Chapter 1: Rebirth
In the afternoon, on a soft patch of grass at the edge of the Konoha training grounds, a potato chip was suddenly thrust under Shikamaru's nose.
"Here, Shikamaru. New flavor!"
Akimichi Choji sat down next to Alex—or rather, the soul currently occupying the ten-year-old body of Nara Shikamaru. The bright sun made Alex squint, his consciousness feeling like a sinking ship.
The final moments of Earth's apocalypse—beams of destruction tearing the sky apart, the desperate collapse of the ground beneath his feet, the searing pain of his body being annihilated inch by inch in a torrent of pure energy… These fragments hadn't fully faded, still crashing against his nerves like a stubborn tide. They were immediately followed by the memories of Nara Shikamaru, a massive stream of data being forcibly downloaded into his mind.
Shikamaru. Nara Shikamaru. The Hidden Leaf Village. The Ninja Academy. Ten years old. Ino-Shika-Cho. And… a name that pierced through his chaotic thoughts like an icy needle—Sarutobi Asuma.
"Tch…" An unconscious sound escaped his throat, carrying that signature weariness Shikamaru felt toward anything troublesome.
Alex raised his hand, his fingers stiffly pinching the chip. The texture of the fried starch and Choji's unguarded, purely content munching were the most real things in this moment.
He mechanically stuffed the chip into his mouth. Crunch. The salty flavor spread across his tongue. While this body's sensory memory faithfully registered it as 'delicious,' the soul of Alex tasted something else entirely.
It was the helplessness associated with the character of 'Shikamaru' from his past life's memories. The lazy days, drifting aimlessly, only to be powerless against a true enemy. He could only watch as his teacher, Asuma, the man who always had a cigarette in his mouth and a wry smile on his face, was sacrificed to a dark god in the most brutal way by that lunatic, Hidan, just to buy them a chance to escape.
The image of Asuma falling, the gurgling in his throat as he failed to light one last cigarette, the broken sobs of Ino and Choji... this 'future,' which had not yet happened but was already seared into Alex's soul, burned him more intensely than the pain of Earth's destruction.
In his past life, he was Alex, an ordinary person who burned himself out to buy his world a few more moments of peace. In this life, he was Nara Shikamaru, a supposed 'genius' with a 200 IQ who found everything a drag and was destined to watch the people he cared about die.
"A drag?" Alex stared at his own outstretched hands—the hands of a ten-year-old boy. The nails were trimmed short, the fingertips calloused from shuriken practice. In his past life, these hands had activated the device that took everyone, himself included, to their doom. Could they do something different this time?
The chip crumbs stuck to the corner of his mouth. Choji was still diligently working through the contents of the bag, letting out satisfied sighs. The sun beat down on his scalp. Everything was so peaceful it was almost surreal.
"Choji," Alex began, his voice raspy from the transmigration and strangely calm. He turned to look at his friend's carefree, round face, the afternoon sun tracing a golden halo around his soft hair. "Are the chips… any good?"
"Yeah! They're suuuper good!" Choji nodded emphatically, his eyes curving into slits. He unhesitatingly pushed the bag closer. "You're acting weird today, Shikamaru. Still half-asleep?"
"Probably," Alex managed a lazy, Shikamaru-style smirk. He picked up a second chip but didn't eat it, just held it between his fingers.
His gaze drifted past Choji's round shoulders toward the distant silhouette of the Academy building nestled among the trees. Two years. Two years until graduation, until Asuma would become their Jonin leader. And seven years until that fatal mission.
For an ordinary person, two years was just a stretch of routine. But for Alex, armed with memories of the future and the 200 IQ of Nara Shikamaru, those two years were the only lever he had to change their fate.
The Ino-Shika-Cho trio would not repeat their tragic history, becoming side characters who relied on their teacher's protection only to be fodder in the brutal shinobi world. And Asuma, the man who was like a father to them, had to live!
The core of a plan began to rapidly take shape in his overclocked mind. Cold and clear.
"Choji," he said again, the last trace of a daze gone from his voice, replaced by a heavy calm. "Just eating chips... is getting a little boring."
"Huh?" Choji looked up, a shiny grease smudge on his cheek. "So... wanna play ninja? Or go back to sleep?" He offered the two most likely options for the Shikamaru he knew.
Alex shook his head, his fingers tightening slightly on the chip. Sunlight glinted in his eyes, reflecting a sharpness that didn't belong to a ten-year-old.
"Let's play for real." He stood and brushed the grass from his pants with Shikamaru's characteristic slowness, though his eyes were like drawn steel. "For instance, let's see if you can use the Partial Expansion Jutsu three times in a row, with less than three seconds between each one… all while keeping your balance, instead of rolling around like a popped balloon."
Choji's jaw dropped, the chip bag nearly slipping from his grasp. Disbelief was written all over his face. Using the Expansion Jutsu consecutively? And maintaining balance? That required immense chakra control! This wasn't the Shikamaru he knew—the one who would rather lie down than sit.
"Shikamaru? Did… did you get sunstroke or something?" Choji stammered, his small eyes wide with confusion.
"Probably," Alex replied, turning his back to the blinding sun. He tossed the chip into his mouth, crushing it with a loud crunch. His voice was muffled but carried an undeniable weight. "And from now on, I'm probably going to stay 'stupid.' Don't just stand there, fatty. You want to get to a point where no one ever dares to snatch your chips again?"
He watched as Choji's eyes went from bewildered to ignited by the simple, noble goal of 'protecting the chips.' In that moment, the first anchor of his grand plan had been set.
Choji was fired up, at least for now, in his own unique way. But convincing the next person was going to be a whole lot harder.
By the main street of Konoha, the air hung thick with a sweet, cloying fragrance. Flowers of every color bloomed in crowded racks outside a shop, their petals still dotted with morning dew that glittered like tiny rainbows in the afternoon sun.
The "Yamanaka Flowers" sign hung simply over the doorway. From across the street, standing in the shade of a tree, Alex—Shikamaru—watched the busy, pale-blonde figure inside.
Yamanaka Ino. At ten years old, she wore a light green sleeveless shirt and capri pants, her hair tied in a neat ponytail. She was standing on her tiptoes, trying to arrange a large bouquet of deep purple irises in a tall ceramic vase. The sunlight streaming through the shop window gave her blonde hair and focused profile a soft, golden glow. She hummed an out-of-tune melody, her movements filled with the lightheartedness and slightly clumsy charm of a girl her age. Pure, beautiful, like a small flower yet to face a storm.
But Alex's throat tightened. The peaceful image before him stood in brutal contrast to the memory fragment of a teenage Ino, kneeling in a pool of blood, cradling Asuma's cooling body while letting out a heart-wrenching scream. Those tears of despair felt like they were searing his retinas right now.
He took a deep breath, but the rich floral scent couldn't quell the heaviness in his chest. He stepped off the curb, crossed the sun-baked stone path, and pushed open the glass door, a small bell announcing his arrival.
Ting-a-ling—
The crisp sound startled Ino. She turned, and upon seeing who it was, her face bloomed into a radiant smile, like a sunflower turning to the sun.
"Well, well, if it isn't Shikamaru! What a rare sight!" she chirped, putting down the irises and dusting the pollen from her hands. "Not playing mushroom under a tree with Choji today? Or did you finally get a clue and decide to buy flowers for someone?" She gave him a mischievous wink, full of a young girl's playful cunning.
"What a drag. Who'd buy something like that?" Alex drawled, mimicking Shikamaru's usual tone, but his eyes lingered on Ino's bright smile for a fraction of a second too long.
That smile. He wanted to protect it.
He walked over to the vase Ino had been working on and casually picked up a small white daisy that had fallen on the table, unconsciously fiddling with its delicate petals.
"Ino," he began, his voice intentionally steady, though it couldn't completely hide an unusual tension. "Stop arranging flowers. Come with me."