025 -- [Action || Voice]

[endgames]

[When Shikamaru heads down to Asuma's apartment Monday morning, he finds it empty of everything but Kurenai's things and a silver lighter standing on the table. It's wrong, but he doesn't give in to the false hope.

Of course it would stay. Even though Shikamaru gave it back to him, the lighter stopped being Asuma's the moment he picked it off his dying body.

Kurenai must've stepped out before it happened. She's a ninja, and not so senseless to have left the door wide open and run off in her grief. And so he waits for her, and tries to find his words.

After he leaves Kurenai, he has to tell Ino. Team 8 he'll find in person too - he has a request for them on top of this. It's been too long since they've heard a stir from their enemies.]

[It's well past midnight before an announcement comes, after he's made this post and spent a few hours going over the discussions there. When people are either busy with the information he gave them, or asleep.

He smokes a cigarette on his way back to his apartment in the night air, putting it out before he steps into the building, his posture falsely relaxed until he steps into his own room.]

Sarutobi Asuma is gone. [There's a pause and- no, he doesn't think it was mentioned.] Also, Haruno Sakura returned to her world a few weeks ago, for anyone who knew her.

Funnily enough, I haven't seen that masked Akatsuki guy in a while either...

[Too many people to filter that too. It's vague enough, but anyone who needs to know should get what he means. It would have been better news if he'd known before.

He'll answer journal comments in the morning.]

Comments

[endgames]

He left the village for a while when he was around my age - officially, not as a missing-nin. He was in the Daimyo's personal guard: one of the Twelve Guardian Ninja. They were disbanded for a while after he left - there was a messy coup within the group, and to make it short, in the end only two of the twelve lived.

[The group's been reinstated, Shikamaru remembers. Mostly because a month before Asuma died, he declined the Daimyo's invitation to join.]

Got a bounty on his head in the black market for it. Came back a chain smoker, too. [He wrinkles his nose in distaste, and looks at the wall again.] Shit smelled awful - he was always getting smoke in our eyes when Ino and Chouji and I were put in his cell.

[generalflirt]

[And yet you're coming in smelling like smoke?

...Stupid. That's stupid sentimentality. But he says nothing]

[endgames]

I remember him complaining at first that he got the short hand. "A loudmouth, a glutton, and a slacker." is what he'd say. He had two Dead Lasts, and Ino was boy crazy... [He shakes his head. They really were something else back then.]

He resorted to bribery to get us to do stuff. Ino wasn't hard, he just let her be boss of us guys. When we trained well, he rewarded Chouji by taking everyone out to barbecue. About got himself in debt like that.

[generalflirt]

Hooh, that says something about a ninja's salary.

[endgames]

And an Akimichi's appetite. Chouji likes to order two of everything off the menu.

[generalflirt]

[Hm. Oh well] And then?

[endgames]

Then he just had to motivate me.

[generalflirt]

More about the man.

[endgames]

[It's connected, sort of, in that Shikamaru was the one he spent the most time with.

He doesn't say these things to talk about himself - he hates doing that - but the amount of pride Asuma took in him... well, it's stupid, but it is who he was.]

He taught me shogi, and lost every game after. I spent more time with him than my parents, but he didn't seem to mind having a dumb kid like me bothering him and cutting into his free time.

He tricked me into an IQ test, and wouldn't stop bragging about it or how soon I was promoted to chuunin, which was troublesome. Getting the vest is supposed to be a rite of passage to adulthood, but our clans do things differently.

[He flicks one ear now with his finger, hitting the stud.] He had the final say, and he waited two years until Ino and Chouji were promoted too.

[It's not enough to say what he was like, you see, because that would never describe it. It's in the things he'd do. And he did a lot for Shikamaru.

.....but there was another side of him, with things he'd do for someone else.]

And it was around that time I think he fell in love.

[generalflirt]

[There's a lot he could pick apart there, not to mention some things he'll probably flicker back to. But for the time being-] Love, is it?

[endgames]

Yeah.

[And he sighs, because it's hard not to think back to Kurenai this morning. But he smiles anyways.]

It might have gone on even longer - to be honest, it's hard telling when it truly began. People thought they were dating for years, but they always said otherwise.

They were private about it, but I know he loved her for a long time. We were always running into Team 8 - that was her team. They'd take walks and get dango, and deny it all the while. He was a dork around her - it was gross and they never even kissed in front of us.

[At least that was his twelve-year-old view of it.]

After they didn't have teams anymore, I'd catch him at her house more often than his. He'd buy flowers and never say who they were for, but everyone knew.

[generalflirt]

Hoooh, so he's what you'd call "smooth."

[endgames]

I don't know how, but he must've been to have gotten with her in the end.

The truth of it remains between him and her, though. [Kenta circles around, and he pets him once again.] All I know is that it was special... something just for them, removed from a shinobi's regular way of life.

[generalflirt]

Ah, how so?

[endgames]

I told you he likes [-it's a slip, and his eyes flash but he won't backtrack to correct it-] to brag, right?

He wouldn't, when it came to her. Not to the Third, not to me.

But her place is where he would go, before we left on every mission. He'd stand across from her balcony when he didn't think we were waiting on him. If she was there, she would always smile.

[It's going to be a while before she smiles again.]

[generalflirt]

Liked. [Masaomi corrects quietly for Shikamaru around the time Shikamaru is mid-way through the rest of his explanation. Dead, dead. You can't think in present tense for it. There's no luxury for that. But.]

Hooh. That's a quaint couple though. Nooot sure it tells me as much about the man himself.

[endgames]

[He's right to correct him, but it's best to leave it at that. Now he just lists things, anything he can think of.]

He sucked at shogi, but it was his favorite pastime anyways. His favorite foods were sausage and soba. He hated asparagus.

He also hated being the Hokage's son, and always did things his own way. Ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu... he was never best in any of these, but he made up for it by being second best in all of them. He mastered Wind chakra, then went and learned Fire chakra. He could channel both through his trench knives - he was great with weapons. He learned techniques unique to the Fire Nation monks. Was strong as a bear too. I once watched him punch half a guy's face off.

[generalflirt]

Go on.

[Shikamaru's a genius. He'll have more. and Masaomi will have every detail he'll get.]

[endgames]

He didn't teach us any of those things. [He picks at the cloth of beanbag chair, at the seams.] While the other genin were learning flashy stuff, he drilled us on the basics. How to survive, how to think smart. How to be a team.

And when the other kids were stressed as hell and falling apart, he was making sure we were okay while still teaching us how to toughen up.

In the chuunin exams, he didn't step in when fights got nasty [and even now he can remember how Ino and him felt so unsure when Asuma was the only jounin who didn't step in to stop Neji from killing Hinata], but he always had our back. When Ino was KO'ed, he was the first one in there.

[generalflirt]

More. [...This is such a fascinating portrait of a man, really, aside from his overall goal]

[endgames]

He had his faults too. That stupid smoking, again. [He laughs.] He'd only stop was something was bothering him.

Asuma was too hard on Chouji sometimes. Not that he didn't need the push, but he'd try to motivate him by comparing him to [me] kids who were coming along better. Still, he listened when I pointed out why that was the wrong way to encourage him and switched tactics.

[He can talk and talk and talk, but eventually he's going to have to come to the end. But every other memory first.]

He was so annoyed when I forfeited in the finals. I think he had some bets going on me winning, because at the time he was the only one who knew I wasn't the worst student who wasn't Naruto. Lost some cash. But he made as many good bets as he did bad ones.

And it was way too easy to drag him into things he didn't want to do. Like when he got stuck teaching Naruto how to use Wind chakra.

[generalflirt]

Amicable, or just easily duped?

[He compared Chouji to you.]

[endgames]

Both. They [go] went hand-in-hand. That's how he ended up with us. Trying to get along with his dad.

[generalflirt]

Hooh. [So he didn't completely resent the old guy. Fair enough]

[endgames]

[Family, would be a good thing to talk about.]

He didn't have much family left by that point. His mother died when he was our age in the Kyuubi attack. His brother died... well I don't know when, I never met him. Long enough that he got a nephew - Konohamaru. Kid's a lot like Naruto. He's the only Sarutobi I know who's still alive.

The Third died when the village was invaded, protecting everyone. Asuma spent two years trying to figure out why he did what he did.

[If his words are to be trusted, he never fully got it until he was dying himself.]