The Rubber Band Odyssey

A/N: Yatta! A new chapter, and this one is longer! I think I should tell you that Ichiban means “number one”. That comes up at one point. This is where the story takes a turn for the dark side. No, I do not mean that Naruto is going to run into Darth Vader. I mean that it isn’t really going to be funny like the first two pieces were. Naruto gets depressed, and Shikamaru gets annoyed. There’s a bit of exploration of feelings in this chapter, but it’s okay, since you get to see Naruto being a bit different from normal!

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Devious Lil Devil: Yes, Ino doesn’t know what she’s done. In answer to your question about the pairing, it is ShikaNaru, with a slight hint that there could be NaruShikaNaru as well. You may commence loving.

sunlight159: Thank you. Here’s your update, darlin’.

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Legal Stuffiness: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters therein. Kishimoto Masashi, sole proprietor.

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Chapter 2: Day One…A Kunai Can’t Cut It

Shikamaru sat on the roof of the hospital. This was a nice spot. He didn’t have to be anywhere for a while, and he could just sit up here and watch the clouds go by, mulling over a few dozen new facts that he had encountered as of late. One of those facts was that he had this strange, nagging feeling that he was being followed. If it was a feeling, one might ask how he could think of it as a fact. The truth was that he couldn’t; at least not logically. But that was the nature of that odd feeling in the bottom of your gut. It wasn’t something that you could put into words, or even be sure that it was there. But somehow, you just know.

The presence had been there, following him all morning. And even for a young man that usually didn’t care about what went on around him, it was beginning to tick him off. Shikamaru sat, still as a statue, on his bench. For a long moment, he closed his eyes, feeling the air around him, and the pressures of each object, and then finally, he found it. There was a person on top of the water tower. The person’s chakra felt familiar…Shikamaru smiled lazily. Naruto. Naruto was following him?

He nearly snorted. The moron was probably going to jump on him or something.

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How long was he going to sit up there? Really, he’d been there for close to two hours, and Naruto was going stir-crazy, lying on his stomach, chin resting on his forearm, and a small mirror poised at the very edge of the water tower. Shikamaru had not moved from the spot he plunked down in, and he just kept on watching the clouds with this creepy little smile on his face. Naruto had to remind himself why he was doing this: to get forty credits from Ino.

But were forty credits enough to pay for his sanity? He had to treat this like a mission, but even if he were on a real one, he would have leapt into a direct confrontation, rather than trying a new approach. He got the idea from oh, three years ago when Gai-sensei no baka had used his hitai-ate to look into the hallway (which was the cause of him drop-kicking Jiraiya in the face…poor old pervvy Sannin…). Instead of being a dummy like Gai-sensei, Naruto decided to do it the right way. He had run home to get a few small mirrors and other surveillance equipment before tracking down Shikamaru.

The lazy bum had been slinking around the Hokage tower for a little while before moving on to the Academy to have a brief talk with Ebisu (stupid closet pervert…) and then going to the roof of the hospital where he would remain undisturbed for the next two and a half hours.

And now, Naruto was getting restless. He huffed silently, waiting for Shikamaru to move. Nothing. I could so be training right now. I could be planning how to get Sasuke-bastard back. I could be eating ramen. Anything, that doesn’t involve just laying here. I’m going bat-shit crazy! He was, really. Shikamaru hadn’t moved. At all. The lazy jounin had not so much as shifted his weight. Naruto’s fingers itched as his small store of patience and even more miniscule reserves of self-control ran out. His feet began to twitch, and his body tensed.

“Gotta do something…” he whispered. He needed action. Naruto was unused to being still for so long. And to be utterly honest, he hadn’t been this quiet since he had learned to speak. Ever. So what was he to do? For a long moment—which seemed much longer than it actually was—he thought. What could he do that would be fast and effective?

Suddenly, and with almost frightening clarity, Naruto got an idea. He got an aweful, wonderful idea. Quietly, he unsnapped his weapons holster. The faint sound of metal sliding on leather met his ears, but he was sure that Shikamaru would not have heard him. From the pouch near his kidney, he pulled a coil of wire. One end of this wire was twisted around the ring hilt of his kunai, and once he’d done that, he poked his head over the edge of the tank.

Shikamaru was still sitting there, staring off into space, facing Naruto’s right. He took a deep breath and gathered all of the wire into one hand, his blade in the other. It was all he could hope for that this didn’t cut off the other boy’s hair. Shikamaru would look pretty strange with short hair, and Naruto was certain that even for someone as lazy as his current target, he wouldn’t exactly appreciate it if his plan failed and removed most of his ponytail along with the rubber band that held it.

But, that was why he’d decided on attaching the wire: so he could pull back the blade before it cut too far. “Here goes nothing,” he whispered, and flung the kunai down at Shikamaru, gripping the wire tightly. His hand jerked back at precisely the right moment, and he felt the blade slice through something. Unfortunately, it only nicked the band, the ponytail holder staying in by virtue of the thinnest of threads.

Naruto began to panic as Shikamaru started to turn toward him. Deciding quite quickly that it was time to beat a tactical retreat, the blonde disappeared in a blur of orange and black. “Damn it…he moved just a little at the very last second!” he growled as he came to a stop in front of his apartment. “Time to regroup.”

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Shikamaru reached up, grasping the rubber band in his hair. He yanked up on it, feeling it snap. “Tch,” he groused, “And I don’t have any with me…” Annoyed, he pulled out a short leather strip, tying his hair into a rather messy ponytail. It would have to do for now. Until then, he needed to know why he was being followed, and why Naruto apparently was trying to take target practice on him.

It could be a new kind of training. It could be a prank. It could also be the result of being Naruto. That was altogether possible. The blonde boy had always been rather unusual. Shikamaru could remember him getting the crap kicked out of him when he accidentally got pushed into that Uchiha bastard. Had he been more energetic, Shikamaru would have laughed at the situation. What had been obvious to him (but not anyone else at the time) was that Naruto was not happy with being thought of as less than Uchiha Sasuke. Shikamaru had watched from the back row as Naruto jumped up onto the desk.

The blonde had shoved his face into Sasuke’s, examining him as closely as possible to find out what was so special about him. To be honest, Shikamaru didn’t understand what people liked about him, either. His personality reminded the lazy young man of a particularly ornery horned toad with a tendency to be a wet blanket. What was most interesting, though, was the way Naruto’s face looked. It was like he was trying so hard to find something…anything there to justify himself as being better than Sasuke. His eyes had been narrowed, blue obscured by golden eyelashes, and his mouth scrunched up into a tight pout.

It wasn’t quite laughable. What was it, then? One might say that it was pitiful, especially when someone fell onto Naruto. That sent him falling onto Sasuke, lips first. The entire room had held its breath, except for Shikamaru, who was too busy watching Naruto’s reaction. Everyone else seemed to be interested in the way Sasuke responded, but Naruto’s facial expressions were always so much more fascinating. His eyes had widened, and his body had tensed. Then, as if on cue, both boys jumped back at the same moment, spitting and cursing, with Naruto yelling about being poisoned.

Shikamaru’s lips curled into a smile. That had been rather funny. What must it be like to have something like that happen to you? No one had ever felt the need to do anything to him that was quite of that nature, because Shikamaru had made it a point never to bother anyone to such an extent. Had he been sitting in Sasuke’s seat that day, what would he have done? It wasn’t as if he could really say. Naruto had never really done anything wrong to him, so he didn’t hate him like many of the others seemed to. But would he have gasped and jerked away as Sasuke had…from surprise?

Revulsion would not have entered into it. There was little that actually repulsed the lazy young man, and he couldn’t say that Naruto was one of those things. Now that he was thinking about it, he probably wouldn’t have acted the way Sasuke had. It was too much trouble, and far too embarrassing. Certainly it would have been easier to simply sit there, and when Naruto righted himself, just blow the whole thing off?

As he rose from his seat, he smiled again. No, he would not have reacted the way the Uchiha seemed to deem necessary. While Shikamaru was no expert, he would have said that those two were actually less different than they liked to admit. This opinion was, of course, affirmed when the two boys became almost inseparable. Well, it went under the guise of rivalry, and annoyed resignation at being forced to work together…but for someone of Shikamaru’s intelligence, it was completely obvious that it was nothing of the sort.

Those two idiots loved each other more than teammates should. That was the only thing that could account for the fact that Naruto stubbornly insisted upon finding a way to bring him back. This too had an excuse. The blonde had made a promise to Sakura to bring back their teammate. But…Naruto was not so naïve. There was a kind of cynicism that lurked beneath those blazing blue eyes that told of years of hard experience. And it was that which told Shikamaru that Naruto was well aware that his plans might fall apart. That his promise may very well go unfulfilled, broken.

Shikamaru never made promises. It was easier that way. No one got hurt, and no one hurt him.

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“Shit…” Naruto growled, thinking hard. He sat at his kitchen table, sharpening three new kunai. Shikamaru had seen him. It was as certain as his favorite ramen flavor was miso. What he didn’t understand was why the other boy had not retaliated. From what he knew about him, Naruto would not say that Shikamaru would just take this lying down. Well…maybe he would (literally speaking), but he wouldn’t just let him get away with it.

In any event, he needed a better plan. He was starting to get curious, anyway. Shikamaru was an interesting guy. When they’d tried to get the bastard back that one time, he had been an excellent leader, even if he thought he screwed up. Naruto was amazed by how smart the other boy was. He had seen his fight with that Temari girl a few years back…and it was actually pretty cool some of the things he had thought up. The use of shadows, incorporating the environment, the hole Naruto had made in his earlier fight; it was all brilliant.

Not for the first time, Naruto wished that he were as intelligent as Shikamaru. What he had told Ino was not a lie. Jiraiya had made him think. He’d been made to read a lot of books—and not just porn, either—while he was away. But Naruto couldn’t help but think that if he were naturally smarter, then he could have thought of a way to get Sasuke back, that time in the gorge outside Orochi-bastard’s hideout. That was one of his worst habits: second-guessing himself. While his outward appearance was one of high self worth and great confidence, there was always that nagging doubt.

What if? What if he had done something different? Said something different? What could he have done or said?

Nothing.

He did actually realize that. As he was, there was absolutely nothing he could do to bring back his best friend, who was turning into a major pain in the ass for not only him, but also the village as a whole.

Maybe, when this bet was over, he could ask for advice? Hell, it would be better than stalking Iruka in the Missions Office. Naruto smiled, laying down the kunai that was now razor sharp. It would be nice to pick Shikamaru’s brain. Maybe they could even get to be friends? Not that they were enemies, but Naruto didn’t really have time in all of his training to really make friends.

A sigh escaped him as he stared at the dull, almost otherworldly reflection of his face in the blade of his kunai. He suddenly felt very, very alone. Blue eyes roved over the objects arranged in an almost obsessive-compulsive way over the surface of his small table. The weapons all gleamed, their oiled blades winking in the dim light cast by the single naked bulb overhead. Fourteen kunai, thirty-six shiruken. Two rolls of garrote wire, one short-bladed sword. Twenty-six caltrops, and two bundles of senbon. These were the things that he carried every day. These: his weapons, his duty, his obligation.

Again, he sighed.

Naruto pulled off his hitai-ate, fingers fumbling at the knot that had so diligently held it onto his head. Folding the black cloth underneath it, he placed it in the empty space between the garrote wire and the sword. The green cloth beneath all of these implements brought out their stark beauty. He realized that this was the only beauty in his life…the beauty of those things that kill. Closing his eyes, his head fell into his hands, and he sat, trying to hold back the tears.

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There was a tree. It was tall enough. Hands stuffed into pockets, slouching as usual, Shikamaru walked lazily up its trunk. The third floor window that he was decently sure was Naruto’s would be within sight, and it would be no large feat to see within. Indeed, as he settled himself onto the rough bark, concealed within the greenery of the tree, he had a perfect view of the sadly small apartment.

It seemed to be one of those single-room affairs, with only a tiny kitchenette, and the rest a multi-purpose sleeping, eating, and living space. There was no second door, telling of a communal bathroom for each floor of the building. Naruto’s apartment was much cleaner than he had expected. The futon was neatly folded and stashed in the corner, under the television set stand. A loveseat (no doubt used for a couch) was in the opposite corner. He found the owner of the residence seated at the small, apparently rickety table. The surface of it was covered in weapons.

Shikamaru’s keen eyes picked out the logical order of the equipment, the care with which they had been maintained (noted by the sharpening stone and oil cloth), and the neatness of their arrangement. This was, indeed a different Naruto. He still had his pranking tendencies, it seemed, but the boy that sat in the lone chair was not the one he had goofed off with in the Academy.

Naruto’s elbows rested on the table’s edge, his hands covering his face. There was a slight tremble in his shoulders. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that he was crying. Being now at the Jounin level, Shikamaru was aware of Naruto’s…situation. This was not to say that it put him off of being the boy’s friend. If anything, it simply made him more astonished that Naruto was able to live life as he had for so long. The fact that he had simply showed that he was a very strong person. That he could do so, and smile all of the time was just amazing. There were days when Shikamaru couldn’t remember how to smile, let alone accomplish such a thing.

But the golden-haired young man certainly was not smiling now. No, he was pouring his sorrow—whatever that might be—out into his own hands, with nothing but cold steel to comfort him. It occurred to Shikamaru that perhaps this was what Naruto’s life had always been like, and that thought chilled him. For someone to live a life of such loneliness, surrounded by those that hated him, and yet somehow still love the place he was living…there was no way that Shikamaru could ever be half so strong. He felt a swell of pride in his heart that there was such a person in his home village.

Presently, Naruto rose from his seat. He began speaking to himself, scrubbing the tears from his face with the sleeve of his jacket, and then he started pacing. Eight steps, turn. Eight steps, turn. Eight steps, turn. Shikamaru was getting tired just looking at him. But then again, he always had. Naruto constantly had more energy than anyone should. That hyperactivity made him more annoying than most people. Until you knew why. Shikamaru could see through all of the smiles now. He could see through all of the bravado, the brash claims toward greatness that was almost certainly out of reach.

Why was Naruto Konoha’s Ichiban Hyperactive, Unpredictable Ninja?

Now that Shikamaru had observed him in his natural environment, he understood that the answer to that question was very simple: because it was the only way he could stay sane. If he allowed it to get to him, he would crack. He would fail, and he would become less than the dead last that people thought he was. His life would be a lie, and all that he worked for would be meaningless. Intellectually, Shikamaru could understand this.

As a human being, he was rather at a loss. He had come from a home with a family. While his mother might be a bit…domineering, and his father an overly-chivalrous lay about, family was something that the lazy young man knew that he would be very upset if he lost. But to never have had it in the first place? For all that might possibly take him in and care for him to despise him, simply because he was a reminder of how the village’s hero died? Just like Sandaime, Shikamaru believed that Naruto was a hero as well. It was by his life that the village could live on, and that should be respected, not reviled.

The pacing continued, growing more and more frantic, until Naruto collapsed into the loveseat next to the window. Blue eyes shut as he leaned his head back, resting it against soft cushions. This motion bared Naruto’s throat, a position that showed how out of his guard he really was. The blonde boy was never any less than alert, so Shikamaru found this new side of his fellow ninja to be fascinating.

It was not long before he saw Naruto removing his jacket, and letting it slip to the floor. He now sat in his shirtsleeves, eyes staring unblinkingly at the ceiling. The most unusual thing about this situation—aside from the fact that he was spying—was that Naruto had not smiled once in the entire half hour Shikamaru had been watching him. This private face he had, quiet and solemn, seemed much more true.

There had to be something going on that Shikamaru didn’t know about. He’d never done anything to deserve Naruto’s pranks. This boy was not one that would attack him for no reason and then run away. He would find out. Soon.

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As Shikamaru was slipping from his tree branch to land on the ground in a crouch, Naruto was rising from his little couch, a newly formed resolve hardening in his mind. “Small steps, Naruto.” He said this softly to himself, thinking of all of the things that had to happen before he could be good enough to take Sasuke back. And he would take him back. All he needed to do was finish his training, and this stupid bet with Ino.

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Ino sat in her family’s shop. It was a dreadfully boring day after Naruto had gone. Nothing ever seemed to happen in that place. Until, that is, the door came banging open. To her everlasting surprise, her teammate, and the object of her wager with Naruto walked in the door, hands stuffed in his pockets and his shoulders slumped more than usual.

Shikamaru slinked over to the counter, and his eyes rose from the floor, fixing her with a gaze that was more intense than she’d ever seen. “Ino, you need to call Naruto off.”

“Excuse me?” she asked, her mouth hanging open.

His stare became blank. “You heard me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I—“

A wave of Shikamaru’s hand dismissed her lie. “Don’t think you can fool me, Ino. You know you can’t.”

As much as she hated to admit it, he was right. There was never a time when she could have pulled the wool over his eyes. Sighing, she said, “Fine. You got me. But I can’t tell him to stop now.”

One of those thin, shapely eyebrows rose, and his voice became irritated. “And why is that?”

“He said it was a promise.” Ino said this with a tone of finality, and Shikamaru winced. He knew as well as she did that when Naruto made a promise, he followed through with it, unless…say…someone became a power-hungry avenger from Hell and tried to kill him by punching a hole in his chest with a lightening-charged fist. “So, you have two choices. You can either let him try his best to do what he’s trying to, or you can hide for three days.”

Shikamaru looked confused for half a second. “What’s he trying to do, Ino?”

Her arms crossed under her breasts, and she scratched at the fishnet over her left elbow. “He’s going to try to either destroy or pull your ponytail holder.” Again, Shikamaru’s eyebrow rose.

“All he needs to do is ask.”

Ino blinked rapidly as he turned on his heel and walked out of the shop. Really? All Naruto had to do was ask him to take his hair down? If Ino had known that, then she would have tried it years ago. In spite of the fact that this bet was made purely to annoy the hell out of her teammate for his method of waking her up, she was rather curious to see him without that stupid rubber band in his hair.

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A/N: Now. I hope that those of you who read this actually like it as much as I do. I adore Naruto, so have no fear. He won’t be depressed forever. All he needs is a little TLC.