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

[generalflirt]

So the Third was one of those "heroes," was he?

[He's giving Shikamaru an option to derail himself. It's, in essence, a test to see if he'll use it to avoid Asuma's death]

[endgames]

[He knows what he's doing, but he doesn't care. He'll take it anyways.]

That's what Hokages are. The village's leader. The village's hero. The Third died because the Fourth died being a hero, because we had to have another Hokage die before anyone was ready to look for a Fifth.

[He worries for Naruto, sometimes. But the guy's a hero whether he becomes Hokage or not, by this point.]

According to Asuma, their real worst enemy is paperwork.

[According to Asuma, if it weren't for that, I could be Hokage. He's right. I would hate it.]

[generalflirt]

Eeeh, a leader who's a "hero," huh? [You're weak, Shikamaru. You're avoiding the end. But fine, he'll allow it. He'll in fact further derail it, leaning further back in his chair, getting more comfortable, he forces a smile]

That seems so foreign.

[endgames]

For all you get the things I say sometimes, our worlds are still very different after all.

[Picking, picking.]

[generalflirt]

It's true. A leader who's a "hero" is a fantasy on Earth. A fantasy or some child's game [The type of leader I was goes unsaid there] A leader's job isn't to sacrifice himself for his people, it's to sacrifice just enough of other people to ensure that the majority make it out okay. In war, that means sending "heroes" to die and signing off on the boxes of bones.

[endgames]

That's why I'll never get why people say my world is so bad. Even with all the awful things that happen [more than just how he was raised, he thinks of the Uchiha massacre] I can still be proud of my home.

[Which is something he doesn't think Masaomi has ever been. For all that he doesn't like people claiming their ways are superior, he still prefers life in Luceti more, doesn't he?

But he won't rub that in.]

I've never felt like a tool. [And for all the bad he's learned that came out of Konoha, he knows things are different now. He's seen it first hand, with his Hokage and his treasured friends. Alive and dead.] Or a weapon that could be disposed... which is a common thing that happens, elsewhere.

Asuma made it sound like we were all important pieces. More than shogi pieces, but still vital players on the board. And it wasn't the Hokage he called the King.

[generalflirt]

[No, a world which employs child soldiers is still terrible. One which so inhibits freedom that you are probably expecting death already is still terrible. It's still something which had made you a tool.

But you're willing, aren't you? You love it, don't you?

He closes his eyes a moment, and then thinks through the pieces and who it could mean... given a ninja...] For a soldier, the "King" would have to be the civilian in such an ideal world.

[endgames]

Close. [And for the first time in a while, he makes eye contact. The subject of this is something too precious to him to play off like it doesn't matter.] It's the children. The next generation, who will always surpass us.

[The most important piece, not strong enough to defend itself.]

1/3

[generalflirt]

[...Ah. Well, that makes sense.]

[generalflirt]

[" Whoever is out there and paying attention to this, I'm in need of yourself. My name is Kurenai and I can't find my child. I don't know if she has been taken — please, return her to me. She's just an infant and in need of her mother! "]

[generalflirt]

[Hnh.

Yeah, that makes total sense]

[endgames]

Mm. Figured it out, huh.

[generalflirt]

Dude, dude that's terrible. [which... is probably why he's laughing.]

[endgames]

Yeah. [Oh yes, laugh at his life's ambition, and how Luceti likes to keep tearing it and the people involved to shreds. It's cool.

Well, it's at least a distraction. There's only one story left after this, after all. He digs into his pocket to find the lighter.]

[generalflirt]

Taking a widow here without her kid? Wow, that's just comically villainous. [He laughs some more here. He's tired. He's tired and the reaction he's having to this is showing it plainly]

[endgames]

And then send back her dead lover. Now she has neither of them.

[Just talking for talking. He doesn't know what he feels to Masaomi's reaction... if he thinks about it, he knows he's not doing it to be malicious. Masaomi's his friend, and it's because he's his friend that he's being dragged through the pits just like he is.

But it's too easy to hear his laughter in place of that right now. Shikamaru opens and closes the lighter, just to hear the metallic click.]

[generalflirt]

It's true! It would have been kinder to make her vanish too. [More laughing... but it dies down quick enough. He looks over at what Shikamaru's doing] Just so you know, no smoking in here.

[endgames]

[He wouldn't, he hates the smell too much. He doesn't want it lingering in places he hasn't intended it to. Keeping on doing what he's doing is answer enough to that.

It kills him to realize it, but Masaomi is right. He swore to look out for her, but he could stand as her bodyguard twenty four hours a day and still not be able to help her. And to get her over this again...

It's not that he won't try, or that the others won't try, only that he can see his best efforts will likely end in failure. She has to be able to pull herself some of the way too.]

[generalflirt]

Far kinder. After all, no one can pull you through grief.

[That's said darkly, and then he exhales. Okay, so now it's time to move on. Move on to the end of the story. He waves his hand at Shikamaru. Tell him about Asuma. The end of it]

[endgames]

[His eyes flicker back up at that comment, blankly, but he nods. Closes the lighter in one hand.]

You remember those Akatsuki guys I told you about, I'm sure. They remain a huge threat to the world, but for a time there were more than a couple of them. The Land of Fire instated a group of twenty platoons, tasked to hunt them down. The Niju Shotai.

All of Team 10 was assigned to this task, though we were split up. Ino and Chouji were assigned to a squad with two special jounin, and Asuma and I were on another with Izumo and Kotetsu. Weird guys, but good chuunin. Asuma was captain of the squad.

One day, we got a lead on Akatsuki activity. Two men in the signature cloaks had attacked the Fire Temple, and slaughtered all of the monks within. The twenty platoons were dispatched. Our squad stopped by the ruins of the temple, where the monks who were away were collecting the bodies.

There was only one they could not account for: a monk named Chiriku. He was a good friend of Asuma's, the only other one of the Twelve Ninja Guardian who had survived the coup as he did.

[generalflirt]

[Nod. ...Terrorists have a signature cloak? Oh well]

[endgames]

Like Asuma, Chiriku's body had a bounty on the black market. We realized it could have been taken to an exchange point, and alerted the four closest squads to stake out the locations, while we headed to the fifth. Our location turned out to be the one.

We thought we had gotten very lucky. When we got there, one was sitting outside like an idiot, while his partner was inside. Should've been easy as pie.

[He counts off his strategy - it was his, after all.] Asuma was the bait, and lured him into position. I nabbed him with my shadow. Izumo and Kotetsu came from the sides with their swords, and stabbed him through while he couldn't move.

[If it had been anyone else, that should've been it.]

[generalflirt]

[There's a but here. But he smiles in spite of himself, that's a sound strategy]

[endgames]

As it turned out, it was useless. He was immortal. We just alerted his partner.

[generalflirt]

...Wait, like. Seriously immortal? That exists?