Sky on Fire: Walk Through Shadow -- Chapter 03
Title: Walk Through Shadow
Chapter: Familial Secrets
Author/Artist: Killaurey
Word Count: 5539
Summary: Sidestory to Slow Burn. [Shikamaru centric] While Ino is off in Kumogakure for the Chuunin Exams, Shikamaru's nightmares worsen and his control over his shadow unravels. Getting it together again means facing his worst enemy-himself.
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. It's Kishimoto's and I just play with it. AU immediately after the Sasuke Retrieval Arc. Part 3 of 7. Unbeta'd.
His words seemed to land heavily in the lighted temple. Shikamaru found his eyes drawn to a table that looked like the one he’d fallen through and quickly jerked his eyes away from it.
Just a resemblance, he mentally insisted.
“Some things,” Aunt Sadako said, seeming almost regretful, “never fully make sense when you apply logic to them, Shikamaru.”
“I don’t believe that,” he answered her, frowning at the ground. He missed his shadow. This was weird. “I choose not to believe that. Everything should have an explanation that’s perfectly congruent with logic.”
Logic was comforting-especially when it came to pointing out flaws in other peoples’ plans. Then, the ability to apply logic was a skill that was valued highly. At the moment there were no plans from the enemy to disrupt. Only a situation he rather seriously wanted answers and solutions to.
"I know what you're thinking," Aunt Sadako said, green eyes a mystery. "Like most of our family you'd rather trust that which has a solid explanation."
"Doesn't everyone?" he asked dryly, knowing that was true of his father and uncles at least. (Shikamaru wasn't entirely sure, still, that logic existed on the same reality as women. He'd learn better eventually.) "Feelings and things aren't reliable." Nor were they something he particularly wanted to be relying on constantly.
Shikamaru was not a teenaged girl. He suppressed a shudder at that thought.
"Think on this, then," Aunt Sadako suggested, seeming unperturbed by his attitude which was something that marked her as different when contrasted to his mother. Nara Yoshino would not have stood for even half of his impertinences today under the same situation. "What is intuition?"
What was it? Shikamaru blinked at her, thinking that was a pretty obvious thing to be asking. “It’s feeling-a gut sort of instinct that tells you when something is right or wrong to say or do.”
Aunt Sadako tilted her head at him. “Would you say that intuition just comes out of nowhere and strikes at whim, then?”
“No,” he said slowly, “but what does that have to do with anything?”
“Think of intuition as a combination of details so minor that your conscious mind doesn’t register them as having any great meaning,” she suggested, folding herself down at one of the tables and gesturing for him to take a seat. “Things that you can’t put a conscious finger on why they matter but somehow ping on your radar anyway.”
Shikamaru gave the table she was at-not the one he saw in his dreams, thankfully-a long dubious glance before he took a seat. He remained careful not to actually touch the thing, though. It was likely over-cautious but he figured that being overly cautious wouldn’t hurt anything. Tables didn’t have feelings, after all, and Aunt Sadako’s gaze understood. “And you’re saying that intuition, when looked at that way, is just the culmination of all the little details that are noticed on one level? But that can't actually be explained? So that rather than being anything like--illogic or feelings it's actually... logically based."
Shikamaru was, honestly, rather dubious about that.
Aunt Sadako nodded, her eyes never leaving his face "Exactly," she answered, "so will you be willing to consider that that may be in fact the case for the moment and allow the explanations to come as they do?"
Shikamaru considered that, staring down at the table, this one just plain wood thank goodness. "I can try," he said finally. "But I don't know how successful I'll be."
"Trying," Aunt Sadako answered, "is all that anyone can expect of each other."
They studied each other in silence and Shikamaru wondered where he was to begin asking his questions. "How old were you," he asked finally, "when you first started having nightmares like mine?"
She tapped her fingers against the wood of the table, the noise making him twitch. "Nine," she replied. "I was younger than you, you understand. The world was harder then--everyone went to war at a younger age and our imaginations had far more nightmares to produce. I am sure you can imagine how those two correlate."
Shikamaru thought of the number of nightmares that he'd found developing ever since he'd gotten back from the mission to rescue Uchiha from his own stupidity. He nodded. "I can--understand that," he said slowly, "though I don't think that it's entirely fair to blame us for the fact that we've been luckier than your generation has been, Aunt Sadako."
She rubbed her face. "I do sound a bit bitter then, don't I?" Aunt Sadako shook her head. "I'm sorry, it's complicated to explain. Yes, I'm very glad that your generation has been luckier, but it's also something that..."
A pause. "Part of me thinks is unfair. Why didn't my generation get the same chances?"
"Who can say that your generation didn't get the same chances?" Shikamaru asked, leaning forward but still refusing to place his arms on the table. Better not to risk it, he felt, even if it was becoming an increasingly silly worry amidst the rest of the temple. For some reason, the temple felt safe, and he wasn't sure what to make of that. As a shinobi he wasn't supposed to entirely trust his feelings like that.
But at the same time, sometimes, feelings had their place and his were telling him that here, no matter what happened here, he'd be safe enough. Shikamaru couldn't pin down exactly why that was but it helped sooth the tenseness in his shoulders as he watched his aunt tug her hitae-ite about and make a face as she realized the state of her hair. Girls.
"You've lost me," she admitted, giving him a sheepish grin at that. Shikamaru found himself feeling just a little more settled; it was nice knowing someone who didn't take offense to every little thing he disagreed with. "We had the same chances?"
"I don't know the exact details," Shikamaru said slowly, "as you say, it was your generation, not mine, but isn't it true that every generation starts out on the same level--it's them who decide what to make of the rest of their lives? So, in following that, maybe your generation had the same chances, but the playing board you had to work with was levelled differently. Personally," he continued, "I think you did a pretty good job with what you guys had to deal with. I mean--you did it, right? Peace was fought for and obtained."
For a few years. But that was the way of the shinobi world and both of them knew that. Peace and war were caught in a never-ending cycle.
He took a moment, while she gathered her thoughts, to look around the temple. Paint was peeling from the walls, having bubbled up in places, air pockets having formed underneath, and Shikamaru asked again, "Why is this place so run down?"
"You make a bizarre amount of sense for a teenager," Aunt Sadako said and, when he turned to look at her, grinned impishly. "And to answer your second question, well--where do you think we are?" Her green eyes were level and earnest so he decided to indulge her with the sidetracking. This time, he thought, it might lead to an answer that he could make sense of.
"A temple of some sort," Shikamaru answered, studying the tables and the floor--it was dusty rather than ruined, but the grit and dirt made it beyond filthy. His mother would've thrown a fit at the sight of it. "That's belongs to the family, though I've never heard that we worship or follow any religion beyond the Will of Fire that is said to embody all of Konoha's ninja."
Aunt Sadako nodded solemnly. "That's right," she replied. "We don't follow anything else in terms of gods. In point of fact, the reason we've got a temple at all was because it was the easiest way to deal with what goes on here."
Yet another answer that he was sure would make sense if only he had the proper background. Shikamaru remained silent and just raised one eyebrow inquiringly.
"You're a patient boy," she noted. "I wasn't nearly so patient when I was your age. Anyway, the temple is only usable by one in each generation."
Shikamaru looked around the temple again. "You... and me?"
That was interesting. They were, indeed, two separate generations but he wasn't sure what the point of that was. "Why would we have a temple that only one person or so every generation can use?"
"Because it's a repository," Aunt Sadako replied, shifting so she could settle herself more comfortably. Her elbows rested idly on the hard wood of the table and Shikamaru tried not to wince when she touched the table. "Not of knowledge though. I wouldn't call it a fount of wisdom, and you're not going to find all that many books here that hold mystical secrets or anything though we've got a few that used to be in the family library and then got forgot here at one point or another..."
"What is this a repository of then?" Tables?
"Haven't you guessed?" Her smile was tinged with wry amusement. "Shadow."
It would be, he thought, the height of rudeness to scold his father's sister, his aunt, for saying something that sounded so utterly ridiculous and troublesome. Shikamaru opened his mouth to protest anyway (he'd never been a paragon of politeness anyway and he surely had no plans to ever be considered as such) when he realized that his shadow was still missing. Swallowing as he put that together with what she'd just said. "Our shadows," he said abruptly, "they've gone to gain--knowledge--or something from the other shadows?"
For there had to be other shadows. Now that his attention had been brought to the fact, Shikamaru could vaguely sense the tickling pressure against the palms of his hands that signified the press of other shadows nearby. He hadn't noticed, Shikamaru realized, because they'd been registering as family. The hairs on the back of his neck began rising.
"Knowledge?" Aunt Sadako considered that. "I suppose that's what they're doing. Gossiping is more likely, though, but you can learn something even under those circumstances so I wouldn't say the talk that they're having is exactly useless."
Gossiping shadows were more than he wanted to think about right then and there. Especially with what else that had occurred to him while he'd added the facts all together and came up with answers that distressed him. "Is this some sort of--shadow grave site?" he asked abruptly, fully expecting her to laugh it off, tell him it was a ridiculous idea, or something.
She dashed his hopes.
"Yes," she answered simply. "The shadows of our ancestors remain in this building--that's why Nara will never allow it to be bought out nor will they get rid of it under any circumstances. In fact, even trying to sell it was crime enough in the family to get yourself exiled from the Clan when I was your age."
Shikamaru blinked at her, still stuck on the fact that she'd agreed with an idea that he'd mostly considered ludicrous and one that he'd much rather have gone on considering as such. "It is a grave?"
"There's no bodies here," Aunt Sadako assured him, and somehow he believed her. More intuition, he supposed. That and she was family-if he couldn't trust family then Shikamaru knew he was in worse straits than most of the village. Everyone needed some place to be able to relax and family was that for most active shinobi. Family or friends. "But for shadows, where did you think they went?"
"I thought they died out with the person." He shrugged uneasily. Shikamaru wasn't sure, now, what to think other than the fact that apparently he'd not known as much about his family as he'd thought. Secrets within secrets.
Fitting, almost, for a clan of shadow users.
Her grin didn't reassure him much. "You thought wrong then, boy."
Shikamaru considered that even as he gave up his attempts to avoid touching the table at all and rested one hand on it, butterfly light. It didn’t do anything; the table remained inert. Relaxing minutely, turned his mind to the problem presented in front of him.
He could feel shadows, now that Aunt Sadako had brought it up, but there didn’t seem to be anywhere near enough of them, as far as he could differentiate between them without devoting more time and energy than he really wanted to at the moment, to make up the entire Clan from inception.
Nara had never been a small clan, after all. Not all of them were fighters, were shinobi, some of them never did anything but take care of the deer, and they had people marry out of the Clan as well, but...
“The shadows here,” he said slowly, watching her carefully for confirmation of his hypothesis. “They’re only the shadows of those Nara who have the dreams as well as the nightmares, aren’t they?”
Aunt Sadako’s lips curved into a smile. “Very good,” she said approvingly. “You got it quicker than I did back when I was first brought here. Yes-only those with the dreams can enter this building. Most people, most Nara, can’t even find this temple these days. A few Nara know that it exists, it’s still on the register of Clan properties, but most of the family doesn’t really-hmmm-notice the property at all.”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Shikamaru wondered. “Even if it was a place for only the people in the family who get the dreams too, wouldn’t we have people coming to check out the property every now and then? Just out of curiosity?” He was lazy, but the idea of that was one that even Shikamaru could see getting into his head on occasion. One of those off-hand thoughts that wouldn’t be dismissed out of hand and would grow over time until a day when he’d really had nothing better to do.
“They can’t see it,” she repeated. “The shadows hide it from them unless they have one of the... guardians, I suppose, though that word makes us sound awfully lofty and we’re not really... but as I was saying, the shadows that exist here won’t let anyone, even from the Clan, find it unless they’ve got on of us with them.”
That made it, he thought, an excellent place to get away and hide from his mother if she were being especially troublesome. Shikamaru quirked his lips in a slight smile. “And it’s the same for those who aren’t in the Clan?”
“Very much so,” Aunt Sadako answered, brushing her hand over the table. “This isn’t meant as a place for most people. It’s a very... Clannish sort of thing and even then, only for a few, you understand. It’s not for bringing your friends to hang out-if you brought them, it should be only in an emergency. No enemy will find you here. Not in the heart of shadows.”
“Heart of shadows? Is that what this temple is actually called?” If so, he thought, that was a good enough reason in his estimation to never mention it to anyone else. Shikamaru had no interest in sounding anywhere near as lame as that sounded.
Her shrug was apologetic. “I didn’t name it either,” Aunt Sadako told him. “But yes, that’s what it’s actually called-it makes sense, from the perspective of what’s here, all things considered, but that doesn’t make the name any better to say out loud, does it?”
“No,” he snorted. “I can see why you’d want it kept a secret in that case.”
She shrugged again and Shikamaru had the impression that she was more humouring him than anything else. “It doesn’t really matter what we call it,” Aunt Sadako continued before he could decide whether he wanted to try calling her on it or not. “What matters is that you understand this is a place that only the dreamers can really come and go freely from.”
Her lips twisted ruefully. “Which would be why this place is in such disrepair. With only me to care for it, and being out on a mission for such a long time, it’s begun falling apart.”
Privately, he was of the opinion that she hadn’t been doing much in the way of reconstruction even before the mission she’d been sent out on. Some of his thoughts must have shown on his face because she wrinkled her nose and laughed.
“I never was,” she admitted freely, “much good at fixing things up. I don’t suppose you could do anything about this? I can carry things, but much beyond that and well...” Aunt Sadako gestured at the mess around them.
That time, he gave in to the urge to laugh. “And so we end up with something like this.”
Shikamaru glanced around at the peeling paint and puffy spots in the walls, at the thick layer of dust on everything, at the way that some leaves had gotten into here and though he couldn’t see any he was sure that there had to be vermin around. “Those lanterns are fire safe, right?” he asked as the thought occurred to him that it might not be entirely safe to have all of them going in the circumstances.
“That much, at least, I made sure of,” she answered. “They won’t be lighting anything else on fire-they’re designed so that even if they fall off the wall they’ll go out immediately rather than light anything else up.”
“Clever,’ Shikamaru said, wondering how they did that. He’d have to look into it later... “We’re going to be spending a fair bit of time here, aren’t we?”
“For sure,” Aunt Sadako said affirmatively. “Especially until you’ve gotten the basics down pat-we’re going all the way back to the beginning with your training on this.”
He made note of the questions that immediately sprung to mind at that bit of information and gave the place a dubious glance. “This is going to take a lot of work to clean up.” Shikamaru was not a particular fan of that idea-but at the same time, he thought that it might be along the same lines of his room.
Once it was clean, it’d be rather easy to keep clean. Even if this place was bigger than his room by far.
“I can lecture just as well while we’re elbow deep in soap suds and cleaning solution as I can if we were sitting at a table like a normal class,” Aunt Sadako pointed out, grinning at that. “And I’m sure you’d be able to ask your questions just as easily in the same situation.”
That was true enough, he acknowledged. In fact the steady work would probably free his mind up to focus more on what was being discussed. It was hard to be distracted when both your mind and body were occupied. “And you’re not going to be fussy when it comes to the fact that I’ll be free labour.”
Shikamaru also had to confess that it wasn’t as if he was doing anything that was more important. It wasn’t like he had missions or anything right now. Cleaning would give him something to do, and the fact that he’d be able to lump it under the heading of training meant that his mother wouldn’t be able to pick as much at him for being lazy.
“Got it in one,” she admitted, evidently amused at that. “You’re my nephew, after all. I’d be a poor aunt if I didn’t make you work now and then. Make no mistake, though, it’s going to be hard and you’ll be going home exhausted at the end of the day.”
“From a lecture?” he asked, interested in knowing how much of the practical they’d be doing if he was to, as Aunt Sadako had put it, start all over from the beginning.
She shook her head quickly at that suggestion. “Definitely not from the lecture. There’s quite a lot that you can train on while we’re cleaning up-using your shadow to help fetch things for you gets more tiring than you’d think when you’re doing it for the whole day, you know? And then once we get past the cleaning stage, which will take us a few days at least, you’re going to be working far more intensively with your shadow than you’ve done before. I know the training for our Clan is pretty evenly split between taijutsu and shadow training at your rank-“
“Even at the Chuunin level?” he asked, tapping his fingers idly on the table. Carefully. While noting that his shadow still hadn’t come back. He thought that it was likely that he wouldn’t see it again until they left the temple.
“At your level in the Chuunin rank, yes,” Aunt Sadako said, making a face. “Chuunin are a nice middle rank, but they range majorly in experience and strength and no offense, boy, but you’re on the lowest tier possible that way right now. Especially with the mess of your shadow and your own lazy tendencies. I’m going to have to beat that out of you.” The smile one her face said she was kidding.
Mostly. There was a certain set to her eyebrows that said some beating may be necessary.
Shikamaru wasn’t particularly reassured by that but was, at this point, up for almost anything that would get his shadow back under his control. He was tired of having it react to anything he felt or thought, even if it didn’t take up chakra to do so, and the idea of having a shadow that actually moved only when he wanted it to and the rest of the time acted like a perfectly ordinary shadow greatly appealed to him.
For that, he thought he could put in some hard work. Being lazy was something that he enjoyed, that he preferred, that he would rather-no doubt about it, if left to his natural inclinations, Shikamaru was not the world’s most active person and, in fact, was not even in the running for that position.
If he had his way he wouldn’t ever be in a position like that. But he couldn't always be lazy.
“How does that tie back to the dreams?” he asked. “I’m still confused about that bit-so the dreams signify that whoever gets them is one of those Nara who can see and enter this temple… but what does that have to do with the way my shadow has been acting up and the dreams themselves-are they just a marker of that?”
Because Odd-Ino was too well defined, he thought, to be something as simple as an indicator. It didn’t make sense to him. What sort of indicator could you spend months talking to, as if to another person, and yet have them do nothing but serve as a precursor to the nightmares? Odd-Ino was friendly, in her own complicated way, even if half the time she didn’t make much sense at all.
“The dreams are... first,” she said, obviously having changed her mind midway through the sentence, “just so you know, I will answer all your questions. But let’s deal with them one at a time, yeah?”
That seemed reasonable, to his thinking anyway, and Shikamaru nodded. Better that than have them hopelessly confused because they couldn’t stay on topic. His head was beginning to ache as well, and Shikamaru thought that was as much from the lighting as anything else. The lanterns helped a great deal but the place was still rather dark. “The dreams then,” he prompted.
“Right.”
He wondered if it was his imagination or the lighting but Aunt Sadako had started looking pale and tired. Her voice hinted at none of that however so Shikamaru resolved to simply keep an eye on her rather than draw attention to the fact.
“Anyway,” Aunt Sadako went on, seemingly unaware of his thoughts on her relative health. “The dreams are... a pressure valve.”
He leaned back, wondering if she'd mind if he got up to walk around. Sitting cross-legged the way he was made his legs ache just a little--and it didn't help that he was too close to the tables to do anything like shift himself enough to stretch out one leg at a time. "A pressure valve?" Shikamaru repeated, turning the words over in his mind even as he spoke them. "For the nightmares?"
If that was the case then Shikamaru wanted a new pressure valve. The dreams were not helping with the nightmares. If anything, they made it worse having to go from relative peace and quiet to something weird and dark and having to watch the people who were important to him die over and over. He turned dark eyes to stare moodily at his aunt and wondered what she'd have to say to that.
"Not for the nightmares," she denied, her eyes serene as she met his gaze easily. "But for your shadow. It helps to... bleed out excess emotion and allows you to maintain your control over your shadow."
Shikamaru raised his eyebrows skeptically.
"Once," Aunt Sadako clarified, sounding firm, "you've managed to go through proper training. I'm sure you noticed how it wasn't particularly effective beforehand."
No kidding, he thought. "So, what, if it's just a valve then..." Shikamaru quickly groped for the right word, "then why is there a personality?"
"Would you listen to your subconscious nearly as much if it didn't have a personality?" she asked, not answering his question but requesting an answer in turn. In that, Shikamaru thought, she and his father were well matched. Why answer questions when they could turn it around and make it so you had to find an answer on your own? And they called him lazy. Hmph.
"I..." Shikamaru frowned at his aunt. "That doesn't make entire sense."
"That's the way it works," Aunt Sadako said with cool authority. "Your subconscious takes a form that you'll listen to and once you've got your shadow under control you'll find that the personality becomes far more rounded--fracturing is a sign that there's something that needs to be dealt with in your control and in your life before it affects your shadow unduly."
He wasn't sure he even wanted to know what it meant that his subconscious had decided that he'd listen the best to Ino. He never listened to Ino. That was almost distressing to consider. Ino had a penetrating voice, to be sure, but...
But he didn't listen to her. Especially not when she went on one of her rambling rants about some thing or the other and he could do nothing but hope and pray that Asuma-sensei ended training early just so she'd shut up. Or something happened to distract her. Sometimes he played devil's advocate, Shikamaru knew, and goaded her on just to see where she'd end up with her rant. There was something deeply entertaining about her when she wasn't getting on his nerves. He huffed a laugh at that as an idea occurred to him.
"Something amusing?" Aunt Sadako asked curiously.
"Just figuring out something about my dreams," he answered, reluctant to go into detail.
Perhaps, Shikamaru figured, Ino was in his head because he'd be so interested in getting away from her rambling that his subconscious had figured that that was the quickest way of getting him to do something. If that was the case, he thought, his subconscious hadn't been paying enough attention to everything that was going on. Not by a long shot.
Odd-Ino was, well, odd. But he enjoyed her company on some level. It wasn't the real thing, of course, and he'd never want the real Ino, his teammate, in his mind for any length of time, but the fact remained that he... got along with her most of the time.
Just not lately. And even then, they'd managed to pull it together.
"What happens," he asked, not giving himself time to go through and convince himself that this would be a poor idea. "What happens when you enjoy the conversations you've got with the personality of the person in your dreams? I mean, conversations in your sleep, in your head, and being aware of the fact that they're dreams anyway..." Shikamaru wished vaguely that he hadn't brought it up in the first place.
Saying it out loud just made him sound insane, and that was the last thing he wanted to sound like when they were talking in all seriousness about the personalities that their subconscious' had. "Wouldn't it have made more sense for your subconscious to... be a reflection of yourself?"
Aunt Sadako's answering grin was deeply rueful. "How many people," she asked, "do you really think actually bother to listen to themselves when it comes to problems that they don't want to deal with? I assure you, the answer is 'not many'--no one wants to deal with things, or admit that they've got to deal with things, when they're buried so deep that the only way they even know they've got a few problems is through their nightmares. No, boy, it is better by far to have your personality in your dreams be someone else."
Shikamaru was still rather dubious about the validity of that claim but had to concede that his aunt certainly seemed to know more of what she was talking about than anyone else he'd had dealings with concerning this. "So," he continued, "if that's the case, and the... personality... keeps showing up because there's difficulties does that mean they won't show up when everything is fine?"
"No," Aunt Sadako shook her head. "That's not the case. They'll show up in your dreams every night, I'm afraid--"
"Will they always be the same person?" Shikamaru interrupted. "Personality, I mean."
"No again," she answered, giving him a tolerant look. "The personality, or person, that your mind chooses to express itself through varies depending entirely on who you'll listen to the most throughout your life. You won't be stuck with the same person all your life, they will change with you."
He felt a pang at that. Odd-Ino wasn't the same as her real world counterpart but Shikamaru didn't want her to disappear. "That's good to know," he said, already trying to figure out how that one worked. Was there some sort of... scale or something that the mind weighed degrees of listening to, he wondered.
"As I was saying," she said, giving him a look that dared him to interrupt her again. "They'll show up in your dreams every night because even if you're dealing with your problems well enough every day, they'll be there to handle the daily stress that accumulates." Her eyebrows rose. "Pressure valve."
Shikamaru nodded his understanding. "So that's why we've got the dreams then… why doesn't everyone in our family have to do that? We're all shadow users."
"You're too used to being able to consider everything being made equal," Aunt Sadako noted. "But the short answer, before you interrupt me to disagree with my statement--yes, I see your frown--is that our shadows are more connected to our emotions than most of the Clan's. For them using a shadow is like using any other sort of tool. Do you get attached to your kunai?"
He shook his head. "That'd be stupid."
She wrinkled her nose. "Well, if it's stupid, then we're both stupid. We're both rather attached to our shadows, born that way, and there's nothing we can do about it to get unattached. Your father, for instance, is an excellent shadow user. No one is deadlier with it--but he's not emotionally connected to it. Not on a subconscious level. If he has a nightmare, it doesn't upset his shadow. If we do," Aunt Sadako said frankly, "it does and will. So the only thing there is to do, when it comes to us... is learn to control as much as we can."
"That doesn't sound like much of a good thing to me," he said, making a face at that idea.
"It's not all bad," she answered, looking wan and Shikamaru was sure by now that it wasn't just the lighting in the temple that was causing it. "There's some techniques that we can use that most of the family can't, and our shadow is less dependent on the sun cover and amount of light that's in the sky. We've got more range, in short. But--"
"Only with control," Shikamaru finished, saying the words with her.
She laughed. "You've got it. Now, about your control, the very first thing you need to do is going to be walking through your shadow."
It was not the first time that she'd mentioned it, but Shikamaru felt that this time he could ask his questions. "What does that mean, exactly?"
"Precisely what I said," she answered and leaned forward. "Okay, before you narrow your eyes even more at me, I'll tell your mother on you if you keep that up-let's..."
Previous Chapter // Chapter List // Next Chapter
Chapter: Familial Secrets
Author/Artist: Killaurey
Word Count: 5539
Summary: Sidestory to Slow Burn. [Shikamaru centric] While Ino is off in Kumogakure for the Chuunin Exams, Shikamaru's nightmares worsen and his control over his shadow unravels. Getting it together again means facing his worst enemy-himself.
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. It's Kishimoto's and I just play with it. AU immediately after the Sasuke Retrieval Arc. Part 3 of 7. Unbeta'd.
His words seemed to land heavily in the lighted temple. Shikamaru found his eyes drawn to a table that looked like the one he’d fallen through and quickly jerked his eyes away from it.
Just a resemblance, he mentally insisted.
“Some things,” Aunt Sadako said, seeming almost regretful, “never fully make sense when you apply logic to them, Shikamaru.”
“I don’t believe that,” he answered her, frowning at the ground. He missed his shadow. This was weird. “I choose not to believe that. Everything should have an explanation that’s perfectly congruent with logic.”
Logic was comforting-especially when it came to pointing out flaws in other peoples’ plans. Then, the ability to apply logic was a skill that was valued highly. At the moment there were no plans from the enemy to disrupt. Only a situation he rather seriously wanted answers and solutions to.
"I know what you're thinking," Aunt Sadako said, green eyes a mystery. "Like most of our family you'd rather trust that which has a solid explanation."
"Doesn't everyone?" he asked dryly, knowing that was true of his father and uncles at least. (Shikamaru wasn't entirely sure, still, that logic existed on the same reality as women. He'd learn better eventually.) "Feelings and things aren't reliable." Nor were they something he particularly wanted to be relying on constantly.
Shikamaru was not a teenaged girl. He suppressed a shudder at that thought.
"Think on this, then," Aunt Sadako suggested, seeming unperturbed by his attitude which was something that marked her as different when contrasted to his mother. Nara Yoshino would not have stood for even half of his impertinences today under the same situation. "What is intuition?"
What was it? Shikamaru blinked at her, thinking that was a pretty obvious thing to be asking. “It’s feeling-a gut sort of instinct that tells you when something is right or wrong to say or do.”
Aunt Sadako tilted her head at him. “Would you say that intuition just comes out of nowhere and strikes at whim, then?”
“No,” he said slowly, “but what does that have to do with anything?”
“Think of intuition as a combination of details so minor that your conscious mind doesn’t register them as having any great meaning,” she suggested, folding herself down at one of the tables and gesturing for him to take a seat. “Things that you can’t put a conscious finger on why they matter but somehow ping on your radar anyway.”
Shikamaru gave the table she was at-not the one he saw in his dreams, thankfully-a long dubious glance before he took a seat. He remained careful not to actually touch the thing, though. It was likely over-cautious but he figured that being overly cautious wouldn’t hurt anything. Tables didn’t have feelings, after all, and Aunt Sadako’s gaze understood. “And you’re saying that intuition, when looked at that way, is just the culmination of all the little details that are noticed on one level? But that can't actually be explained? So that rather than being anything like--illogic or feelings it's actually... logically based."
Shikamaru was, honestly, rather dubious about that.
Aunt Sadako nodded, her eyes never leaving his face "Exactly," she answered, "so will you be willing to consider that that may be in fact the case for the moment and allow the explanations to come as they do?"
Shikamaru considered that, staring down at the table, this one just plain wood thank goodness. "I can try," he said finally. "But I don't know how successful I'll be."
"Trying," Aunt Sadako answered, "is all that anyone can expect of each other."
They studied each other in silence and Shikamaru wondered where he was to begin asking his questions. "How old were you," he asked finally, "when you first started having nightmares like mine?"
She tapped her fingers against the wood of the table, the noise making him twitch. "Nine," she replied. "I was younger than you, you understand. The world was harder then--everyone went to war at a younger age and our imaginations had far more nightmares to produce. I am sure you can imagine how those two correlate."
Shikamaru thought of the number of nightmares that he'd found developing ever since he'd gotten back from the mission to rescue Uchiha from his own stupidity. He nodded. "I can--understand that," he said slowly, "though I don't think that it's entirely fair to blame us for the fact that we've been luckier than your generation has been, Aunt Sadako."
She rubbed her face. "I do sound a bit bitter then, don't I?" Aunt Sadako shook her head. "I'm sorry, it's complicated to explain. Yes, I'm very glad that your generation has been luckier, but it's also something that..."
A pause. "Part of me thinks is unfair. Why didn't my generation get the same chances?"
"Who can say that your generation didn't get the same chances?" Shikamaru asked, leaning forward but still refusing to place his arms on the table. Better not to risk it, he felt, even if it was becoming an increasingly silly worry amidst the rest of the temple. For some reason, the temple felt safe, and he wasn't sure what to make of that. As a shinobi he wasn't supposed to entirely trust his feelings like that.
But at the same time, sometimes, feelings had their place and his were telling him that here, no matter what happened here, he'd be safe enough. Shikamaru couldn't pin down exactly why that was but it helped sooth the tenseness in his shoulders as he watched his aunt tug her hitae-ite about and make a face as she realized the state of her hair. Girls.
"You've lost me," she admitted, giving him a sheepish grin at that. Shikamaru found himself feeling just a little more settled; it was nice knowing someone who didn't take offense to every little thing he disagreed with. "We had the same chances?"
"I don't know the exact details," Shikamaru said slowly, "as you say, it was your generation, not mine, but isn't it true that every generation starts out on the same level--it's them who decide what to make of the rest of their lives? So, in following that, maybe your generation had the same chances, but the playing board you had to work with was levelled differently. Personally," he continued, "I think you did a pretty good job with what you guys had to deal with. I mean--you did it, right? Peace was fought for and obtained."
For a few years. But that was the way of the shinobi world and both of them knew that. Peace and war were caught in a never-ending cycle.
He took a moment, while she gathered her thoughts, to look around the temple. Paint was peeling from the walls, having bubbled up in places, air pockets having formed underneath, and Shikamaru asked again, "Why is this place so run down?"
"You make a bizarre amount of sense for a teenager," Aunt Sadako said and, when he turned to look at her, grinned impishly. "And to answer your second question, well--where do you think we are?" Her green eyes were level and earnest so he decided to indulge her with the sidetracking. This time, he thought, it might lead to an answer that he could make sense of.
"A temple of some sort," Shikamaru answered, studying the tables and the floor--it was dusty rather than ruined, but the grit and dirt made it beyond filthy. His mother would've thrown a fit at the sight of it. "That's belongs to the family, though I've never heard that we worship or follow any religion beyond the Will of Fire that is said to embody all of Konoha's ninja."
Aunt Sadako nodded solemnly. "That's right," she replied. "We don't follow anything else in terms of gods. In point of fact, the reason we've got a temple at all was because it was the easiest way to deal with what goes on here."
Yet another answer that he was sure would make sense if only he had the proper background. Shikamaru remained silent and just raised one eyebrow inquiringly.
"You're a patient boy," she noted. "I wasn't nearly so patient when I was your age. Anyway, the temple is only usable by one in each generation."
Shikamaru looked around the temple again. "You... and me?"
That was interesting. They were, indeed, two separate generations but he wasn't sure what the point of that was. "Why would we have a temple that only one person or so every generation can use?"
"Because it's a repository," Aunt Sadako replied, shifting so she could settle herself more comfortably. Her elbows rested idly on the hard wood of the table and Shikamaru tried not to wince when she touched the table. "Not of knowledge though. I wouldn't call it a fount of wisdom, and you're not going to find all that many books here that hold mystical secrets or anything though we've got a few that used to be in the family library and then got forgot here at one point or another..."
"What is this a repository of then?" Tables?
"Haven't you guessed?" Her smile was tinged with wry amusement. "Shadow."
It would be, he thought, the height of rudeness to scold his father's sister, his aunt, for saying something that sounded so utterly ridiculous and troublesome. Shikamaru opened his mouth to protest anyway (he'd never been a paragon of politeness anyway and he surely had no plans to ever be considered as such) when he realized that his shadow was still missing. Swallowing as he put that together with what she'd just said. "Our shadows," he said abruptly, "they've gone to gain--knowledge--or something from the other shadows?"
For there had to be other shadows. Now that his attention had been brought to the fact, Shikamaru could vaguely sense the tickling pressure against the palms of his hands that signified the press of other shadows nearby. He hadn't noticed, Shikamaru realized, because they'd been registering as family. The hairs on the back of his neck began rising.
"Knowledge?" Aunt Sadako considered that. "I suppose that's what they're doing. Gossiping is more likely, though, but you can learn something even under those circumstances so I wouldn't say the talk that they're having is exactly useless."
Gossiping shadows were more than he wanted to think about right then and there. Especially with what else that had occurred to him while he'd added the facts all together and came up with answers that distressed him. "Is this some sort of--shadow grave site?" he asked abruptly, fully expecting her to laugh it off, tell him it was a ridiculous idea, or something.
She dashed his hopes.
"Yes," she answered simply. "The shadows of our ancestors remain in this building--that's why Nara will never allow it to be bought out nor will they get rid of it under any circumstances. In fact, even trying to sell it was crime enough in the family to get yourself exiled from the Clan when I was your age."
Shikamaru blinked at her, still stuck on the fact that she'd agreed with an idea that he'd mostly considered ludicrous and one that he'd much rather have gone on considering as such. "It is a grave?"
"There's no bodies here," Aunt Sadako assured him, and somehow he believed her. More intuition, he supposed. That and she was family-if he couldn't trust family then Shikamaru knew he was in worse straits than most of the village. Everyone needed some place to be able to relax and family was that for most active shinobi. Family or friends. "But for shadows, where did you think they went?"
"I thought they died out with the person." He shrugged uneasily. Shikamaru wasn't sure, now, what to think other than the fact that apparently he'd not known as much about his family as he'd thought. Secrets within secrets.
Fitting, almost, for a clan of shadow users.
Her grin didn't reassure him much. "You thought wrong then, boy."
Shikamaru considered that even as he gave up his attempts to avoid touching the table at all and rested one hand on it, butterfly light. It didn’t do anything; the table remained inert. Relaxing minutely, turned his mind to the problem presented in front of him.
He could feel shadows, now that Aunt Sadako had brought it up, but there didn’t seem to be anywhere near enough of them, as far as he could differentiate between them without devoting more time and energy than he really wanted to at the moment, to make up the entire Clan from inception.
Nara had never been a small clan, after all. Not all of them were fighters, were shinobi, some of them never did anything but take care of the deer, and they had people marry out of the Clan as well, but...
“The shadows here,” he said slowly, watching her carefully for confirmation of his hypothesis. “They’re only the shadows of those Nara who have the dreams as well as the nightmares, aren’t they?”
Aunt Sadako’s lips curved into a smile. “Very good,” she said approvingly. “You got it quicker than I did back when I was first brought here. Yes-only those with the dreams can enter this building. Most people, most Nara, can’t even find this temple these days. A few Nara know that it exists, it’s still on the register of Clan properties, but most of the family doesn’t really-hmmm-notice the property at all.”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Shikamaru wondered. “Even if it was a place for only the people in the family who get the dreams too, wouldn’t we have people coming to check out the property every now and then? Just out of curiosity?” He was lazy, but the idea of that was one that even Shikamaru could see getting into his head on occasion. One of those off-hand thoughts that wouldn’t be dismissed out of hand and would grow over time until a day when he’d really had nothing better to do.
“They can’t see it,” she repeated. “The shadows hide it from them unless they have one of the... guardians, I suppose, though that word makes us sound awfully lofty and we’re not really... but as I was saying, the shadows that exist here won’t let anyone, even from the Clan, find it unless they’ve got on of us with them.”
That made it, he thought, an excellent place to get away and hide from his mother if she were being especially troublesome. Shikamaru quirked his lips in a slight smile. “And it’s the same for those who aren’t in the Clan?”
“Very much so,” Aunt Sadako answered, brushing her hand over the table. “This isn’t meant as a place for most people. It’s a very... Clannish sort of thing and even then, only for a few, you understand. It’s not for bringing your friends to hang out-if you brought them, it should be only in an emergency. No enemy will find you here. Not in the heart of shadows.”
“Heart of shadows? Is that what this temple is actually called?” If so, he thought, that was a good enough reason in his estimation to never mention it to anyone else. Shikamaru had no interest in sounding anywhere near as lame as that sounded.
Her shrug was apologetic. “I didn’t name it either,” Aunt Sadako told him. “But yes, that’s what it’s actually called-it makes sense, from the perspective of what’s here, all things considered, but that doesn’t make the name any better to say out loud, does it?”
“No,” he snorted. “I can see why you’d want it kept a secret in that case.”
She shrugged again and Shikamaru had the impression that she was more humouring him than anything else. “It doesn’t really matter what we call it,” Aunt Sadako continued before he could decide whether he wanted to try calling her on it or not. “What matters is that you understand this is a place that only the dreamers can really come and go freely from.”
Her lips twisted ruefully. “Which would be why this place is in such disrepair. With only me to care for it, and being out on a mission for such a long time, it’s begun falling apart.”
Privately, he was of the opinion that she hadn’t been doing much in the way of reconstruction even before the mission she’d been sent out on. Some of his thoughts must have shown on his face because she wrinkled her nose and laughed.
“I never was,” she admitted freely, “much good at fixing things up. I don’t suppose you could do anything about this? I can carry things, but much beyond that and well...” Aunt Sadako gestured at the mess around them.
That time, he gave in to the urge to laugh. “And so we end up with something like this.”
Shikamaru glanced around at the peeling paint and puffy spots in the walls, at the thick layer of dust on everything, at the way that some leaves had gotten into here and though he couldn’t see any he was sure that there had to be vermin around. “Those lanterns are fire safe, right?” he asked as the thought occurred to him that it might not be entirely safe to have all of them going in the circumstances.
“That much, at least, I made sure of,” she answered. “They won’t be lighting anything else on fire-they’re designed so that even if they fall off the wall they’ll go out immediately rather than light anything else up.”
“Clever,’ Shikamaru said, wondering how they did that. He’d have to look into it later... “We’re going to be spending a fair bit of time here, aren’t we?”
“For sure,” Aunt Sadako said affirmatively. “Especially until you’ve gotten the basics down pat-we’re going all the way back to the beginning with your training on this.”
He made note of the questions that immediately sprung to mind at that bit of information and gave the place a dubious glance. “This is going to take a lot of work to clean up.” Shikamaru was not a particular fan of that idea-but at the same time, he thought that it might be along the same lines of his room.
Once it was clean, it’d be rather easy to keep clean. Even if this place was bigger than his room by far.
“I can lecture just as well while we’re elbow deep in soap suds and cleaning solution as I can if we were sitting at a table like a normal class,” Aunt Sadako pointed out, grinning at that. “And I’m sure you’d be able to ask your questions just as easily in the same situation.”
That was true enough, he acknowledged. In fact the steady work would probably free his mind up to focus more on what was being discussed. It was hard to be distracted when both your mind and body were occupied. “And you’re not going to be fussy when it comes to the fact that I’ll be free labour.”
Shikamaru also had to confess that it wasn’t as if he was doing anything that was more important. It wasn’t like he had missions or anything right now. Cleaning would give him something to do, and the fact that he’d be able to lump it under the heading of training meant that his mother wouldn’t be able to pick as much at him for being lazy.
“Got it in one,” she admitted, evidently amused at that. “You’re my nephew, after all. I’d be a poor aunt if I didn’t make you work now and then. Make no mistake, though, it’s going to be hard and you’ll be going home exhausted at the end of the day.”
“From a lecture?” he asked, interested in knowing how much of the practical they’d be doing if he was to, as Aunt Sadako had put it, start all over from the beginning.
She shook her head quickly at that suggestion. “Definitely not from the lecture. There’s quite a lot that you can train on while we’re cleaning up-using your shadow to help fetch things for you gets more tiring than you’d think when you’re doing it for the whole day, you know? And then once we get past the cleaning stage, which will take us a few days at least, you’re going to be working far more intensively with your shadow than you’ve done before. I know the training for our Clan is pretty evenly split between taijutsu and shadow training at your rank-“
“Even at the Chuunin level?” he asked, tapping his fingers idly on the table. Carefully. While noting that his shadow still hadn’t come back. He thought that it was likely that he wouldn’t see it again until they left the temple.
“At your level in the Chuunin rank, yes,” Aunt Sadako said, making a face. “Chuunin are a nice middle rank, but they range majorly in experience and strength and no offense, boy, but you’re on the lowest tier possible that way right now. Especially with the mess of your shadow and your own lazy tendencies. I’m going to have to beat that out of you.” The smile one her face said she was kidding.
Mostly. There was a certain set to her eyebrows that said some beating may be necessary.
Shikamaru wasn’t particularly reassured by that but was, at this point, up for almost anything that would get his shadow back under his control. He was tired of having it react to anything he felt or thought, even if it didn’t take up chakra to do so, and the idea of having a shadow that actually moved only when he wanted it to and the rest of the time acted like a perfectly ordinary shadow greatly appealed to him.
For that, he thought he could put in some hard work. Being lazy was something that he enjoyed, that he preferred, that he would rather-no doubt about it, if left to his natural inclinations, Shikamaru was not the world’s most active person and, in fact, was not even in the running for that position.
If he had his way he wouldn’t ever be in a position like that. But he couldn't always be lazy.
“How does that tie back to the dreams?” he asked. “I’m still confused about that bit-so the dreams signify that whoever gets them is one of those Nara who can see and enter this temple… but what does that have to do with the way my shadow has been acting up and the dreams themselves-are they just a marker of that?”
Because Odd-Ino was too well defined, he thought, to be something as simple as an indicator. It didn’t make sense to him. What sort of indicator could you spend months talking to, as if to another person, and yet have them do nothing but serve as a precursor to the nightmares? Odd-Ino was friendly, in her own complicated way, even if half the time she didn’t make much sense at all.
“The dreams are... first,” she said, obviously having changed her mind midway through the sentence, “just so you know, I will answer all your questions. But let’s deal with them one at a time, yeah?”
That seemed reasonable, to his thinking anyway, and Shikamaru nodded. Better that than have them hopelessly confused because they couldn’t stay on topic. His head was beginning to ache as well, and Shikamaru thought that was as much from the lighting as anything else. The lanterns helped a great deal but the place was still rather dark. “The dreams then,” he prompted.
“Right.”
He wondered if it was his imagination or the lighting but Aunt Sadako had started looking pale and tired. Her voice hinted at none of that however so Shikamaru resolved to simply keep an eye on her rather than draw attention to the fact.
“Anyway,” Aunt Sadako went on, seemingly unaware of his thoughts on her relative health. “The dreams are... a pressure valve.”
He leaned back, wondering if she'd mind if he got up to walk around. Sitting cross-legged the way he was made his legs ache just a little--and it didn't help that he was too close to the tables to do anything like shift himself enough to stretch out one leg at a time. "A pressure valve?" Shikamaru repeated, turning the words over in his mind even as he spoke them. "For the nightmares?"
If that was the case then Shikamaru wanted a new pressure valve. The dreams were not helping with the nightmares. If anything, they made it worse having to go from relative peace and quiet to something weird and dark and having to watch the people who were important to him die over and over. He turned dark eyes to stare moodily at his aunt and wondered what she'd have to say to that.
"Not for the nightmares," she denied, her eyes serene as she met his gaze easily. "But for your shadow. It helps to... bleed out excess emotion and allows you to maintain your control over your shadow."
Shikamaru raised his eyebrows skeptically.
"Once," Aunt Sadako clarified, sounding firm, "you've managed to go through proper training. I'm sure you noticed how it wasn't particularly effective beforehand."
No kidding, he thought. "So, what, if it's just a valve then..." Shikamaru quickly groped for the right word, "then why is there a personality?"
"Would you listen to your subconscious nearly as much if it didn't have a personality?" she asked, not answering his question but requesting an answer in turn. In that, Shikamaru thought, she and his father were well matched. Why answer questions when they could turn it around and make it so you had to find an answer on your own? And they called him lazy. Hmph.
"I..." Shikamaru frowned at his aunt. "That doesn't make entire sense."
"That's the way it works," Aunt Sadako said with cool authority. "Your subconscious takes a form that you'll listen to and once you've got your shadow under control you'll find that the personality becomes far more rounded--fracturing is a sign that there's something that needs to be dealt with in your control and in your life before it affects your shadow unduly."
He wasn't sure he even wanted to know what it meant that his subconscious had decided that he'd listen the best to Ino. He never listened to Ino. That was almost distressing to consider. Ino had a penetrating voice, to be sure, but...
But he didn't listen to her. Especially not when she went on one of her rambling rants about some thing or the other and he could do nothing but hope and pray that Asuma-sensei ended training early just so she'd shut up. Or something happened to distract her. Sometimes he played devil's advocate, Shikamaru knew, and goaded her on just to see where she'd end up with her rant. There was something deeply entertaining about her when she wasn't getting on his nerves. He huffed a laugh at that as an idea occurred to him.
"Something amusing?" Aunt Sadako asked curiously.
"Just figuring out something about my dreams," he answered, reluctant to go into detail.
Perhaps, Shikamaru figured, Ino was in his head because he'd be so interested in getting away from her rambling that his subconscious had figured that that was the quickest way of getting him to do something. If that was the case, he thought, his subconscious hadn't been paying enough attention to everything that was going on. Not by a long shot.
Odd-Ino was, well, odd. But he enjoyed her company on some level. It wasn't the real thing, of course, and he'd never want the real Ino, his teammate, in his mind for any length of time, but the fact remained that he... got along with her most of the time.
Just not lately. And even then, they'd managed to pull it together.
"What happens," he asked, not giving himself time to go through and convince himself that this would be a poor idea. "What happens when you enjoy the conversations you've got with the personality of the person in your dreams? I mean, conversations in your sleep, in your head, and being aware of the fact that they're dreams anyway..." Shikamaru wished vaguely that he hadn't brought it up in the first place.
Saying it out loud just made him sound insane, and that was the last thing he wanted to sound like when they were talking in all seriousness about the personalities that their subconscious' had. "Wouldn't it have made more sense for your subconscious to... be a reflection of yourself?"
Aunt Sadako's answering grin was deeply rueful. "How many people," she asked, "do you really think actually bother to listen to themselves when it comes to problems that they don't want to deal with? I assure you, the answer is 'not many'--no one wants to deal with things, or admit that they've got to deal with things, when they're buried so deep that the only way they even know they've got a few problems is through their nightmares. No, boy, it is better by far to have your personality in your dreams be someone else."
Shikamaru was still rather dubious about the validity of that claim but had to concede that his aunt certainly seemed to know more of what she was talking about than anyone else he'd had dealings with concerning this. "So," he continued, "if that's the case, and the... personality... keeps showing up because there's difficulties does that mean they won't show up when everything is fine?"
"No," Aunt Sadako shook her head. "That's not the case. They'll show up in your dreams every night, I'm afraid--"
"Will they always be the same person?" Shikamaru interrupted. "Personality, I mean."
"No again," she answered, giving him a tolerant look. "The personality, or person, that your mind chooses to express itself through varies depending entirely on who you'll listen to the most throughout your life. You won't be stuck with the same person all your life, they will change with you."
He felt a pang at that. Odd-Ino wasn't the same as her real world counterpart but Shikamaru didn't want her to disappear. "That's good to know," he said, already trying to figure out how that one worked. Was there some sort of... scale or something that the mind weighed degrees of listening to, he wondered.
"As I was saying," she said, giving him a look that dared him to interrupt her again. "They'll show up in your dreams every night because even if you're dealing with your problems well enough every day, they'll be there to handle the daily stress that accumulates." Her eyebrows rose. "Pressure valve."
Shikamaru nodded his understanding. "So that's why we've got the dreams then… why doesn't everyone in our family have to do that? We're all shadow users."
"You're too used to being able to consider everything being made equal," Aunt Sadako noted. "But the short answer, before you interrupt me to disagree with my statement--yes, I see your frown--is that our shadows are more connected to our emotions than most of the Clan's. For them using a shadow is like using any other sort of tool. Do you get attached to your kunai?"
He shook his head. "That'd be stupid."
She wrinkled her nose. "Well, if it's stupid, then we're both stupid. We're both rather attached to our shadows, born that way, and there's nothing we can do about it to get unattached. Your father, for instance, is an excellent shadow user. No one is deadlier with it--but he's not emotionally connected to it. Not on a subconscious level. If he has a nightmare, it doesn't upset his shadow. If we do," Aunt Sadako said frankly, "it does and will. So the only thing there is to do, when it comes to us... is learn to control as much as we can."
"That doesn't sound like much of a good thing to me," he said, making a face at that idea.
"It's not all bad," she answered, looking wan and Shikamaru was sure by now that it wasn't just the lighting in the temple that was causing it. "There's some techniques that we can use that most of the family can't, and our shadow is less dependent on the sun cover and amount of light that's in the sky. We've got more range, in short. But--"
"Only with control," Shikamaru finished, saying the words with her.
She laughed. "You've got it. Now, about your control, the very first thing you need to do is going to be walking through your shadow."
It was not the first time that she'd mentioned it, but Shikamaru felt that this time he could ask his questions. "What does that mean, exactly?"
"Precisely what I said," she answered and leaned forward. "Okay, before you narrow your eyes even more at me, I'll tell your mother on you if you keep that up-let's..."
Previous Chapter // Chapter List // Next Chapter