to."

He swatted at her, half-heartedly. "I'm working on it. Dad's got a training plan for learning to do the clan jutsu again. It'll just be a matter of getting the seals working one handed."

"Haku-kun used one handed seals at the exams," Ino said, speculatively. "I bet you anything that Sasuke was watching with his Sharingan."

Shikamaru made a face at the suggestion of asking Sasuke for help.

"I'll even ask him for you," Ino said, cheerily. "Then you don't even have excuses not to do it."

"I'm not sure who you're trying to help, me or yourself," Shikamaru grumbled, but let Ino pull him towards the table. "Ouch! Don't pinch me!"

Okay, I totally bowed to Ino's mastery of the sulky Nara. She was two for two this morning.

He flumped down at the table, annoyed and irritated, but looking so much like himself again. "Troublesome."

"Blah, blah," Ino said. "Eat your breakfast."

He stabbed his chopsticks into the bowl of rice, awkward without being able to pick it up. "So Chouji's back, too?" he asked casually. It fooled no one.

"Safe and sound," Ino confirmed. "I bet he'll be here soon."

He was. We only just finished clearing up the breakfast dishes when Chouji was knocking on the door, carrying a picnic basket of food with him.

"I thought you might be hungry!" he said cheerfully, lifting it high in demonstration. "And mum sent more of that tea for you, Yoshino-san."

Mum accepted it with thanks and then booted us all unceremoniously outside. It was a perfect day, with just enough clouds to keep Shikamaru entertained.

I helped Chouji with the basket, less because he needed it and more to keep myself occupied while Ino and Shikamaru ambled slowly along behind us.

"Don't worry," Chouji said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders out of the blue. "Shikamaru will work it out. He'll know what to do."

Chouji's faith was as simple and unshakable as the sky itself. Surprising, yet it shouldn't have been. He'd always had that faith, that belief, and I dreaded the day it crumbled.

I'd thought, maybe, this would be it. That this obvious problem would rock it. There were questions here – about how things would be in the future, about how Team Ten would never be the same again – yet it hadn't.

Shikamaru will work it out.

I didn't know if I could believe like that, but I was grateful to lean on his strength. To trust in his trust, if only for a moment.

"Yeah, I'm sure he will," I said, and it was unconvincing. But, for once, I didn't have to be.

We sat.

Chouji opened the basket, shared out food that the rest of us failed to be interested in, and started eating. Shikamaru stared up at the sky.

Ino sighed at them both, but closed her eyes and looked relieved.

I tried not to fidget and started plucking at the grass on the ground. The silence stretched. Out and out and out. How many days had been exactly like this for us? And yet, not the same at all.

I could feel the time slipping away, wasted. There was so much I could be doing, instead. And yet I remained rooted to the spot, unable to leave. I hadn't even brought my notebook with me, and it seemed… seemed like I couldn't go and get it. Like leaving would break the fragile peace.

Like Shikamaru would definitely say something.

I didn't want to start that fight again. So I was stuck.

"So, Shikamaru," Ino said, almost slyly. "How's Tenten?"

Shikamaru groaned and threw his forearm over his eyes in a move that was slightly detrimental to cloud watching. "Go away, Ino."

"It's perfectly normal to inquire about your girlfriend," she said, which told me that Ino had greatly relished being able to tease him.

He made a non-committal grunting noise.

"How's she taken it?" Ino asked, grin fading slightly. She glanced at me, eyes communicating the worry that there was a line here she had crossed.

I gave a half-hearted shrug. Tenten had dropped by a few times. But Shika had been… uncommunicative. And she wasn't Ino, to bully her way in and make him listen. Well. She might have been, if we'd been somewhere that was more even ground (somewhere not-our-house, basically, where she still seemed slightly uncomfortable sometimes, and more so when Dad was home) but they'd been stilted visits.

"She does know, doesn't she?" Ino prodded.

"Yes," Shikamaru sounded like he was rolling his eyes. "She's fine with it. Told me to let her know if I wanted to train. There's nothing for you to shove your nose into."

Ino gave him an exaggerated offended look. "I don't shove my nose into things," she said. "I am friendly and supportive and always willing to help you with things you are stupid at, and you should appreciate that."

"I'm not stupid at things," he retorted, rising to her bait. "You just like to meddle. Leave it alone, Ino."

She frowned at him, something serious lurking just behind the façade.

"Don't fight," Chouji said, interrupting them. He held a bag of chips as a peace offering. "You should have something to eat. Healing takes a lot of energy!"

"We just had breakfast!" Ino objected. "And healing needs healthy food. Honestly!"

I sat back and listened to them bicker.

.

.

The day drained away slowly and, although I was tired, once we'd all said goodnight I found myself unable to sleep.

I blinked up at the ceiling of my room and gave it up for a bad job.

I got up, redressed and left the house. Might as well get something useful done.

"Another late night," Takatori said, when I arrived at the research library. His eyebrows lifted in a way that conveyed meaning.

I wasn't in the mood for it. "Lots to do," I said, verging on the edge of polite shortness. I flicked though my notes from last night and started pulling out material to work on.

People came and went as I worked and late night ticked over to early morning. It was productive. I felt like I was getting somewhere. I'd filled pages and pages full of brainstorms. Now it was simply a matter of getting it to work.

I went home in good cheer, planning to make breakfast again. But when I got there, Shikamaru's chakra wasn't placidly sleeping. It was buzzing, hard and awake and in my room.

I stared at the ceiling and contemplated – just for a second! – ignoring it. I'd maybe get away with it. If I couldn't sense chakra, there was no way I could know he was up there.

Then I dragged myself to the stairs and went to see what he wanted.

"You were gone," he said, fist wrapped in my sheets and crinkling them. I'd even put the effort into making them lie flat, too. "Where were you?" It sounded accusing.

I paused in the doorway, suddenly so, so tired. I didn't want to fight with him. Again. Ever. "R&D," I said, truthfully. "I woke up early; had some ideas. Didn't think you'd be up for a while."

Mostly truthfully, anyway. 'Early' sounded better than 'all night'. It was probably better this way, anyway. Then I could be here with him during the day.

It was what everyone wanted.

His fingers uncurled. "Right," he said, taking a steading breath. "Yeah. Okay. Let's get breakfast started?"

The day went pretty much like the one before it. And so did the next. And the next.

"You look awful," Ino said, examining me critically.

"Thanks," I said dryly. She probably wasn't wrong. Spending all night researching gave me a lot of time, but not a lot of sleep. Chakra helped there, but it was starting to show. "That's so sweet of you."

"Hmph. I'm declaring this mandatory onsen time," she said. "Rest and relaxation only. You need it."

"Now?" I asked, blinking at her. "But I – I should stay." Stay with Shikamaru, went unsaid but obvious.

Ino's eyes shifted over the boys, calculating. It was more than clear they didn't want to move at all. "They can come with us," she proposed, and nudged my brother with her toe. "Get up. We're going."

Shikamaru wiggled his shoulders, like he was trying to sink deeper into the grass. "Not a chance," he grunted. "You go. Me and Chouji are staying right here."

Chouji ate his chips and pretended that he wasn't in the middle of a Shikamaru and Ino squabbling match. He probably would have been perfectly happy with either outcome, because that was Chouji.

"Alright," I said resigned, because that was that, wasn't it. "To the onsen."

"You sound so thrilled," Ino said, deadpan. "Lighten up, would you?"

I had, a bit, by the time we were relaxing into the hot water. It wasn't that I didn't want to be here, or want to be here with Ino… it was just that…

He'll need you, Dad had said. You should stay. And staying hadn't helped and no one wanted me too and I didn't know what I was supposed to do…

"So, you look dead on your feet," Ino said. "How are you, really? Is it about Shikamaru?"

I made a half-hearted noise of 'sort of'. "I've been doing some research. Looking into prosthetics. That sort of thing."

"Oh?" She asked, interested but not expectant. "How's that working out?"

"Not well," I admitted. It was true. I was running into more hurdles than I had solutions for and bullheaded optimism was only taking me so far. "It's… complicated."

"I bet," she agreed. "Can I help?"

I laughed and the short bitterness of it surprised even me. "I don't know. I don't even know how to start. I have all these ideas that should work and I just can't… can't get them to connect. They're years ahead of anything we're currently doing."

"And years ahead of you too, huh?" she said, gently. Hitting right on the nail of the problem. "Nothing like this ever gets made in a week, you know. Research takes time. Inventing stuff takes time."

"If I had years," I started and the shook my head, splashing water gently. "But I need it now," I said helplessly.

"You don't need it now," Ino said, then charged on before I could protest. "Shikamaru does."

"It's the same," I said.

"No it's not," she countered. "You guys got over being joined at the hip when you graduated. It was good for you. And now you're… quiet and sad all the time."

I shrugged, unable to answer. Not really. "Things are just going back to the way they were."

But her eyes were sharp. Compassionate and kind, yes, but sharp. I tried not to feel like this was an interrogation. It was the wrong setting for it entirely – it seemed ridiculous to picture an interrogation when we were both only wearing towels. "Maybe it wasn't good for you then, either," she said. "But it's really not good for you now. Have you even been to see Sakura since you got home? Or Sasuke? Anyone? Gone training?"

None of those were a 'yes'.

We both knew it.

"I don't know what to do," I admitted, voice achingly small. Small and tired. God, I was so tired. "I don't know how to fix it – to make it better. He's hurting and I can't help." I looked at her. "I tried to save his arm but I couldn't. And he doesn't want a transplant to get a new one. And I didn't even know if he wanted to stay a field ninja because he's not talking to me anymore… maybe we never talked but it just didn't matter before. And now we don't know how."

It spilled out, unintentional. But now I'd started and there was no taking it back.

"Not talking at all?" Ino asked, raising her head, just a little.

"Arguing, mostly," I said with a bit of a lopsided smile. "Not really about his arm or the mission or anything like that; it's been going on for a while. About…when I got hurt."

"Typical," Ino said, with just a touch of humour to lighten the situation. "You both worry about each other more than you worry about yourselves."

I snorted. "Yeah, well. I got better. He didn't. And yet somehow he thinks mine was the bigger issue."

"It was… more serious, wasn't it?" Ino said, carefully and non-judgmentally.

"I got better," I repeated, which was a deflection and yet not at the same time. "It doesn't matter. It happened and it's over. It's in the past. Move on."

I felt like Rafiki. It's in the past. Everything was in the past. You accepted it, or you didn't, but it wasn't going to change.

"It's not quite so simple," Ino said.

"I know," I said, waving a hand and splashing water around. "I know. It makes things change. But things are always changing. We can't – we can't go back."

Stupid, simple words that never quite summed up the whole of it. You couldn't turn back the clock. You couldn't undo things that had happened, even if you wanted to. You couldn't get back the world you lost.

"I know," Ino said, blinking her serpentine eyes at me. "And trying to is only making you unhappy, isn't it? You're trying to be Shikako-from-the-Academy for him now and it's… it's not working."

"I don't know what else to do," I repeated, and hugged my arms around my knees. "He wants it back and I don't want to fight and I can't-" I couldn't sum up all the things I couldn't do. My voice choked out.

"Then you have to tell him that," she said, gentle but firm. "And let him tell you whatever it is he's thinking. Maybe neither of you changes, but you have to talk. Talk and not fight."

Like it was easy. Like every time we tried it didn't end up as a fight.

"I'm not some endless dispenser of comfort and patience," I said, drawing on a flash of annoyance to articulate it. "Why is it me that has to be the bigger person and keep calm all the time?"

There was an edge of resentment I tried not to let show. The feeling of when people asked more than I could give, more than I was willing to give. And I was… I was just so tired, sometimes, in ways that had nothing to do with pulling all-nighters doing research. Ways that just went straight down past the bone.

But the annoyance faded. Because it had to be me, obviously. Because I was the adult, the one who had set myself up as the one people went to for help. I couldn't just retract it because I was tired.

I sighed, long and low.

"Hey," Ino said. "It'll be okay. You'll get through this. Just because things are different doesn't mean they'll be bad. And I think Shikamaru is working that out too. Just give him a bit of time – he's dumb, sometimes. I think he's just worried that you don't want to go back; that you don't… that you don't cherish what you used to have as much as he does. That you're trying to move away more than you're trying to move on."

I huffed a laugh that wasn't really about mirth. "I'm not trying to leave him. I want to keep him safe. I want to keep him happy. It's all about that, don't you see? I just… I don't know how to fix it."

"That's what you need to tell him," she said and reached out to squeeze my hand. "He only wants the same for you."

And that's why we're arguing, I thought but didn't say.

.

.

We got back to the Nara household to find another guest, this one slightly unexpected.

"Asuma-sensei!" Ino said brightly. "You're back from your mission!"

He had challenged – or been challenged by – Shikamaru for a game of shogi. The board was fairly even at this stage and I could see more than a few strategies in the works on both sides.

"Are we going to have some team training?" Ino asked, dropping down to sit on the veranda.

Asuma puffed on his cigarette. "No," he said, quietly. "I don't think there would be much point."

There was a spell of silence. Not quite disbelief but an edge of 'maybe he didn't mean it like that'.

"What?" Shikamaru asked, looking slightly confused. "I thought you were here to suggest it."

Asuma took his cigarette and tapped the ash off into the ash tray. Tap, tap, tap. "You didn't ask," he pointed out. "You've never asked for training. And that's why it would be pointless."

"You don't think I can do it?" Shikamaru asked, confusion giving way to just the barest flicker of hurt.

I looked away. He'd trusted Asuma's faith in him like he'd trusted Chouji's. I had trusted Asuma's faith in him. He'd known how smart Shikamaru was, how good, before he'd ever done anything to deserve it.

And now he was saying…

"You're a genius, Shikamaru. I think you could do anything you set your mind to," Asuma said, which would have been support except it wasn't. It was damming. "And that's the problem, isn't it?"

"I-" Shikamaru said and faltered.

"This isn't a simple injury," Asuma said. "It's not going to be easy to overcome. Especially not if you want to surpass the level you were at before. I am absolutely certain that you could do it – if you wanted to. That's what I'm not so sure about. And that's what matters, right now. You're going to have to work harder than you ever have before. And that's not something that other people can do for you."

I looked at Ino. She didn't look like she had expected to hear any of this, either.

"Your intelligence could still take you a long way," Asuma went on. "You'd make Special Jounin for tactics easily enough. But not in the field. And not with Team Ten."

Ino looked gob smacked. "Asuma-sensei!"

He gave her a half smile. "I'm not making a ruling," he said. "I'm not kicking him off the team. I don't have that power, not anymore. What I'm saying is this; if you can't fill your role on the team, then the team won't be deployed. If you can't keep up with Ino and Chouji, then you'll be dragging them down. And right now… you can't."

Something cold gripped the spaces around my heart and filled them up.

You'll let your team down. The most damning kind of words in Konoha.

And he wasn't wrong. If Shikamaru couldn't do something, Ino and Chouji would do everything they could to make up for it. And that would be extra strain on them, two sides of a triangle holding up the third, and that was dangerous.

"I won't," Shikamaru said, staring down at the shogi board. "I won't let them down."

"It's not going to be easy," Asuma repeated. "And there's only so much we can do to help you. It's going to come down to you, Shikamaru. And how much you're willing to do."

"I said I won't let them down," Shikamaru repeated back, a bite of irritation in his voice. "You said I could do it if I decided to. Well, I'm deciding to."

Asuma leant back like that was all he'd ever wanted. It probably was. He clearly didn't want Shikamaru to give up on being a ninja, or anything silly like that.

But the game had changed. It was more serious now. And maybe Shikamaru needed to see that. Or – no. I was sure he saw it. Death was a real possibility and had been for quite some time. People broke into our homes. We got hurt.

We had to step up what we were doing about it.

It didn't seem right, after that, to bring up a conversation that was sure to lead to a fight. Nor the next day, when Dad invoked clan training.

"It should work," Shikamaru said, fed up and completely frustrated after an hour of trying to get even the simplest of shadow jutsu working without seals. "I know how to do it."

He sounded mutinous, as if betrayed by his own failure.

"Mm," I said, instead of repeating the spiel about the properties of handseals and how ninja experienced in certain jutsu could do away with them. We'd almost been up to that stage with Shadow Possession Jutsu – only the Rat Seal at the end.

He knew it all. He was just frustrated.

"You'll get there," Dad said. "You just have to relearn it for your new circumstances. Don't try and force it. There's no hurry."

The thing with being smart was that you weren't used to not getting it. Even when we'd learnt this for the first time, we'd got it. It hadn't exactly been easy but we hadn't struggled either. Not the way that some people struggled to learn things.

It probably wasn't the same even now, it was just things suddenly seemed so daunting.

I left Shikamaru to it and started working on the Shadow Neckbind Jutsu. It hadn't been my focus – I'd seen far more use in the Shadow Stitching tendrils and their solidity rather than the pseudo-hand of the Neckbind.

Now the opposite was true. Or rather… a mixture of the both was true. The three dimensional solidity of Shadow Stitching, combined with the shape and control of the Neckbind…

Dad was watching me closely.

After a seconds hesitation, I ran the idea past him. He was experienced – not just in the clan style but in creating them, altering them. And there was no reason to keep this secret, no reason to not ask for his opinion on how to make it work.

Sometimes it felt like I was juggling too many knives, unsure which ones I could let go of.

"Hmm," Dad mused, thoughtfully. "Not a bad plan. How long can you hold the Stitching Jutsu for?"

"Not long," I admitted. They were created to stab something, to thrust and maybe to tie it down afterwards, not to be held for a long time. Though even Shadow Possession would only last a matter of minutes. I'd have to find some way to exceed that kind of limit, without increasing chakra or putting excessive strain on my concentration.

I could anchor it to a seal…

That might help keep it going, but I'd still have to have a jutsu to work with first. Actually, that might help the chakra drain, too, if it just… recycled the same chakra instead of having to be activated and then lost. It would be like my lightsaber, in a way.

It would still take a lot of concentration to control – but not to hold or to keep going. It wouldn't be as good as a real arm, a thing you could move without paying attention, but it would be something.

If I can make it work.

And if I couldn't manage to combine Neckbind and Stitching, surely my Shadow State could provide some kind of inspiration.

After training, I expected Shikamaru to go back to the Shogi board, but he didn't. He marched grimly out of the compound and towards the training field.

I fell into step behind him, even though he'd said nothing and hadn't asked me to come. It was natural by this point, an old habit I hadn't realized I'd broken.

I knew the place as we got closer, and wasn't surprised to find Tenten there practicing her aim. There was a whole host of targets peppered with an assortment of weapons – not all of them meant for throwing.

"Hey, Tenten," Shikamaru said, as casually as he could muster. "You still up for that training?"

She greeted him with a bright smile and enthusiasm.

I let them be, hanging back. Lee was here too, working on punching a training log to death. I probably shouldn't interrupt that.

Instead, I went through a series of stretches, warming up thoroughly because I'd done nothing since returning home. It felt good to get back into it, to start moving again.

But I could watch Shikamaru and Tenten as they too warmed up and began to spar. It was clear, for the first time, how awkward Shikamaru was in his skin – how much his ability to fight was affected. Even just in this, the barest of taijutsu with only kunai involved, he had to work twice as hard to fend her off. Tenten wasn't exactly going easy on him, but she was working out his limits and new weakness, quick and probing, finding the places he could and couldn't reach in time to defend.

Shikamaru wasn't a taijutsu fighter – wasn't short range – but it was still the foundation of any ninja fight. He would be in trouble, if it came down to it.

"Shikako-san," Lee said, and I tore my eyes away from their fight to meet his inquisitive gaze. "Are you also looking for a sparring partner?"

I hadn't been, but the offer was good. Too good to pass up. It would absolutely, one hundred percent, suck because I was not on Lee's level… but it was too good to pass up.

"I would be honoured," I said.