Chapter Text
Chapter 6: Crazy
‘You know sometimes I think Ashaku is just fucking with me and this is all some largely elaborate shit-storm genjutsu he borrowed from Inoraji.’ Noori drawled
“With your dazzling personality?” The sarcasm almost dripped onto the sterile institutional floors as Shikamaru glowered at his shadow.
‘Yes, I know, tragic I’m being demeaned to your lazy ass.’ Noori narrowed his spotlight eyes to Shikamaru but they rounded— something akin to a sigh left him. ‘We’re literally a clan full of geniuses and you’re about as subtle as a punch to the face because you fucking complain so much. Not to mention you somehow managed to be negatively active before I came around. Negative Maru! How did you even manage that?’
“Well I used to be small enough to ride the Nara herd of deer,” Shikamaru shrugged, actually a little sheepish because when Noori physically examined him almost a year ago his disbelief was palpable, “I didn’t really see a need to go places if they were going to take me there anyways.”
‘Yeah I’m not even gonna try and not be offended.’ The shadow deer made a face Shikamaru had come to recognise as naming him a disgrace to the Nara clan. It was a look he was very familiar with.
“They said they were concerned about me talking to myself,” The young Nara found his hand familiarly tugging at a lone strand of hair, “Overall I’ve actually kept my increase in activity a secret. If you could just shut up for five minutes maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
Noori kept quiet at that because it was true, this was a colossal, natural disaster level, tidal mess they’d gotten themselves into. No, not because Shikamaru of all people got sent to therapy, but because Shikamaru got sent to therapy under none other than Inoichi Yamanaka. Who could read minds. Great. Noori had said something along the lines of ‘fan-fucking-tastic’ even.
When the submersible tension Shikamaru had stepped into the day prior hit him like a head rolled off Hokage Rock onto him, he felt like the truth was about to be crushed out of him. Except when Noori kicked him under the table. Repeatedly. This managed to take Shikamaru back to the first day Noori had taken him into the woods, the knowledge that he’d have to tell his father of the room secretly a stairwell away from where he slept. His fear of all the new things he was finding, learning about his clan’s past, the real honest satisfaction felt when Noori said he had executed something perfectly being taken away, well that hit him harder. Logically he knew he should have told them then, his Kaa-san’s face had been more ashen than snow and his Tou-san looked like he was staring at a dead man. Logically this was unnecessary but...
The child in him, the curiosity that had gotten him right at the start of this whole mess, had grown into something Shikamaru would never verbally admit was likely akin to a form of substance abuse. Yes, he complained to Noori for doing absolutely anything more than was necessary but over the last few months...those complaints were rather few.
If Noori noticed it, he didn’t say anything.
It’s not like he could help it, Shikamaru always knew he would pick things up quicker than most children, that his mind worked a mile a minute. Noori recognised the pattern of course, having been a Nara summon for centuries at this point. Psychologically speaking, most Naras weren’t lazy. Shikamaru would many years later— over a surreal evening of the luckiest gambling he’d even had in a drunken stupor—find out from Godaime Tsunade about something called ‘under-stimulation’ that ran through his bloodline and curse wryly.
To put it simply, Shikamaru was finally learning at a speed that didn’t completely put him to sleep for the first time in his short pre-pubescent life.
There was no way he was giving it up when he’d just gotten started.
So when his parents said they’d booked him an appointment, he knew refuting would just make him look more mental than he already did. He’d never seen his mother quite so sombre and his father so anxious. The guilt he felt was debilitating and part of his agreement was just so his Kaa-san would actually breathe instead of suffocating herself in worry. It was at that point Shikamaru also noted how little his parents and him truly interacted these days, digging the ever-growing pit of guilt and shame growing in the shadows. He hadn’t meant to distance himself, really it was just the unconscious reaction to trying to keep a secret. Looking at it from a new perspective, the littlest Nara realised how little he spoke to other human life-forms these days. It was honestly kind of pathetic. And sad. He should go visit Choji as soon as possible. He should probably also play a game of Shogi with Tou-san.
Despite the Shadow summons next to him and the constant chatter of therapists and disturbing psychiatric patients thrashing in stretchers coming through, Shikamaru had never felt so alone. A lump formed in his throat, because truly the eight-year-old didn’t want to be here. He missed his Kaa-san and Tou-san he realised, and he was terrified that Inoichi-san would find and take away the Shadow summon that had arguably become a solid fixture in his life. Noori was like some foul fungus that spread it’s spores in the form of disgustingly vulgar profanity. That however meant in the darkness of the previous Shishou’s study the bastard had started to grow on the noirette which didn’t have much of a say in the matter. He was kind of like a highly unprofessional sensei or scorned uncle in Shikamaru’s eyes and despite the idiocy of their squabbling, he had never been so afraid of loosing the stag.
The quietest click of the foyer tugged the Nara back to reality. Not for the first time in the last 48 hours— green, red and so much pink he thought the flowers outside had grown sentient filled his vision. His black irises looked like sesame seeds as the girl he had watched pour over anatomical scrolls made eye contact.
‘Well Fuck.’
Can we get one fucking break!?
“Shit.”
“LANGUAGE!!!”
That last one had reverberated through the blurred glass door of Inoichi’s office but the profanity had almost synced between the pink and black haired children that had yet to move. It felt like eons before the first of them broke eye contact.
Then the girl gave a slight cackle. It sounded like broken glass.
‘I told you miss Floral over there had something severely off.’ Noori muttered as the small boy jumped at the sound. Shikamaru decided against mentioning that the whole reason they were here; his parents thought he had a screw loose. It wouldn’t do to let the classmate in front of him hear him talk to himself. Especially since she currently held his whole shtick of being a regular kid in the palm of her hands. She could tell anyone.
Then again, if he was here, and she was here, then he held the same power over her.
A strained silence gathered around them as she sat a chair over in the metallically cool office chair that no doubt bit into the underside of her legs like it did his.
“Nara Shikamaru, right?” Her voice was soft— something deeply exhausted held firm in her voice. It was like she just accepted this meeting for what it was, inexcusable‐universe-scheming bad luck. Really, there was so much going wrong today that the silent acceptance that this was just another thing to add to the long list of ‘how the universe humbled me’ was just rational.
“Oh, Yeah um-” Never in his life had he felt more shame at not knowing her name-
“Haruno Sakura.”
Shikamaru wanted to laugh. He didn’t.
Noori giggled like a damn five-year-old that found out the magical essence of saying the word poop in front of their horrified parents. The cliché really was a bit too on the nose with her hair.
There was something so genuinely exasperated on her face that Shikamaru found he couldn’t help but mirror her. Maybe she was the same in a sense, there were very few people who could solidly match his done-with-this shit mood. His eyes narrowed as hers unfocused on the grey smears on white walls opposite her.
So, we have options here. I suggest dissolving the body. Inner said, almost casually as if pulling out a bill-board presentation.
Sakura, whom had been made very aware of Inner’s 10 Commandments of Genocide the last year almost rolled her eyes. Of course instead of being actually useful, the fragment would rather butcher their problems than face them. Typically Sakura had to do all the diplomatic thinking and honestly it was exhausting. It didn’t help that on the way over to the Yamanaka compound Inner had been screeching like a banshee all over about, So you notice that we’re insane now? That label is too little and too late idiots! And Sakura’s personal favourite, Let’s just go all nuke nin! Yeah! Come on let me take over, let’s haul it out of this pathetic adult tree-house and go mercenary style.
As annoying as the lack of silence in her head was, there was a certain humour Sakura found in Inner. Maybe it’s because she used to share a sense of humour with her? Honestly the bluntness was always refreshing, if a bit antagonistic but what could you do? Sakura had been planning to suppress the voice in her head all that time ago but ever since that day where Inner had miraculously been helpful, something about their relationship had changed.
You know, since you’re steering this wreck, may as well try and co-pilot before your meek bullshit gets us killed. That’s what Inner had said that first week when after her first official senbon practice Sakura went complete monk mode on her research.
Sakura had never been good with the physical aspect of being a shinobi, but a paper shinobi? Sakura was pretty certain she was a scholar in her past life.
At first, when the small rosette had gotten perfect scores in the academy, it was purely for academic validation. At the time, she was trying so hard to be the perfect little girl to the outside world and believed her marks should reflect that. Her parents had swooned and hugged each perfect score out of her till she was dizzy.
Until nobody graded her work.
Sakura realised she could demolish a study scroll like a feral animal. You look like a hyena, Inner had practically deadpanned, Careful little flower, I think you’re drooling.
No she wasn’t. She totally wasn’t. That was sweat, yeah.
To be fair, hyena was probably the best description. By demolish; Sakura actually didn’t get through papers very quickly. No, instead she extrapolated and completely (sometimes physically) rearranged and linked her information. Everything had an idea linked to another, a question Sakura ached to know and needed answers to. As it was something that both Sakura and Inner worked through—the absolutely only thing both agreed on— some of Inner’s barbaric nature seeped into her notes.
Sakura’s handwriting had never looked so terrible but, even covered in ink and graphite, shone with visceral satisfaction. Every pore of her body poured into her papers till her bones disfigured and her body curled till her back ached. She scavenged and pulled ideas from decade old studies like war trophies splattered in kanji and diagrams, gnawing on the bones of dead ended research.
The hyena however realised that sometimes scrapes weren’t enough.
Being a child was cumbersome. Like a clipped chicken, her library wing was useless upon useless. The information she gathered were the bare bones of what was realistically available about chakra to what the librarian referred to as “her little smart blossom”. Inner may have convinced Sakura to put an open stapler on that woman’s chair when she wasn’t looking.
That being said, progress was slow.
By the time her parents had ushered her into this terrifyingly flower-guarded building she’d only just managed to figure out how to use her body-chakra without Inner pulling the switches. Her balance was improving and instead of clumsy baby-calf legs Kōshitori-sensei seemed to believe she was born with and doomed to forever have.
As much as Sakura had initially loved the praise she had strived for, there was a rather debilitating anxiousness to keeping her secret for so long. She tried of course, her mask didn’t slip or crack. A painted doll on the outside that was more so the mask of Oni really.
The ‘well done’s’ and ‘sweet cherry blossom’s’ from anyone besides her Tou-san became unbearable.
They weren’t real.
She was tired of never being real.
"So why are you here?" She tilted her head.
"I talked to my shadow and now my parents think I'm mentally unstable."
"Ooooh neat, there's another violent version of myself that won't shut up in my head that I talk to, so my parents thought I was crazy too."
Damn. Okay princess who spiked your milk-
He frowned at this, "That's the definition of crazy."
She grinned.
"Aren't we all a little?"