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On The Cusp	By : Okami-Rayne Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male > Shikamaru/Neji Views: 2205 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: NARUTO and its respective characters were created and are owned by Masashi Kishimoto. No copyright infringement intended. I make no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 3
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- 5
ON THE CUSP

by Okami Rayne

Chapter Four

Something was off.

Shikamaru sensed it like a sour turn in a too-sweet smile.

Not that Temari was smiling, exactly. She was watching him with a slim smirk, aquamarine eyes scintillating in a distinctly scheming way.

Not good.

And then her lips curled further in a vicious, cat-like smile, every bit the crouching feline, biding her time, claws at the ready, waiting to catch the cream and kill the canary in one swipe.

She's still pissed.

Shikamaru straightened in his chair, unaware that Asuma was glancing between them like a spectator at a game. The shadow-nin wasn't in the mood to play, but he sensed the games commencing as Temari smoothly paced towards the table, chin high, lips still tilted in that shrewd smirk.

Here we go.

Shikamaru's brain began to shift modes, calculating as he watched the Suna kunoichi approach – until Naruto accosted her halfway, all grins and greetings and eager for news about Gaara. Temari indulged him, hand still propped on her hip, body curved in a fixed 's' that naturally accentuated her curves without intention or effort.

Shikamaru's eyes traced the flare of her hip.

Asuma cleared his throat, the sound rattling like a chuckle.

It drew Shikamaru's gaze across in a lazy slide. "What?"

"Nothing," Asuma teased, tapping ash into an empty side plate.

Shikamaru scowled and glanced back at Temari. He knocked the ends of his chopsticks in a rhythmic click that matched the steady tick and turn of the gears in his mind. While it was possible she'd pounced on a chance to get even with him, he guessed her agenda in Konoha included bigger fish.

The peace negotiations, that's got to be it.

Ino nudged him in the ribs, drawing a muted hiss from him.

"Oi," he growled.

"I can practically feel your stupid brain buzzing," she sniped, leaning in to flick him on the temple. "Don't make me come in there."

Shikamaru stabbed her with his chopsticks when she reached to adjust his hat. "Worse than my nagging mother."

Ino stuck her tongue out then sipped her drink, squinting hard over the rim of her cup as she narrowed a fierce look on him, carrying the threat of an earful. Predicting the level of flak he was about to take, Shikamaru glanced at Asuma for support, only to find his sensei's eyes fixed across the room.

Both students noticed and looked across at the same time.

Ino choked on her drink, cupping her mouth quickly.

Shikamaru zeroed in on the troublesome reason for her fluster and barely curbed the urge to roll his eyes.

Of course...

Standing in the doorway, obstinate enough to be built into the frame, stood a broad-shouldered young man barely willing to budge out of the way of the attendants flitting in and out the room.

Shikamaru arched a brow.

The guy was working a failed attempt at a casual look, his thumb hooked stiffly into the belt of his yukata as he cocked an awkward slant, making Shikamaru wonder if he hadn't practiced in front of a mirror, selecting the smarmiest pose at his disposal.

What an idiot.

Taking in the total package of moronic self-inflation, Shikamaru noted the brazen stare the guy had fixed on Ino. Brazen enough to prickle an instant dislike and irritation in the shadow-nin – more for the fact that Ino was likely to respond to this dumbass.

Only she didn't.

To Shikamaru's surprise, Ino sat stiffly in her seat. No preening, no hair flicks, no subtle dips of her shoulder or sidelong, sultry glances. If anything, she actually looked embarrassed, the corners of her mouth twisting in a grimace.

Shikamaru noted the odd reaction, but Asuma responded to it.

And all he did was shift position. A subtle roll of muscle and the Jōnin turned a little in his seat, setting the heel of his hand to the very edge of the table, cigarette perched and smoking between his fingers.

A deliberate and dangerous pause – the warning kind.

Shikamaru could detect the signal. It rang sharper than the clang of the thick, metal bracelet haloing his sensei's wrist as Asuma leaned into the press of his hand. Just one push was all it would take for the Sarutobi to vault the table in a heartbeat.

"Ino," Asuma said casually, not taking his eyes off the stranger for a second. "Friend of yours?"

Ino gave a little squeak of surprise, caught off guard before she smiled tightly. "Oh, he's just the son of the manager."

Taking the clinical observation technique, Shikamaru leaned back a little, weighing up the different signals firing off from his sensei, his teammate and the manager's son dubbed 'Moron' in his mind.

And judging from the signals, something was getting lost in translation.

Sure, the guy was leering, but Ino had the tendency to draw those kinds of base looks from men, given the signals she sent out. But the odd nervousness she was emitting like a sonic wave had obviously hit Asuma in a place Shikamaru didn't understand.

She's not a kid. She could kick this guy's ass into next week…

Which didn't explain why she was looking flighty.

Weird.

Shikamaru frowned, glancing between his sensei, Ino and Moron by the door. The man clearly wasn't a shinobi if the guy's radar for danger – or lack thereof – was any hint.

Brawn over brain.

It took another few seconds of ogling Ino before the idiot sensed Asuma's fixed stare knifing across the room. The second Moron sensed the warning, he straightened up from his misaligned pose, but like a dumb dog not getting the hierarchy, he shifted quickly into annoyed alpha-wannabe mode. His leer curdled into a sneer. He even went so far as to prove how much of an idiot he was by arching a brow at the Jōnin – a challenge.

Shikamaru glanced at Asuma.

Asuma smirked without amusement and very slowly crushed out his cigarette.

Moron is screwed.

Before Asuma could rise, Ino beat him to it.

She bolted to her feet with a high little laugh and a flamboyant circling and waving of her wrists, like she was swatting flies or trying to shoo away the tension.

"I'll be right back!" she announced, abandoning her hat and squeezing her way around the other end of the table to avoid crossing Asuma.

Shikamaru watched this all through his lashes, brow arched like the dark curve of a question mark on his face.

Weird just got weirder.

The blonde trotted her way across the room in her heels, transforming her approach to a hip-swinging strut halfway to the door, like some bizarre jutsu in the works. Asuma kept his gaze on Ino until she vanished with Moron out the door, then his expression flatlined as he reached across to take up his cigarettes.

"Relax, Shikamaru."

"Are you serious? You're the one handing out the death glares." Shikamaru lowered his voice. "Why?"

"It's your birthday, you've got an excuse to take off your thinking cap." He shot Shikamaru's hat a look, lightening his words with a lame joke. "Literally."

Ignoring the chatter and laughter still drifting around the table, Shikamaru failed to respond to the humour, his eyes narrowing in question.

Asuma, just as evasive as his student, ignored the scrutinising look, pocketed his smokes and pushed up from the table. "Have a good one. I'll stop by tomorrow."

"Yeah…" Shikamaru cocked his head up, the stupid hat tilting to one side as he frowned.

"Try to get into the spirit of things," Asuma teased, slipping a cigarette between his lips, eyes on the door as he rounded the table. "That doesn't mean alcohol, by the way."

Shikamaru scoffed, offering a lazy smirk. "That's the image of you have of me, huh? Nice."

"Hey now, you don't care about your image, remember?" Asuma chuckled, pausing long enough to shoot a pointed look in Temari's direction. "Then again…"

Shikamaru shook his head, expression flat as he looked away. Asuma chuckled at his embarrassment, offered a distracted half-wave, half-salute and headed for the exit, weaving between attendants bringing the next course of food.

Shikamaru stared after the trail of his sensei's smoke, which tangled and vanished into the swathe of steam wafting from the sizzling dishes being brought into the room.

"Where'd Asuma-sensei go?" Chōji called across, glancing down the length of the table.

Shikamaru waved off the question. "Had something to take care of."

What's up with that?

It didn't make sense. Ino had laid enough idiots on their asses to prove she was quite capable of handling herself. However, while Shikamaru's brain churned around all the evidence weighing in favour of that belief, there was still the niggling question mark hanging on his conscience. He looked at her discarded hat.

Troublesome girl...

His eyes pinched with a concern he tried to push away. Fortunately, the shift in chatter and change of chairs drew Shikamaru's attention back to the table. People had begun switching seats again, rotating their way to new dishes and gravitating into a tighter knit around the table.

Like a game of musical chairs.

Shikamaru refused to move.

He reached across the table in a minimal-effort slant and brushed fingers with Temari as she beat him to the chopsticks. Snatching them up, she whipped them over her knuckles like a set of senbons as she took a seat opposite him.

"Too much effort to move a little faster, Shikamaru?" she purred teasingly. "I keep waiting for you to surprise me."

Shikamaru withdrew his hand, setting his chin in his palm. "My lack of usual chauvinism isn't enough?"

"Oh?"

He glanced at the apprehended chopsticks. "Ladies first," he drawled.

Temari smirked, batting her lashes with phony girlishness that did little to distract Shikamaru from the fact that she'd always carried herself like a woman. As a Genin he'd pinned it on her annoying, overconfident, overdeveloped sense of maturity and the condescending manner with which she regarded most men.

As lesser creatures.

Add her opinion of men to Shikamaru's less than flattering view of women at the time and it had made for some interesting exchanges between them. Even so, back in the early days enduring a conversation with Temari had been aggravating and troublesome more for her tendency to speak in a way that was at once innocent yet shrewdly designed to draw blood.

Her sharp edges were a little too sharp.

Until the day he'd cut her back.

And then their dynamics had changed.

Verbal blows had eased into banter. Occasionally egos got bruised, but no blood was drawn.

As a Chūnin, he'd come to see other sides of her, like facets of a jewel that had been cut hard and abrasive from life's tough lessons. Occasionally, he'd catch a glimpse of something beneath the sass and sarcasm, which he sensed she used to keep people at arms length. Even now, she made a subconscious effort not to angle herself too close, one arm pressed flat across the edge of the table, guarding her torso. For a woman who had no trouble handing out threats, she seemed to constantly feel threatened.

Shikamaru watched her idly, taking up Asuma's unused chopsticks. "Hope you weren't looking for an escort."

Temari arched a neat, golden brow, lips twisting into a smirk around the piece of tofu she brought to her lips. "Just a rematch, but beating you on your birthday wouldn't be very polite."

"How t—"

"Troublesome…" Temari finished.

"Typical," Shikamaru corrected, wearing a half-smile as he reached up to take off his 'road cone' hat. He set it on Ino's seat. "I'm blown away by your consideration."

"Well, considering the trouble you caused me, I have every right to blow you away, Nara," Temari pointed out, a coarse fibre working into the rich texture of her voice. "And you know what I'm talking about."

Yeah, still pissed.

Shikamaru snorted, flicking a glance at her. "You're joking. That was months ago."

"Well remembered," Temari praised sarcastically, teeth bared in a smile. "Do you remember that the first time you pulled that shit I warned you not to do it again?"

Hesitating, Shikamaru felt his habit to immediately recall the time shot down by the severe urge not to remember. Like a strobe flicker, the memories flashed in and out, controlled by a rapid shift in his thoughts as he focused on something else, looking across the table.

"Hn." He shrugged, reaching for a fresh pair of chopsticks. "Get over it. I ran out of parlour tricks for your 'guests'."

"I'll get over it when you grow up," Temari returned, her voice hardening. "You left me in the deep end covering your lazy, insolent ass. Powerful people don't like losing face."

"Losing face?" Shikamaru smirked bitterly, his eyes shifting constantly for a distraction as his gut tightened. "They don't like losing. Period."

"And what? It's your place to teach them a lesson?" Temari scoffed, fingering her chopsticks like thin blades. "You need to watch it, Nara. Just because you're smart, it doesn't make you superior."

Those words stopped him cold.

His dark eyes ceased their scanning, freezing in a blank stare.

It doesn't make you superior…

Shikamaru's blood chilled and his knuckles blanched as he gripped the chopsticks just shy of snapping the wood. Like splinters of ice, those words sliced into a place he thought he'd numbed over time.

"Smart-alecky little shit, you think you're superior?"

The memory struck him so suddenly and unexpectedly the air thinned and his throat constricted. He swallowed against the grip of an unseen hand. Then he felt it, the blackness of a long subdued feeling smouldering low and fierce in his gut, turning rocks of heavy emotion into a glow of hot, hissing coals.

Stop.

The heat of his anger almost hit his eyes.

Calm down.

He blinked hard.

Change the thought. Now.

Automatically, with a speed he'd perfected over time, he immediately rewired his brain before he could latch onto the memories, drawing a slow breath through his nose as he eased his grip on the chopsticks.

Temari watched him, teal eyes shaded by a look he couldn't place and didn't want to.

Aiming to knock her off the mark, Shikamaru shot her a sharp look from under his lashes, his voice a little rough. "You go ahead and hide a knife behind a pretty smile, but get off my damn back about it. I'm not into political bullshit."

Temari gazed at him quietly for a moment. "Why so bitter?"

Shikamaru recovered smoothly, his lips lacing a smirk. "Because power games are troublesome."

"Not just for you," Temari pointed out. "We're allies, in case you've forgotten, and it doesn't put Suna in a good position when you act like a disrespectful brat on my turf."

Her words didn't carry, but the edge in her voice did. Chōji and Kiba looked across the table, the latter picking up on the tension as if scenting it. Under the table, Akamaru shifted at the dog-nin's feet, grumbling.

Shikamaru leaned forward, dropping his voice below earshot. "Your turf or anyone else's, I don't appreciate being headhunted like some highest-bidder prize catch. I'm not gonna play their games, Temari."

Temari leaned in sharply, never one to back down when it came to asserting her will over anyone bold enough to challenge her – but it wasn't anger flicking in her eyes as she glared back. "When it affects how other villages see Suna, Shikamaru, it's never a game."

"It's always a game," Shikamaru growled out, his breath scattering steam from the sizzling dish set between them. "Trading players and taking pawns. What did you expect?"

"Be worried about what I suspect."

"What?"

A flicker of suspicion and awareness danced behind Temari's eyes. "You're not fooling me, slacker-clown. Maybe once, three years ago, but not twice. You've got a real problem with one of the Daimyos. Why?"

"Whatever," Shikamaru returned, a muscle twitching in his jaw. He speared a piece of food, feigning an appetite. "Did you seriously come here to kill the mood and henpeck me about work and power-hungry dignitaries?"

Temari leaned back in her seat. Her quick retort didn't come and a brief silence hinted at her own calculation as she measured up his words and his expression, dissecting them shrewdly and cross-referencing them coolly before she let the topic slide – somewhat.

She slowly plucked a steaming piece of tofu from the sizzling dish.

"No, not here for work. This is all about pleasure for me." Temari hummed, savouring the morsel of food less than the look on his face. "Besides, there are kinder ways to get even."

Shikamaru stopped chewing, arching a brow. "Even, huh?"

"Hell hath no fury, Nara." And if the flash of wicked, scheming humour in her eyes hadn't shone with promise, he might have seriously hoped that hell's fury was figurative.

No such luck…

But as Asuma had always told him, luck was a lady.

Murder was simple.

Whether the method would be, was always questionable.

Dismemberment, for instance, was a messy business. But Asuma couldn't deny that he was seriously considering it as he fought the urge to cut off every finger and every limb attached to the sonofabitch currently stroking his knuckles along his student's cheek with a leer.

That hand is the first thing to go.

The man had cornered Ino in a display room overlooking one of the gardens. And while she wasn't putting up a fight, her discomfort would have been blatant to any male without his brain between his legs. She feigned a hair-flick to escape the hand grazing her cheek, laughing a little too tremulously at whatever the bastard murmured in her ear.

"I don't th—" Her reply cut off in a tight gasp as he pressed her into the wall, still running a commentary into her ear; one that Asuma was glad he didn't hear if Ino's wide-eyed expression was any indication of the context.

That's it.

Asuma reached for a trench knife.

Ino's palm slid up and set itself firmly against the man's chest, giving a push that she softened with a shaken little giggle. "Very funny, Yori-san."

Yori dropped a hand to her hip. "Not joking. Call this practice."

Ino's brows tugged low, blue eyes flashing as she swallowed quickly. "No."

"No? You teasing me?" The young male drew back to look her in the eye. "I know a bad girl from a good one," he simpered with a chuckle. "Besides, 'hard to get' is always a turn on."

"Can't imagine how excited you must get over the word 'no'," Asuma drawled, his voice startling the man into jerking his head up, snatching his hands back from Ino as if she'd suddenly become toxic.

Asuma smirked, stepping out of the shadows by the threshold. "If a simple word like that is 'hard to get', it must make everyday conversation a hormonal riot for a piece of shit like you."

Ino tugged her skirt down from where it had ridden up her bare thighs and froze against the wall, mortified. Asuma didn't look at her, his eyes on the man currently glancing between them like a slack-jawed idiot searching for a clue.

Then the prick decided to attempt to grow a pair of balls and squared his shoulders tersely. "Who the fuck are you? Her daddy?"

Asuma blinked very slowly and slotted a cigarette between his lips. "Ino. Leave."

Ino straightened against the wall, sniffing to pull up her composure and any salt of humiliation threatening to escape her eyes. "Sensei, I—"

"Leave."

She did, pivoting on a high heel to exit the room in quick, short strides.

Asuma waited until he heard the rap of her heels quieten along the hallway, then he lit his cigarette, deliberate and slow, watching the sweat bead at Yori's forehead.

"What? She's needs a permission slip from her teacher?" the guy snarled, pacing back, then forward, then back again, like one of those puny breeds of dog that was all bark and no bite. "Get real."

Asuma exhaled twin jets of smoke from his nose, just watching, waiting and exuding a lethal vibe without having to say a word or make a move. Yet.

The sweat on Yori's face turned cold. He held up a damp palm in warning. "This is assault. You can't touch me, ninja. I'm unarmed. Shinobi have codes…and…rules…!"

"Sure we do." Asuma began to circle the younger man slowly, moving in by degrees. "In fact, we have a special rule where trash like you is concerned. Want to know what it is?"

The man turned in jerky movements, aiming to keep Asuma in front of him. His fingers twitched nervously. "This is bullshit," he snarled.

Asuma hummed casually, closing distance in quarter turns. "The rule's not all that 'hard to get', even by idiot standards, but I won't put it past you to get a kick out of it. I know I sure will."

Yori blanched, skin as white as the flash of his teeth as he bared them in a growl, hissing now. "She came onto me. You can all get the hell out of my ryokan! Get out!"

"You're talking too much." Asuma shook his head in mock disappointment, sighing loud and long. "And now I'm not feeling heard. That really pisses me off."

"Fuck you!" Yori hollered, deciding in a moment of moronic machismo that offense was the best defence.

He threw a punch that was so far from connecting Asuma had time to take another drag of his smoke as he ducked under the swing and came up behind the idiot. He grabbed Yori's hand, broke the wrist in a snap, twisted the arm up behind the bastard's back and rammed him face first into the wall. Tooth enamel went flying and the satisfying crunch of bone and muffled scream of pain only served to tickle the itch of Asuma's fury rather than scratch it.

"The rule is simple." His voice rumbled at the man's ear, clouding the air with smoke and threat. "When it comes to scum like you, there are no rules."

"FUCK!" Yori dragged in a watery, bloody gasp, sobbing. "Y-you broke…You can't do—"

"You really don't want to know what I can do and will do if you so much as breathe in her direction again." Asuma pulled a tad harder on the twisted arm, forcing the man onto the tips of his toes. "I'll cut you into so many pieces they won't have a limb left to bury when they're done mopping you up."

Yori went deadly still, blood bubbles fizzing at his nose. The strong reek of urine played just beneath the sour stench of sweat.

"Need it simpler, kid?" Asuma smirked, pushing the twisted limb higher to wring a yelp out of the bastard, exerting pressure by leaning in. "Are you getting this?"

"Yes! I get it, I get it!" Yori squealed, face squished against the wall.

"Good. Get this too. If you make trouble for any of the kids here, today or tomorrow, I'll take that as you not having heard me." He paused here, angling his jaw to look down at the mess of the man's face. "And as we've established. That doesn't make me very happy. Does it?"

"No." Yori choked out a shaky breath, globs of blood smearing the wall. "No…"

"No. Getting a better grasp of that word now? Or should I have your old lady come in here and explain it to you?"

"NO!" Yori twisted his head with a garbled cry. "Please! No."

"That's what I thought." Asuma gave another little push that almost cracked more bone before he stepped back and dusted off his hands on his flak jacket. "Tch."

Yori slumped in a heap, one hand cupping his caved nose and broken teeth, the other cradled to his chest as he curled foetal-like on the floor. Without so much as a blink, Asuma left the idiot to his misery, slotting the door shut behind him. He paused outside only long enough to close his eyes and recite a Buddhist mantra in his mind, stilling the thunder in his blood, waiting for the anger to abate before opening his eyes.

He glanced along the amber-hued corridor half-swathed with shadow until the light hit a mane of pale hair, burnished gold in the glow, drawing his gaze across to his student. Ino stood slouched against the wall, worrying a thumbnail between her teeth, luminous blue orbs wide and wet and staring at the floor.

Asuma sighed, his eyes softening.

For a moment, she was twelve years old again, slouched against the wall, kicking herself for screwing up or falling short of the crazy competitive standards she set herself. Watching her now, a memory of a conversation they'd once had blindsided him.

"No one's interested in the flower's roots sensei, just its pretty petals. No one likes an ugly flower. See, isn't this one pretty?"

"Sure…won't last long without its roots though."

"No one cares about that. They don't buy flowers to look after them, they just like the pretty petals while they last."

"Yeah?"

"Mmn hmn. And when the flower wilts even a little, they just throw it away. Like this one here. See?"

"And what about this one?"

"That's not ready yet. I have to cut it."

"Why not let it keep its roots? Won't have to throw it away then because it'll bloom again."

"…No one sticks around that long, sensei."

Asuma pulled himself back from the memory and slotted it away as carefully as a pressed flower in the mental file he kept on each of his students. Letting his initial unease pass, he gathered a deep breath and made no effort to disguise his approach.

Shit. How do I handle this one?

Ino snapped from her glazed stare the second she heard the thud of his footsteps.

She straightened up quickly, brushed her thumbs under her eyes then dropped her hands, lips drawn in a tight line to keep her expression in check.

Asuma pressed his back into the wall beside her, lit up another cigarette, sucked in a lungful of tar and nicotine and tipped his head up, blowing a thin trail towards the ceiling.

He didn't get a chance to start.

"It's not what you think," Ino whispered quickly, staring at the wall ahead, face hidden behind her bangs. "And I…I could have handled it fine."

"I know you could have," Asuma agreed, watching the smoke dissipate.

"I would have too," Ino insisted, but she shrank back into the wall a little. "I'm a kunoichi, not some helpless, useless geisha."

Asuma arched a brow at the comparison. "Geisha?"

"I…" Ino squeezed her eyes shut and twisted her fingers into the hem of her cowl-necked top. "Doesn't hurt to test out a few tricks. Kunoichi learn those things, you know."

Yeah, I wish they didn't…

A stupid, selfish thought that was completely impractical.

Kunoichi were often twice as deadly for their ability to charm and seduce.

Kurenai had prepped him on the kind of training Ino would undergo outside of his mentorship and unfortunately outside of his control. All kunoichi learned the basics of using their feminine wiles as weapons. But the fundamentals were just the foundation for a far more intense kind of training.

Asuma frowned at the thought.

Mitarashi Anko oversaw the intense stages, reserved for special candidates. The ninja art of Seduction. While it pained Asuma to admit it, Ino had the tendency to work her wiles a little too fulsomely and had drawn Anko's eye. The young Yamanaka had set herself up as a ripe pick. Anko had noticed the young Yamanaka's 'potential' right away and she'd had no problem confronting Asuma and the Godaime about her plans to recruit.

"She's got the potential. Add her potential to her advanced knowledge of poisons, plus her excellent test scores at the academy and we've got brains and beauty. She'll be an excellent candidate."

"No."

"Why? She has the confidence and the inclination."

"You don't know a damn thing about my students. Go sink your fangs into someone else."

"Oh get over your protective, surrogate father bullshit, Sarutobi."

"Little bitter about Orochimaru?"

"Asuma, watch it."

"Hokage-sama, as her sensei, I'm completely against this. And I'm sure Inoichi-san will skin Anko alive for even considering it."

"She's a woman, not a little girl."

"She's fourteen years old."

"If she's old enough to fight and die, she's old enough to learn how to fu—"

"Finish that sentence, Mitarashi, I dare you."

"Anko, Asuma, that's enough. The decision will rest with her when the time comes."

So Asuma had waited for that time.

And the second he'd seen that time coming, he'd stepped in to make sure it never happened.

He'd signed her up for the Nijū Shōtai.

"It all went to plan anyway. He fell for it," Ino said suddenly, drawing him back from his musings. "Two nights and a party free of charge."

"Oh really?" Asuma challenged, looking down at her out the corner of his eye. "He seemed to be looking for payment."

Ino blushed fiercely and folded her arms across her torso, turning her head away. "Well he got it wrong. I told his mom I'd be his escort for a seal-the-deal business date. I…I just had to hang off his arm and look pretty, it's no big deal."

"Ino. He wanted you to be his escort…" Asuma dropped the last word with a grave turn in his voice and his expression. "You're smart enough to know what that means to idiots like that."

"I'm not a naïve little girl." She flicked her wrist, sniffing as she stared down the corridor. "Men are easy to play anyway. I'd have handled it fine."

Asuma's brow tightened. "You're sixteen years old, Ino. And you're playing with hormonal boys, not men."

"He was twenty and I'm seventeen tomorrow," Ino pointed out quite irrelevantly and irritably, quickly adding weight to her argument, "Besides, men don't grow up or out of the 'hormonal boy stage' anyway."

Asuma snorted at that, rubbing his thumb at the corner of his mouth to smooth out his smile. He turned to brace his shoulder against the wall, looking down at her as she kept her head bowed and her gaze averted.

Then he waited.

Ino turned her shoulder into the wall, facing away.

Any minute now…

Her fingertips dug into her upper arms, which banded tighter around her stiff frame. "The loser wasn't even a ninja," she growled, a quiver in her voice.

Asuma didn't respond, just watched her quietly.

Any. Minute.

A tense, torturous silence passed.

Asuma waited it out.

And then Ino sniffed, her shoulders jerking once.

There.

"Don't tell Shikamaru or Chōji…" she whispered miserably, pressing into the wall.

Asuma winced, feeling awkward and oversized; like a giant holding a fragile glass flower. While fragile wasn't a word anyone else might associate with her, he'd come to learn that Ino was every bit a combination of the fragile and fierce flowers she worked with.

She came with sharp thorns, pretty petals and trembling roots.

Unfortunately, she pruned herself ruthlessly, without the gentle care and respect that she handled her flowers with. She flourished under the sunlight of attention and affection but wilted painfully hard in the shadow of an unexplainable insecurity and inadequacy.

Where'd that confident girl go?

Iruka's reports on her as an academy student only matched some of the facets she chose to let bloom and flower now. Others she'd viciously uprooted like weeds or simply let wither with neglect.

Why?

The minute she'd hit her teens, her bubbling motivation had begun to turn like a leaf in autumn until the fire had bled out and she'd wilted in places she used to stand strong. And beneath the fickle front she put up for everyone around her, Asuma sensed a tender vulnerability at the core. One nettled by a self-inflicted kind of angst he wasn't sure he was qualified to handle.

Shit. What if I can't?

As with each of his students, it didn't stop him from wanting to try. His initial urge was to tell her to 'pause' as he sprinted to Kurenai's, educated himself on how to proceed and then sprinted back again, reciting mental notes.

Kurenai had said something about other female influences in her life.

If that's the case, then why does she keep looking to men for approval and acceptance?

And from the worst kind of men.

As far as he knew, Inoichi had always doted on her, so it didn't really make sense.

Shikamaru's right. It's one hell of a Rubik's Cube.

And he'd have to figure it out – or get the lazy genius and Chōji to.

They need to stand together again. They've begun to forget to rely on each other.

Ino sniffed, scrubbing the heel of her hand across each cheekbone in a sharp swipe to erase the tears. "Promise you won't say anything."

Asuma set a hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly. "Not a word."

"Cross your heart?" Ino teased weakly, looking over her shoulder.

Asuma tapped a fist to his chest. "I swear on my cigarettes."

Ino giggled a little, twisting around to straighten up and smooth her hands over several imaginary creases in her clothes. "Good. So can I get on with my mission now?" She forced a smile.

Brave girl.

"Mission?"

Ino rolled her eyes, brushing her thumbs across her lashes to sweep away the tears impaled on the dark spikes. "Duh, Shikamaru is a mission. Getting him to chill lately is like pulling teeth."

No lie…

Asuma hummed, scratching at his jaw. "What you're doing for him. I'm proud of you."

Ino froze for a moment, then waved her hands around in that butterfly flutter of nervousness. "Oh come on, it's no big deal."

"Yeah. It is. You're a thoughtful girl." A statement of fact rather than flattery. The acknowledgement in his voice had Ino quietening instantly.

She picked at the fabric of her top with a sad little smile. "Yeah? Tell that to him."

"He knows," Asuma assured, tilting his head to glance down the hallway. "Just has trouble showing it."

"Don't I know it," Ino snorted, but at least she was smiling now. "Boys."

"You should avoid them at all costs," Asuma warned mockingly. "Off you go, birthday girl, before they wonder where you are."

He turned on his heel, but she caught his sleeve with a quick little tug, retreating behind her bangs when he glanced over his shoulder.

"Asuma-sensei?"

"Hmn?"

Ino ducked her head, voice small. "Thank you."

Asuma nodded gently.

Embarrassed, Ino threw in a dose of humour to lighten the mood, cooing. "We got the best and most badass sensei."

Asuma reddened, laughed and looked at his feet, fanning his fingers through the dark strands at the back of his head as he grumbled something unintelligible that had Ino giggling. Deciding that the transference of embarrassment was worth it, he chuckled gruffly and quickly lit up another cigarette.

"Go torture that slacker instead of me."

Ino's giggle bloomed into a grin. "Like you even had to suggest it." She twirled on a heel and called over her shoulder. "It's my mission!"

The Memorial Stone.

Konoha's shared tombstone for ninja killed in action. For bodies never brought home. Its stone bosom was where the living came to hang their hearts, heavy and hurting from memories of the dead.

But you have no resting place…

Neji traced his eyes across the cut of names engraved into the stone, the grooves deep and black. The sunset emblazoned the kunai-shaped structure, throwing its shadow far beyond...a shadow of death, pointing out a path only ghosts could follow.

Did they bury you? Burn you? Leave you to rot?

Neji closed his eyes slowly, swallowing hard.

The clan offer nothing to remember you…while you gave up everything…

He focused on the gentle 'shush' of the leaves, soothing his grief in a rustle as the wind played through his hair, stroking the mocha strands away from his face. The faint ache at his temples and brow eased a little, nothing compared to the ache in his chest.

It has become so hard to rest, father...are you resting, wherever you are?

No answer came, just the cool caress of the breeze.

And then the faintest flare of chakra.

Neji's eyes drifted open, his gaze settling on the shadow that cast itself across the stone slabs haloing the monument. A silhouette with scarecrow-like hair canted to one side and accentuated by the pull of the sunset.

Kakashi tipped his head a little. "Neji."

"Good evening, Kakashi-senpai."

The sound of a book clapping shut illustrated itself in the copy-nin's shadow. "Mn."

Neji turned his head slightly, his profile cut in a dying glow of gold that slid down into the hollow beneath one moonstone eye and bathed the high rise of his cheek. He watched the copy-nin closely.

Kakashi's left side faced him, leaving Neji to assume that the other ninja was gazing at the names in the Stone. "Gai was looking for you."

Neji turned his head back, hitai-ate flashing. "I've spoken with him, thank you."

Kakashi nodded. He said nothing more.

The grass around the monument rippled in the breeze, shifting shades like a reversible cloak. Somewhere above, an eagle screeched. The air began to cool as the light began to change. For a long while both Jōnin stood in the silence, ensconced in their thoughts and finding peace in the privacy of prayers unspoken. Paying divided respects to whomever they'd lost.

And then Kakashi spoke, his voice as easy as the breeze. "It's a tough path."

Neji blinked, the only sign that he was taken aback by the sudden words.

"Is it?" he queried, not sure he was in the mood for a cryptic riddle, though for some reason he seemed to sense an underlying directness.

Kakashi tilted a little, his movements exaggerated by his shadow as he cocked a hip, shifting his weight and the gravity in his voice. "And every time you wear the mask, it becomes harder to take it off."

Neji looked across. "Forgive my need for clarity, senpai, but you're a shinobi who has always masked his face. Your riddle is obscure."

Kakashi turned his head, dark eye curved in a smile. "Obscurity is the purpose of a good riddle. But I think you know the mask I'm referring to."

ANBU…

Glancing away, Neji settled his gaze on the stone, following the script of names without reading them. "Chains are harder to be free of than masks, Kakashi-senpai."

Kakashi nodded. "Both come at a price."

Neji's lip twitched in a weak quirk as he hummed. "And as one who'd know, you think it's wise to warn me of the cost?"

"Hmn. I'll tell you what I think and what I know." Kakashi tilted his chin up, gazing just beyond the dulled tip of the Memorial Stone. "I think you think you know what the cost might be, yet I know that what you think you know isn't what you'll wish you had known before you thought you knew what you did, just to realise that you didn't know until you really knew. That's what I think. You know?"

Neji blinked.

What?

Completely thrown by the cerebral twist and turn in words, Neji froze, both brain and body, trying to keep his balance as he scrambled blindly for a moment.

That made absolutely no sense…or did it? Wait…no…but I…damn it…

Kakashi's eye crinkled again. "Now you have no idea, do you?"

Neji's jaw twitched and he glanced across blankly. "I imagine Gai-sensei might think that psychological trick is 'hip and cool', but I'd rather you were direct."

"Nothing." Kakashi said – and the cold, detached way he said it turned his relaxed and lilting timbre into something taut and toneless.

It set Neji on edge.

The Hyūga turned a little more. "What do you mean 'nothing'?"

"It costs nothing. Because you have nothing." Kakashi kept his grey eye on the Memorial Stone, his voice as blunt as its worn edges. "You take that path when you have nothing to lose."

Direct.

Like a punch in the gut.

Neji's stomach tightened.

Kakashi raised his jaw, indicating that he was looking skyward briefly. "Nothing left. Nothing to surrender. Nothing and no one to give up. When everything has been taken away or lost and there's nothing worth holding on to. That's when you do it. You give up what you don't have, to give something back to this village and the people in it."

Neji frowned, searching Kakashi's profile as the light began to shift into the preternatural hues of twilight, the last traces of gold vanishing into deepening purples and inky folds.

"If your words are designed to sway me, you're wasting your time," Neji said quietly, looking away. "I have something to gain, rather than nothing to lose."

Kakashi hummed, the sound pitched in query before he dropped his chin, looking back to the Stone. "Riding on the devil's back to get where you think you need to go, doesn't guarantee you anything."

And if I'm in hell already? What's the difference?

"Is that what ANBU is?" Neji asked, finding it difficult to make that kind of morbid comparison, given that no matter how dark the zone, it still operated to serve the village. "You make it sound like a curse, rather than a choice a shinobi makes."

Kakashi's mask rippled a little, the faint shift in the fabric the only giveaway that he'd sighed at all. His eyes remained glued to the Memorial Stone. "It has less to do what ANBU is and everything to do with what ANBU does to those who go in under an illusion of elitism or escapism."

Escape…

That word was like a blade across his heart. Neji steeled himself against it, giving nothing away behind the closed, cool veneer of a mask as trademark to his face as Kakashi's own.

"Who says I'm under an illusion?" Neji returned coolly, voice calmer than the quiver of his nerves. He felt them tightening against the pluck of Kakashi's words, which seemed designed to trigger doubt.

Is he testing me?

That wasn't a possibility to be ruled out. If he was to pass any form of psychological evaluation, it would make sense that someone like Kakashi might give him a prep-screening.

Neji raised his chin and dropped his tone. "I would not make a decision based on a whim or a childish ideal. And I'm not interested in elitism or escape."

Kakashi looked across. "Then what are your motives?"

Motives…

Like a phantom stealing cold across his mind, a memory resurrected itself, hitting Neji's brain in a rush of words he'd spoken not so long ago – yet somehow feeling as if it came from a lifetime long past.

"Did you ever stop to think that your motives would mean absolutely nothing to me, Shikamaru! Actions are what matter! What you do, not what you intend!"

Neji blinked slowly, his lashes hovering low to shield his eyes from the grey one fixed on him.

What are my motives?

"Necessity," he murmured.

"Necessity," Kakashi spoke the word back to him, without inflection.

It was spoken like an echo.

Gods, maybe it was an echo.

Neji wasn't sure.

Whether it was Kakashi's or his own voice that had shaped the word last, it didn't matter…because as it bounced around in Neji's mind, the letters scrambled, swapped, shivered and slipped until they fell out of his head, dropping his focus hard onto his heart.

And the second his focus shifted, so did the word.

Necessity.

Need.

"Maybe I needed you."

Nara.

Neji pulled in a ragged breath. The soft sound tore like a rip on the air, catching hoarse and low in his throat. He barely noticed when Kakashi turned and walked away, leaving him to face what was aching through the muscle and bone of his chest, searching for his heart.

Need.

The last thing he had left to lose.

TBC.

A/N: A slightly less humorous chapter, but to use Neji's word, a "necessary" one. I hope you enjoyed reading. ^_^ I'll try to get the next one up a.s.a.p. And for anyone wondering, yes indeed, Shikamaru and Neji will cross paths – it's imminent.

A/N (2) Don't worry if you're thinking WTF are Temari and Shikamaru nattering on about - it will become clear later ^_^

A/N (3): Random trivia; Kakashi's 'trick' is an actual psychological tactic used to screw up one's neural-pathways when processing. Yes, I'm into that strain of psychology - which explains my insanity, I think - you know? I'll stop now.
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