Tag: donapoetrypassion

Stars Also Dream, Santa, Things you said in the spur of the moment

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Stars Also Dream, 56) things you said in the spur of the moment

“One day, I’m gonna fly,” he says, full of conviction, eyes trained upwards at a flock of birds soaring through the sky. He’s not there yet, but he will be.

Kyougi throws a piece of rubble at him, Santa yelps in over exaggerated pain. “Your feet are on the ground, which is where your eyes should be too. The faster we get this done, the better.”

Chinatsu, far more dutiful, gives a soft chuckle at her teammates’ antics nonetheless. The disapproving tongue click that their sensei gives is less fond.

Properly scolded, Santa turns his gaze downward, resuming his share of their D-rank. “One day, I’m gonna rescue a princess,” Santa mutters, as he sorts through the debris. If he can keep him and his team distracted maybe they won’t have to think about what they’re doing. He knows it’s not something he should be complaining about–rebuilding in the weeks after the Kyuubi Attack is important, sure, that doesn’t mean he can’t wish for a more exciting mission.

Or at least one that isn’t so depressing.

“As if,” Kyougi says, rolling her eyes, but still playing along, “We’re going to be stuck with smugglers or farmers all through our career.”

“Hey! Don’t besmirch farmers! Your clan head’s wife is a farmer!” he points out.

“No, Yoshino-sama is a shinobi. Her parents were farmers. As are a good percentage of all of our clans,” Kyougi argues, logically and methodically.

“Yeah! Exactly!” Santa agrees, before pausing, thinking, then, “Wait, what?”

“There aren’t a lot of princesses to be rescued,” Kyougi continues, “And I doubt we’ll ever be chosen to go on a mission to do the rescuing.”

“Not with that attitude,” Santa snipes back.

Tokumei-sensei clicks his tongue again, before pointing at a fallen wall, aiming them wordlessly as if they were simple beasts of burden. Still, he and Kyougi fall silent once more as they and Chinatsu head in that direction.

Chinatsu lifts up the wall while he and Kyougi reach underneath. Grimly, they pull the body out, another black ringed scroll to be sorted through later and returned to any next of kin.

They’re quiet for a while after. Miserable and quiet, which is probably what their sensei prefers.

Chinatsu is the one to break the silence, “I’d like to fly someday, too.“ 

~

A/N: A bit of a prologue to Stars Also Dream in which these three genin have no idea what’s in store for them. The spreadsheet of DoS timeline and OCs was very helpful–and given how long it took me to address this prompt even with such a short fill, I really needed as much help as I could get! O_O

Kyougi Nara is an SQ original. Chinatsu Akimichi is dona’s. And their awful Hyuuga sensei is Pepperdoken’s. 

40, Kako and Kamaru, AU of (They Call It) Soulless in that a bunch of Shinobi have been in stasis in Konoha General since the Kyuubi attack

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(They Call It) Soulless, 40) things you said when you met my parents

Kako says that a single action should, ideally, solve at least three problems simultaneously. “Power is one thing, but if you don’t apply it properly, efficiently, then it may cause more harm than good. And anyway,” she says with a smile, ruffling Kamaru’s hair, “if you only need one solution to multiple problems, then you have all the more time to be lazy.”

Kamaru understands this lesson immediately, but putting it into practice is slightly more difficult. He tries to look to Kako’s actions as an example and it only manages to bring up more questions.

Kako has been teaching him medical jutsu–another thing which Kamaru understands in theory, but struggles in application–whenever their free time overlaps, no matter how tired she is, so surely the problems it must be solving are either multitude or important. Probably both.

He thinks he’s figured out a couple of them: medical jutsu is a valuable skill, regardless of if he wants to be a field shinobi or not, and if he can reduce his medical costs then that will help with their financial situation. But what else?

—

Kamaru wouldn’t say he’s particularly rebellious or mischievous or anything like that. Yeah, sometimes he skips class with Chouji and Kiba and Naruto, but really it’s because lessons can be so boring and Iruka-sensei always gets angry when he naps. And anyway, Kako hardly ever minds; actually, it’s almost as if she approves, fondly asking after his friends and their chosen adventure of the day.

So Kamaru wouldn’t call himself a rule breaker, per se, but he can be–when the occasion calls for it–rather curious.

Kako never outrightly tells him not to go to Konoha General. She never speaks of Konoha General at all, really. Whenever either of them end up needing a fully trained medic, she brings them to the smaller Nohara clinic even if it’s on the other side of the village. As far as she’s concerned, Konoha General might as well not exist.

Kamaru doesn’t feel the need to borrow trouble, and so he stays away from Konoha General up until a genin runner interrupts class and gives a hushed but rushed message to Iruka-sensei… whose eyes dart directly to Kamaru.

Kamaru may want to avoid trouble, but apparently trouble has no problem going after his sister.

—

Kamaru knows that Kako keeps things from him. Not out of malice, of course, but because she doesn’t think he needs to know: she wants to protect him, thinks he’s not yet old enough. He trusts her, knows she only has his best interests at heart, but it can be frustrating.

It’s not a surprise, really, that the one who spills this particular secret isn’t Kako at all, but her weird senbon-obsessed senpai, Genma.

Kamaru thinks he should be angry at her–their parents are alive! Have been alive this whole time! Why didn’t she tell him sooner? Why didn’t she tell him at all–but she’s hurt and unconscious after taking on a third Soulless and she’s taking so long to wake up that any anger he does have dissipates in the face of his more overwhelming worry.

“It’s not a fair exchange,” Kamaru mutters to the door leading to the sealed off portion of the hospital–as close as visitors are allowed to get to those trapped in stasis, as close as Kamaru has been to their parents since the few weeks after he was born, “Knowing you’re here doesn’t mean anything. She needs to wake up,” he rubs at his chest, the fabric of his shirt suddenly rough against the patch of skin where his marks lay invisible, “I don’t care if you’re trapped here forever, as long as she’s okay.”

~

A/N: Ahahaha… haha… yeah, it’s not really “meeting” but uh… considering they went into stasis before Kamaru could talk, his first words to his parents are pretty harsh? O_O

Also, there’s only two prompts in my ask box for this event–I’ll list them under the cut so the anons who sent them in will know I am have received them. If you sent one in but neither of them are yours, then please resend them–tumblr probably ate them. Or, if you haven’t sent one in but you’d like to please go for it! I know I’ve been rather lax in the past few weeks (and will probably continue to be so for the next few what with it being May) but I do love getting prompts and I will get to them when I can. Thank you for sticking with me! 🙂

  1. anonymous: team 7 living together scenario, 22) things you said after it was over
  2. anonymous: trailblazers, 10YL, tetsuki+sasagawa sibs, 32) things you said I wouldn’t understand

Flip to the Last Page, Nara Twins, 32) Things you said I wouldn’t understand

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donapoetrypassion:

jacksgreysays:

Flip to the Last Page, 32) things you said I wouldn’t understand

“I just need some time,” your sister says, eyes looking everywhere but at you. She’s packing, grabbing things at random, placing then removing then folding then replacing, anything to keep her hands busy.

“I just need to be alo–I just need some space,” she stammers, and you can’t hear anything in your head to refute that mostly because she’s slammed a wall on your connection, metal bars and concrete.

As the two of you grew, so did your control over your connection. No more the constant, unconscious flow of childhood–thoughts more often impressions than words–now you can utilize it strategically: plans and intel, Jounin Commander in the making. Or, rather, you would if your sister weren’t blocking you out.

“I just need to think,” she says, and this third time hits the worst because you know if she were letting her thoughts seep through, you’d hear the added “by myself.”

Futilely, you try to send your arguments through her barrier: why can’t you think here? You’re already cutting me off, obviously you’ve made space for yourself. Why won’t you stay?

If she hears anything, she doesn’t respond beyond the flattening of her mouth into a tight, tense line.

The two of you are supposed to be a team, siblings, friends, partners. She makes it seem as if your twin bond is nothing more than a prison. One with a life sentence at that.

That makes her soften, her furrowed brow transitioning from frustrated to contrite, but no less determined.

“I just… need to know that I’m not making things worse.”

~

A/N: VERY BELATED, VERY SHORT, VERY SORRY DONA! Apparently there’s a little bit more needed from me for Geek Show and also May is a hectic month for me in general. Also, FttLP is a massive mystery to me still despite it being something I wrote…

I feel sorry for this Shikamaru. He’s grown up around Shikako like a vine around a trellis.

I’m still trying to work how how different he is from DOS Shikamaru- he must be, at least in the “does not instinctually trust the village” sense.

…I don’t know if he even looks at his dad as a guide as much as he does his sister. He admires him, yes. But he wouldn’t instinctively go to him for things the way DOS Shikamaru would. And when he thinks about being Jounin Commander, it’s as a set. Even when he disagrees with Shikako, he’s responding to her. He’s not deciding things on his own.

I’m not sure he’d deal with losing her as well as Hiashi did. (To the extent that Hiashi was able to deal with it “well.”)

…I’m a little curious that Shikako might seek Hiashi out on this. She’s not gonna be able to go to anyone when she worries her existence will disrupt the future. But worries that she’s stunting her brothers growth as a person (and that Shika may be letting her)… maybe she can share that. I definitely got the feeling she was talking about both things when she said “making things worse.”

FttLP!Shikamaru is very different from DoS!Shikamaru (who is very different from canon!Shikamaru, of course). I wouldn’t say FttLP!Shika is more dependent than DoS!Shika–since I interpret a lot of DoS!Shika’s current frustration to be that he can no longer consider himself “Kako’s protector”–but there’s definitely a weird dynamic going on. Like, FttLP!Shika knew from the beginning that Shikako is a reincarnated adult and that she has knowledge that no one else does. While FttLP!Shikako had the same issues with chakra and some social anxiety like DoS!Shikako, which would prompt a similar protectiveness in FttLP!Shikamaru, there was still a sort of… he looked to her as the font of knowledge/experience whereas, as you said, DoS!Shikamaru would definitely go to their dad for instead.

The Nara twins would not be nearly as good at dealing with the other’s loss as Hiashi arguably was. Mostly because Nara are… not “designed,” per se, but trained? encouraged? to rely on strategic/critical thinking whereas the Hyuuga are more about full sight and reflexes… I probably ought to write more about the comparison/contrast of the different sets of twins…

Flip to the Last Page, Nara Twins, 32) Things you said I wouldn’t understand

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Flip to the Last Page, 32) things you said I wouldn’t understand

“I just need some time,” your sister says, eyes looking everywhere but at you. She’s packing, grabbing things at random, placing then removing then folding then replacing, anything to keep her hands busy.

“I just need to be alo–I just need some space,” she stammers, and you can’t hear anything in your head to refute that mostly because she’s slammed a wall on your connection, metal bars and concrete.

As the two of you grew, so did your control over your connection. No more the constant, unconscious flow of childhood–thoughts more often impressions than words–now you can utilize it strategically: plans and intel, Jounin Commander in the making. Or, rather, you would if your sister weren’t blocking you out.

“I just need to think,” she says, and this third time hits the worst because you know if she were letting her thoughts seep through, you’d hear the added “by myself.”

Futilely, you try to send your arguments through her barrier: why can’t you think here? You’re already cutting me off, obviously you’ve made space for yourself. Why won’t you stay?

If she hears anything, she doesn’t respond beyond the flattening of her mouth into a tight, tense line.

The two of you are supposed to be a team, siblings, friends, partners. She makes it seem as if your twin bond is nothing more than a prison. One with a life sentence at that.

That makes her soften, her furrowed brow transitioning from frustrated to contrite, but no less determined.

“I just… need to know that I’m not making things worse.”

~

A/N: VERY BELATED, VERY SHORT, VERY SORRY DONA! Apparently there’s a little bit more needed from me for Geek Show and also May is a hectic month for me in general. Also, FttLP is a massive mystery to me still despite it being something I wrote…

(They Call It) Soulless, #8, Kamaru

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(They Call It) Soulless,  8) things you said when you were crying

Kako says that the things he learns at the Academy are more like general suggestions than hard and fast rules. “The point of the Academy is to standardize everything so that shinobi who haven’t worked with each other before can function as a team if needed. Teamwork is Konoha’s forte, after all,” she says, “But even concepts that sound good have their faults.”

Kako says a lot of things like that, things that force Kamaru to reconsider what other people say. Look underneath the underneath. Mostly, it’s just to prompt him into critical thinking, but there are some Academy lessons that she outrightly dismisses, practically spitting on them.

“A shinobi must never show emotion?” Kako sneers, reading over Kamaru’s shoulder at his homework on the kitchen table, “How stupid.”

Kamaru blinks, looks up at his sister, surprised. More for her venomous tone than the opinion itself.

Kako sighs, softens, explains. She tries to find teaching moments in everything. Sometimes, Kamaru wonders what she’s preparing him for. “Of course, professionalism is important while on duty, and stoicism in the face of danger can be a shield of sorts, but to say never is overly restrictive and impossible to do. Also, emotions can be weapons of their own. Well. I don’t need to tell you that, you’ve met Gai-senpai.”

Kamaru shudders. Yes, he has met his sister’s zealously enthusiastic senpai.

“Not to mention things like killing intent or positive intent… And for all that we’re shinobi, we’re still human. Emotions and all.”

Kamaru nods, marks a bold line through rule #25 on his homework, and keeps going. But he doesn’t really consider the entirety of this conversation until later in the evening, after he’s gone to bed then woken back up, thirsty and blearily walking to the kitchen practically still asleep.

Kako is already there–mostly because their apartment is so small that the kitchen is also their dining and living room–standing in front of the framed picture of their parents, the small stone tablet with their names on the shelf beside it.

It’s the closest thing their parents have to a gravestone. After they died, the Nara had offered to bury their father in the clan graveyard with his family. But they hadn’t extended the offer to their mother.

Unsurprisingly, Kako had refused. “They would want to be together,” she had said. Kako hadn’t cried then.

She’s crying now.

“It’s harder than I thought it would be,” she says to the two dimensional faces of their parents.

Kamaru freezes in place, unable to move forward.

“But I’m going to keep doing it. Even if you wouldn’t approve. I have to protect him. I don’t know if you would have let me. Sometimes I think… it’s awful… but I know that a few weeks more and you would have followed procedure.”

Kamaru’s thoughts whirl. What procedure? He’s pretty sure that Kako is talking about him, but what is she referring to? Her next words send him retreating to his room.

“I can’t help but wonder if maybe it was for the better that you’re gone.”

oh mmyyyyyyy gooooodddddddneeeesssss. that latest shikako snippet? whoa! just whoa!! i’m a mess????

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donapoetrypassion:

jacksgreysays:

😀 Yay! That’s what I was going for, anon.

it was an idea that snowballed–I went literal with the heart matter, then @donapoetrypassion added some spirituality to it (along with prompting the They Call It (Soulless) ficlet), so then I figured since we were escalating I might as well raise to divinity (or, rather, lower to devilry?)

One night -many years and many midnight bargains later- the man at the crossroads is Shikamaru Nara.

“You have a child,” what’s left of his sister says, frowning. “Why are you doing this?” Her voice is too flat. Her face is too young. It’s been that way for quite awhile.

He still loves her. Even the her she is without a heart.

And he does have a child. A little boy, Shikadai. Baby-powder sweet and gummy-smiled.

But this is about responsibility as much as love. Shikamaru’s little boy will grow up in this world. Shikamaru can’t let it be a worse one than his was, growing up.

(It’s about love, too. He’d looked in the photo albums, and found what he thought was Shikadai, giving another gummy smile while holding the hand of someone just out of the picture. But the picture was too old, and Shikamaru had never smiled like that as an infant. He’d looked at the picture of his sister, his baby boy’s aunt who shared his smile, and realized what he lost. What they all had.)

It was Temari, really, who gave him the idea. The notion that a siblings’ heart was something he could get back. It was Kankuro who gave him the stories of puppeteers losing too much of thrmselves, or just enough.

There’s risk in this. Maybe too much. But he did at least have the sense to talk this decision over with his wife, and she approved of him trying. (He’s glad he married Temari. He can’t imagine anyone else really… understanding. What it means to love someone who might not be in a place to return that. What it means to hope.)

Shikamaru Nara has to give up something. He has to give up something real, to even have a chance at his sister back.

But he won’t make his sister’s mistake. He won’t give up too much.

…This will work.

“I’m not giving up my heart, or my soul, or my life,” Shikamaru Nara says calmly. “I’m giving up my other arm.”

(Shikako cries. When she gets back. When they stagger home. When her parents hug her. When a wide-eyed teenage Kino treats her gently. She hates crying, but does it like she’s pouring out all the things she didn’t get to feel for years.

She is.

As for the grief, and self blame- and shameful gratitude- of Shikamaru getting her soul back (at the cost of his other arm, his last one, no, please, no)… she feels so much she doesn’t know what to do with it.

She comes back to a world where the war is over. Where her friends are figuring out how to be not just adults but parents, and she’s figuring out how not to be the Shikabane-hime.

No one says much, about her having a soul now. It’s not exactly public knowledge that she didn’t.

They notice that she ages properly now, for a given value of properly. Growing taller, face growing thinner, and one day, nearly a year later, Shikako notices a white streak in her hair. Tsunade tells her that her strange stop-start aging was likely a side-effect of losing all that life energy as a child. Her life span might be a decade shorter. Not more. (It won’t be longer. Not as long as she had feared. Shikako goes home and cries in relief, in her bed where no one else can see her. Then she gets up and goes back to her life).

AHHHHHHH! SHIKAMARU TAKING ON A DEVIL TO GET HIS SISTER BACK! And, like, why wouldn’t he? He already took on a god. (Never mind they were both sort of his sister also)

oh mmyyyyyyy gooooodddddddneeeesssss. that latest shikako snippet? whoa! just whoa!! i’m a mess????

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😀 Yay! That’s what I was going for, anon.

it was an idea that snowballed–I went literal with the heart matter, then @donapoetrypassion added some spirituality to it (along with prompting the They Call It (Soulless) ficlet), so then I figured since we were escalating I might as well raise to divinity (or, rather, lower to devilry?)

Heart and Soul (the crossroads remix), (2018-03-14)

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A human without a heart–without a soul–is no longer human. Without that integral piece they are, at best, empty husks.

(At worst, they are monsters.)

But she stopped being human before she gave away her heart:

What do you call a god without a soul?

—

After, Shikako is different.

That is not so surprising. Inoichi was expecting a much more drastic change in Shikamaru, after all, and so having one twin be more noticeably affected by the… incident… only makes sense.

Shikako is different, After. Inoichi keeps an eye out for the twins, both personally–they are nearly as dear to him as Ino–and professionally.

She is harsher, more ruthless. On missions, it is not so easy to tell: it could be attributed to the rising international tensions, or the stress of her undeniably eventful career catching up, or even just growing up. The name Shikabane-hime spreads–it is no longer a silly joke, even inside the village.

She hardly smiles anymore.

Inoichi notices something in Shikako, but he doesn’t know enough for the truth.

—

The Shinigami works in trade: a life given as payment, a life taken in exchange.

Phrased that way, it almost seems balanced.

But it is not death for life; death only begets more death.

—

Be careful what you wish for: even if you get what you want to the letter, you might not get what you need in spirit. And even then, beware your intentions; strength of will is not just an expression.

There is power in determination, in desperation. But there is also weakness.

In that battle that nearly destroyed them, Shikako wished for two things. She made the mistake of intrinsically linking them together: she wanted to save her brother, and so she needed to be stronger.

She gave her heart as payment.

What was taken in exchange?

—

There were thousands of people in Land of Hot Springs.

They did not go to Jashin.

Death only begets more death.

Shikabane has some catching up to do.

—

There is a man kneeling at an intersection, hands pushing dirt into a hole in the ground that contains a box. The box contains several items which physically have little worth–a picture, more dirt, a small bone, a small cluster of flowers soon to die–but they have value combined, intangibly, unnaturally.

The man wants something–power or time or wealth or knowledge–it matters not. He’ll get it, the box he’s just buried guarantees it, but he’ll regret it.

He looks up, dirt under his fingernails, still on his knees, to see a figure that had not been present just moments ago.

It is small, in the shape of a young girl with mostly nondescript features. It has dark eyes–not the way a human might–like ink and shadow and the utter absence of that which is human.

For a moment, he considers backing down: there is a fate in those eyes that he is not sure he wants to meet. But then the figure speaks, offers him that which drove him out here in the middle of the night, blinks away the ink and shadow.

He makes the deal; his heart’s desire for his soul.

(Just as well, it was already too late for him)

—

A human without a heart–without a soul–is no longer human.

A would-have-been-god without a soul? You know what they’re called.

~

A/N: A sort of… remix fic response to @donapoetrypassion’s follow-up fic for this ficlet that I wrote as a response to dona’s prompt… so… yeah…

~tiny and vague demon!Shikako concept~

Heart and Soul

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donapoetrypassion:

A few months ago, Jacksgreyson wrote a really awesome ficlet
in response to a prompt of mine. 

This is the follow-up thank-you fic I‘ve been meaning to write
for ages.

Heart and Soul

“Put your heart, mind, and soul, into even your smallest
acts. This is the secret of success.” -Swami Sivanada

“This is just one of
me, but in different places.”- Shikako Nara to her father. Dreaming of
Sunshine, Chapter 88

“I wouldn’t recommend
using it. But that’s a decision you’ll have to make in the field, based on the
information you have at the time.” –Shikaku Nara to his daughter. Dreaming
of Sunshine, Chapter 89.

___________________________________________________________________________

When the twins came back from the front, Shikako had a
perfect circle of scarred skin and healed fractures tracing itself across her
lungs, her spine, her ribs. Her recently regrown heart fit exactly in the
center.

Shikamaru had his sister’s heart.

The Konoha transplant program is very advanced.

They’ve done kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas, intestine, and
thymus. They’ve done bones, tendons, corneae, skin, nerves and veins. They’ve
done hands, arms, legs, and feet.

They don’t transplant hearts. (Sasori had, after all, been able to function as a puppet with only his
heart remaining.) Commonly held wisdom is that a heart transplant would be
about as useless to the transplant recipient as transplanting a brain.

Common wisdom is wrong.

At least, in the case of the Nara twins.

Tsunade was cursing her most unpredictable special jounin
even as she stabilized both twins.

The boy’s case was especially difficult. But since his
chakra system wasn’t being poisoned or overwritten by his new eighth gate -and his
new eighth gate wasn’t destabilizing into oblivion- Tsunade counted her
blessings.

Both brats even managed to briefly wake up and answer basic
questions about missions she had assigned Team Ten or Team Seven, which Tsunade
considered a flat-out miracle.

Still. Best to confirm things
before sharing the good news with her Jounin Commander.

Inoichi did not despair when he was briefed on the
circumstances surrounding the upcoming mindscan on his teammate’s son, because
he was an optimist with some experience in the success rate of desperate Nara.

He was confident that Shikako would have been able to save
(at least something of) her brother.

Even so, at best
he had expected Shikamaru Nara to be as confused and shaken and fundamentally changed as Ino had been, at her most
vulnerable. (At best.)

Inoichi had been prepared to
offer Shikaku platitudes of his son finding a new normal, support for Shikako
as she adjusted to her changed sibling.

He was not prepared to find an
only slightly shaken (and only from the memories of his injury), only slightly
confused (and only from slipping in and out of consciousness), and otherwise completely
unchanged Shikamaru Nara.

He was not prepared to find no
trace of Shikako Nara in her brother’s mind.

(He’d have to look more closely
next time.)

“Shadow Split,” Shikaku cursed, when he was briefed. A heart
was not a soulless thing, to be traded away like any other organ.

Once you’ve accepted the necessity of trading away (a piece
of) your soul, what choices are left? Giving away as little as possible. Or as
little-missed as possible. And protecting that which was precious enough to
trade (a piece of) your soul for.

But what piece, exactly, had his daughter given away?

“Is this even a mind-scan?” Shikamaru asked, on the fifth
session. He slouched in his (probably imaginary) body, picking at the (probably
imaginary) grass, looking at the (not imaginary but definitely not physically
present) figure of his honorary uncle.

Inoichi gave him a reassuring smile. “Not a traditional one.
But some of the …lighter variants of mental contact can be more useful for certain
check-ups.”

Shikamaru didn’t have a problem with Inochi-oiji’s visits.
He practiced with Ino often enough that he wasn’t uncomfortable with mental
techniques. And he knew Inochi was trying to help- even if he was being
frustratingly close-lipped about how
he was helping. But this was the fifth session in almost four weeks, and it was
getting annoying.

“Have you found what you’re looking for yet?” Shikamaru
grumped.

“I think I have a
lead, now,” Inoichi said calmly, with another annoyingly reassuring smile.
“Would you mind showing me to the village? I’d like to check the Hokage Tower
first.”

Shikamaru showed him to the (probably imaginary) village,
which was creepily empty of both people and animals. Then he gestured at the
(probably imaginary) Hokage Tower. “Is that where we’re heading?”

But Inoichi wasn’t looking at the Hokage Tower. He was
looking at the swing by the Academy.

It was empty, of course.

It was also moving.

“That’s… odd.” Shikamaru managed.

Inoichi glanced at him. “It’s a lead. And it’s something we
have to look into, because I suspect this is something you need to know. But
it’s also nothing to be afraid of, Shikamaru.”

Shikamaru nodded.

Shikamaru followed Inoichi past the empty swing, into the
empty hallways of the Tower, into the classroom. The same classroom
Iruka-sensei had taught them all, for years.

Inoichi sighed when he entered it.

“Why are we here?” Shikamaru asked.

“The human mind is a place that demands honesty,” Inoichi
said, but he didn’t seem to be speaking to Shikamaru. “I was always going to
find this place eventually.”

Inoichi was looking at the far wall as he spoke, and he
walked straight toward the back. Where Shikamaru had used to sit, beside
Shikako and Chouji.

“Come up, please,” Inoichi asked, looking at something just
past one of the last desks. His tone was gentle. But also tired, exasperated.
Not expecting his order to be followed.

Inoichi tried again. “Nara techniques require self-knowledge.
If you keep hiding, Shikamaru is never going to be able to safely use any kind
of Shadow technique again.”

A little crumped up ball of paper hit Inoichi’s face.
Another almost got caught in his blonde hair before falling to the floor.

Shikamaru slowly made his own way to the back of the room.

Inoichi sighed at the thing Shikamaru still couldn’t yet
see. He reached down underneath the desk and pulled up a seven-year-old
Shikako. She was glaring with her most sullen expression.

But this was Shikamaru’s mind. Why would- what was-

Shikamaru sat down and tried to
breathe.

It was imaginary air, it wasn’t
real- nothing here was real except him and Inoichi and his too-small-sister-
but the breaths helped calm him. Steady him.

Shikamaru came out of his panic attack to find that he was
still sitting on top of one of the desks, looking at his sister’s soul. Or a
piece of it, anyway.

“Shikamaru needed a new heart. And a new eighth chakra gate.
But you knew a human heart without a soul attached wouldn’t have a working eighth gate. So you found
another solution.” There was no judgement in Inoichi’s voice. Neither
condemnation or approval. He seemed to be examining Shikako’s face carefully.

Inoichi’s voice gentled. “Do you understand what happened?
Where you are?”

Shikako rolled her eyes. “Yes. Obviously. I was trying
not to interfere.” She crossed her
arms defiantly. Her mulish expression flickered into uncertainty as she glanced
at Shikamaru. Just for an instant.

“Why are you seven?” Shikamaru asked.

Shikako stilled. When she answered, she seemed to be
choosing her words carefully. “I’m seven because… because this is the age I was
when I made an important decision. I made another important decision when you
needed a new heart. The decisions …in some ways were similar.”

“And did you make the right choice?” Inoichi asked.

“Yes,” Shikako
hissed. But she glanced uncertainly at Shikamaru again.

“My body can regenerate,” she rallied. “And I’m not a part
of Shikako that- well. Shikako doesn’t like to remember being me, so it’s not
like being here is going to make a big difference personality-wise. Giving you
my heart was definitely the right
decision.”

Something sad flickered across her face. “And I can’t say I
regret making the other one. It’s not like the result was unexpected.” There
was something flat about her voice, like she was suppressing some strong
emotion.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before opening
them again. “I don’t know why you came,” she told Inoichi, and there was real
pain underneath the hostility in her voice. “I just want Shikamaru to be okay.
I want him to be himself.”

“Do you think I can just leave
you here?” Shikamaru rasped. “Do you think I can let you be alone?” He reached out a hand-

Inoichi caught it with a warning glance. Shikamaru resisted
the urge to dodge, to continue forward until Shikako was tucked up against his
chest.

She was small and
she was hurting and she was- she
would never have an existence besides the space inside of his mind. The rest of
his sister might, but not this part.  

“I can teach you two how to interact safely, though that
might take a little time,” Inoichi said to both of them. Then he turned to
Shikako. “I understand that you don’t want to hurt him accidentally. It’s good
that you’re careful. But this isn’t an answer, either.”

Shikako swallowed. “Okay.”

“I hope it’s all right with both of you if we start
tomorrow,” Inoichi said. It wasn’t really a question.

Still. “Why tomorrow?” Shikamaru managed to get out. It was
difficult to keep his tone from edging towards tense impatience.

“Believe it or not, this meeting has been a pretty big
strain on both of you. I’ve eased things, somewhat. But two sets of spiritual
energies interacting within the same body is something best carefully monitored
until the two of you reach a balance. Giving Shikamaru all sensory input from
and the control over the body is still a type of balance, Shikako,” Inoichi added,
in response to Shikako’s scowl.

He stood up.

He hesitated a moment. “If you can- is there anything you
can tell me about the Shikako outside that might be different now?”

For a moment, Shikako looked terrible insecure. And then the
moment was gone as if it had never been. “She still loves Shikamaru. A lot. She wouldn’t like, let a bunch of
Konoha babies die if just sitting there doing nothing meant Shikamaru was going
to be safer. But- Shikamaru wouldn’t want that anyway. And the Shikako outside
would still do- almost anything for him. Just not absolutely everything.” She looked away from Inoichi. Towards Shikamaru.
“You know we both- we both-“ Her eyes were wet and so, so wide.

“I know,” Shikamaru said softly. He wished this was a real
place. He wished- he wished he could hold her.
That he didn’t have to wait until Inoichi ‘taught them how to interact
safely.’ His sister had torn out her heart and ripped apart her soul to keep
him alive, and she was trying to tell him both parts loved him. As if he didn’t
know. “I’ve always known”

“How are you feeling?” Dad asked, as Shikamaru blinked into
awareness.

Like my heart is breaking, Shikamaru didn’t answer.

As much as the discovery had been painful, Shikamaru was now
well on the path to recovery. But the success didn’t ease Inoichi’s mind much
at all, and he was quiet as he walked home.

Inside-Shikako had so easily Split from the rest of herself
because she had remained unacknowledged and hidden even within Shikako, likely
for quite some time. What had she said? That the rest of Shikako didn’t like to
remember being her.

And she’d distinguished the other Shikako from herself by
implying that Shikako would do less for Shikamaru. That Shikako would not let
Konoha babies die, even if doing nothing made Shikamaru safer. Implying that
inside-Shikako might.

…That was not the kind of self-knowledge that came in
advance of action.

Worst of all, inside-Shikako looked …seven, at most. And she
acted like a seven-year-old Shikako,
albeit a terrified and angry version. Almost as if that piece of Shikako Nara
had had never been accepted or understood or integrated into the whole.

Inside-Shikako was clearly an aspect of personality that had
crystalized in some single, terrible moment. And aspect Shikako hated and
feared- but needed. Because the moment might happen again. Because that moment
had so marked her that it had frozen a piece of her forever, and plunged the
rest into desperate denial.

No, Inoichi would not be sleeping well tonight.

AHHHH!!! Follow up fic from dona! (✿ ♥‿♥)

(I love your Inoichi voice so much!)

Outside POVs and consequences for this fic

Would you ever write a fic set in the “(They Call It) Soulless” ‘verse? (Caretaker!Shikako in a universe where most people start getting soulmarks as babies, blanks are either killed as babies or monstrously consume spiritual energy/souls from everyone around (including themselves), and she discovers her younger brother Shikamaru is a blank the night their parents die. She feeds him (eventually, recycles) her own spiritual energy and hides the truth of his condition from everyone, including him.

jacksgreysonLeave a comment

Whoa! O_O Okay! I… did not know this ‘verse existed… let me go check that out real quick. I mean, I know about Caretaker!Shikako, but not about this particular iteration of it so… wow.

To the index page I go~~

…

Okay dona, I had to do some sleuthing because soulmate/soul mark stuff is no longer on the main index page since it’s become it’s own forum thread, but I thiiiink I’ve found what you’re talking about over on this index post.

Are there only the three installments? If not, uh… then this answer is only based on these three installments:

OH MY GOD. OOOOOOOOHHHHH MYYYYYYY GOOOOOOODDD!!!

DONA! WHAT?!?!!? DONA WHAT?!?!?! DONA WHAT DID YOU MAKE ME READ? WHAT ARE THESE FEELINGS YOU MADE ME FEEL? WHY AM I CRYING?!?! GODDAMNIT, DONA!

The feels! You always know how to get me with them feels, dona.

I’m gonna say yes, because it is an amazing ‘verse, and because I’ve said yes, here is your ficlet:

~

The first time Kako agrees to take a mission that will bring her more than a day away from Konoha (away from Kamaru) she is fourteen years old.

She is fourteen when she meets–and fights and kills–her first (real) Soulless.

The gnawing, gaping hunger claws at her even as she fights, even as she burns away at its empty vessel. It is excruciating, her teammates have fallen, screaming, the agony of their souls being torn out of them, breath into the void. She thinks, for the briefest of moments, that she might finally understand why there is a set procedure for babies without soul marks .

But she immediately bats the betrayal away, shreds it before it can take hold. It is because of Kamaru that she can pull through. The thought of Kamaru, figuratively and literally:

She cannot die out here, not when Kamaru still needs her, not when she hasn’t figured out a cure not yet.

But also the way Kamaru needs her, the manipulation of her own spiritual energy to sustain him, recycling it out and through and back in, that she can withstand what the rest of her squad cannot.

Genma-taicho bursts through the treetops, hoping for the best but expecting the worst and gets something in between.

She is fourteen years old when she earns her first service ribbon for surviving (killing) a Soulless.

It is not her last.

—

Genma keeps a better eye out for Kako Kinokawa after that. Guilt at first, then curiosity, then honest fondness.

Chouza-sensei was friends with her father, which in the convoluted bonds of Konoha teams, makes her something like a cousin.

A better cousin, hopefully, though considering his competition in the Nara clan… it’s not exactly difficult.

—

The second time goes, arguably, both worse and better.

Worse because she makes the mistake of letting it touch her. She screams.

She cares less about the nails tearing across her face and more about the way her life essence is being peeled away in vicious layers.

She kills it. (She has to)

Nobody (else) dies.

—

Gai’s specialty is taijutsu.

He is ineffective against Soulless.

But he was as much a student of Chouza-sensei as Genma, and just because he cannot help Kako in this matter does not mean he cannot help her at all.

—

The third she doesn’t remember so well.

“Severe head trauma,” the medic tells her when she wakes up in Konoha General, that stupidly familiar box with a stupidly familiar service ribbon on the night stand beside her and Kamaru curled up on the visitor’s chair, his hand gripped tight around hers.

“It must have been worse than previously reported,” the medic continues, “It took you much longer to wake up than expected. Your brother visited every day.”

Kako can only remember bits and pieces of the mission, much less the fight with the Soulless.

Spiritual energy contains memories.

The third she remembers mostly as a catalyst: she has to improve her control, it must be perfect–no, beyond perfect–she has to be able to do it unconsciously.

—

Jiraiya returns to the village a few months ahead of schedule.

It’s hard to follow up on rumors of Konoha’s enemies when all everyone wants to talk about is the shinobi from Konoha who specializes in killing Soulless, so he may as well meet her for himself.

Better now than later.

—

For one horrific, heart wrenching second, she thinks the Soulless screeching across her senses from the Forest of Death is Kamaru.

It can’t be, she tries to reason with herself, he can last so much longer now, it’s only been a few days.

A few days of exertion. Of high stress situations and jutsu use. He’d eat through the energy she gave him at a much faster rate.

No! It’s not Kamaru. It’s not. She won’t let it be

She enters the Forest of Death, Anko and ANBU on her trail, but until she locks eyes on the Soulless, she’s sickened, doesn’t know if she’ll be able to go through with it.

It’s not Kamaru. She knew it.

But Kamaru is there, too close for her comfort, frozen the way the other kiddies of Konoha are (she forgets, sometimes, that not everyone has built up the same resistance she has.)

It’s wearing the Oto headband, the soulless husks of its former teammates already collapsed around it.

She doesn’t hesitate.

—

Long ago, Orochimaru was just a little boy, smart and, more importantly, curious about how the world worked.

But then his parents died and instead he turned inward. Surely, there must be a better way to solve the problem of Soulless?

(Does this sound at all familiar?)

—

She feels bad about dragging TenTen into the fifth.

She hopes TenTen’s first service ribbon is her only service ribbon.

No one else should have to go through what Kako has.

—

After Tsunade is sworn in, she gets a breakdown of her forces. For genin and chuunin it’s enough to know them as rough figures per department–she’ll familiarize herself with them as needed, she doesn’t have the time to go further than that–but for those ranked higher than that, she needs to know the individuals and their specialties to effectively utilize them. Thankfully, most shinobi only get up to chuunin, and so the list of tokujou and jounin is not too long.

For the most part, the specialties are to be expected: a few medics, a few genjutsu users, some intel, some sensors.

“What is this?” Tsunade asks, finger tapping next to Kinokawa, Kako. She doesn’t recognize the symbol beside it–it might be a new one, it has been a few decades since she’s had to actually do paperwork.

Her Jounin Commander, a Nara of course, scans where she points. A furrow between his eyebrows appears then disappears, quick as a flash.

“Slayer,” Nara says, because why use a full sentence when a single word is much less troublesome? “Five Soulless,” he elaborates.

Tsunade blinks in surprise. With that context in mind, she takes a closer look. She remembers the tales her grandmother used to tell her as a child.

Not a new symbol, no.

An old one.

—

Konoha deals with the problem of infants-born-Soulless in the traditional, practical manner as it always has.

But there were Soulless before that.

If Kako is successful, there won’t be any after.

~

A/N: I kinda jumped about in places, so it’s not as coherent or cohesive a ficlet as I would like. I had a lot of different ideas tugging at me for this ‘verse and I also wasn’t sure which iteration of Caretaker!Shikako this was (like her teammates, for example, if this Kako would push so hard and graduation early with Itachi or would she hold back since she has to be able to take care of Kamaru?)

Anyway, I hope you liked it 🙂

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