Shikamaru knew something was wrong as he ran back toward Konoha. He didn't know what it was, but he was certain that something wasn't right. That last night, while carrying out his final watch before dawn, he hadn't slept a wink. He was so alert that he even made his team nervous, for no apparent reason. He took one last look around, making sure everything was in place, before sitting down to meditate on yet another possible hypothesis for his premonition.
Just as he thought of Harika, Naruto, a clone, appeared looking utterly shaken, and the world collapsed at his feet. His heart stopped for a single beat, long enough for him to realize he had stopped breathing.
"Shikamaru! She's gone! Someone took her!"
"They took who?" Ino asked, alarmed, her expression serious.
Shikamaru couldn't bring himself to speak. He simply took off running toward Konoha. He ran like never before. The knot in his throat stayed with him as he flew through the streets of his village, heading straight for Harika's apartment. As soon as he arrived, followed by Naruto and Ino, he realized that the atmosphere was strange in the landing that Naruto shared with his girlfriend. The negative presence was so strong he didn't even have to close his eyes to feel it. The protections he had placed on the door and around the apartment's perimeter were intact, but someone had tried to destroy them before realizing they couldn't get inside. It was clear that Harika's magic had made entry impossible, and her captor, upon realizing it, had given up before triggering the traps.
He took out the key his girlfriend had given him, opened the door without any trouble, and saw that Naruto was right. He didn't even need to walk through the apartment to realize that all of Harika's belongings were still inside, left unordered. Someone had taken her, had tried to get into her apartment for one reason or another, and then had given up. Surely, if they had been able to, they would have taken everything Harika had left behind.
"Shikamaru!" Ino called out, unable to enter the apartment. "Is it true? They took Harika?"
"Yes."
Naruto, standing beside him, placed a hand on his shoulder without saying a word. Shikamaru didn't look at him. He was leaning against the round table he had shared with his girlfriend days earlier, having breakfast together after making love. He was in shock. All that time trying to convince Harika to move to Konoha for her protection, to give him peace of mind while he went on missions, and now… now Harika had been kidnapped in the place where she was supposed to be safest.
"Who's the son of a bitch took her?" Naruto growled angrily, searching the apartment for clues. "There's nothing here."
"They couldn't get in, but they tried," he replied. Naruto snapped him back to reality with the force of a slap to the face. "Whoever it was that- I'm going to kill them."
Shock gave way to rage, to fury, to hatred. Someone had taken Harika. Someone had kidnapped his girlfriend. What if she were dea- NO. He wouldn't think about that. The cocktail of negative emotions flooded him, making his ears ring for the first time in his life. Never before had he felt such anger. He vibrated in place, vocal cords tense with hatred, longing to grab the culprit and rip out their guts with his bare hands. Oh, when he found them. Because he would.
He took out his coin and tried to contact her, but the message didn't go through. Confused, he tried again, but with no success. Shikamaru glanced sideways at Naruto, who was silently thinking, brow furrowed.
"How did you know she'd been taken?"
"Yesterday Harika told me she'd 'finally figured it out.' She had a scroll with her. She told me to read it, but I was exhausted so I went to sleep and promised I'd look at it in the morning. I slept like a rock, I swear, so I didn't hear anything."
"And that scroll?" he asked, ignoring the frantic pounding of his heart. Had Harika managed it? At least, he thought she had, because she'd asked Naruto for advice.
"I don't have it," his friend said, cutting his thoughts short. Shikamaru felt as if a bucket of cold water had been dumped over him, but before he could speak Naruto pointed at the table. "But I'd swear it was that one."
He opened the scroll, a small, fragile-looking one, and read it as fast as he could. It was the scroll, but contrary to what he had thought, it wasn't complex or a puzzle. It spoke of the Twelve Guardians of the Nexus, of how a series of portals had been created throughout the Land of Fire hundreds of years ago with the help of the Uzumaki, and of how they worked. Just as he had imagined, the portals recharged over time or manually, although the manual method required all Twelve Guardians at once. The exit points were random within a 50 km radius of one of the portals, which didn't entirely make sense, but-
"So?"
Shikamaru lifted his head from the scroll, feeling more focused now that he had a thread to pull on. The coin that wouldn't send messages, the stolen scroll, someone spying on Harika… They had stolen Naruto's scroll. Did they know or suspect its contents? They hadn't returned the copy to Naruto, which was telling. Whoever had stolen the scroll preferred to expose themselves rather than allow anyone else to know the information it contained, unaware that it was only a perfectly identical copy.
Without knowing it, Harika had screwed over her kidnapper. It was clear they had tried to get into the apartment to find out whether his girlfriend had notes, annotations, or something similar, perhaps to make it seem as though she had left of her own free will, but they hadn't realized that the stolen scroll was not the only copy. How could they have suspected it if they believed what they had in their hands was the original, thanks to Harika's incredible magic? It was obvious they had weighed whether the stolen scroll was real and therefore the only copy, because they had indeed tried to access the apartment. The fact that they had given up on forcing their way in meant they had ultimately decided it was the only copy—the original.
All of this, however, made him realize that the information about the Nexus was important to the kidnapper. Whoever it was, they were either trying to conceal the existence of the portals or… trying to make Harika disappear. If it had been a normal kidnapping, unrelated to the portals, why not kidnap her earlier? Outside Konoha she had been alone, wandering through the forests, supposedly easy prey for any ninja. Inside Konoha, however, they could have kidnapped her at any time while Naruto or he himself were on a mission. Days had passed since he'd left on his last mission. That meant whether he was in the village or not was irrelevant. She had been kidnapped precisely when Harika spoke to Naruto about the scroll. Could the Twelve Guardians of the Nexus be involved? But why? Everything seemed to point that way, yet something didn't sit right.
The more he thought about it, the more he realized Harika had to be alive. If the goal had been to kill her, he would have already found her dead. The kidnapper wouldn't have gone to such lengths choosing the timing of the abduction, no, they wouldn't even have bothered taking her. That thought both relieved and worried him. What did they want from her? To interrogate her? To imprison her?
"What are you thinking about?" Naruto asked, pulling him from his thoughts.
"That I have a bad feeling…"
He stood up from the chair and began to pace. He needed to think. He noticed Ino was gone, probably looking for Chouji, who had gone to deliver the mission report, and then he stared out the window with unfocused eyes.
The coin… it didn't make sense. Harika's coin connected to her friends hadn't worked since she arrived in this dimension. However, the coins his girlfriend had linked in order to communicate did work properly. So, either the coin, or the spell on it, had been destroyed, or Harika was no longer in this dimension. That was why he didn't believe the Twelve Guardians were responsible; they didn't know the device existed, nor did they know his girlfriend always carried the coin on her, in a pocket, to contact him as quickly as possible, so they wouldn't have thought to destroy something they didn't even know existed. Therefore, if the coin hadn't been destroyed, only the other possibility remained.
That would explain why they hadn't killed her, why the information from the scroll had disappeared, why the coin didn't work, or even why they had tried to access the apartment before giving up. Someone wanted to get rid of Harika without killing her, and although it was hard for him to understand the reason, he believed he was right in thinking they had used the information from the scroll to send her far away before destroying the information so no one else could go after her. But why? Why get rid of Harika in a nonviolent way? They hadn't killed her. They simply believed they had sent her away forever. Someone wanted Harika far from Konoha.
It was clear the kidnapper wasn't someone who wanted to take advantage of her or her powers, because they never would have let her escape. That comforted him greatly, even though he was tremendously furious that someone had dared to lay a hand on his girlfriend. But on the other hand, someone had targeted Harika personally. This whole matter was strange and reeked of a passion crime. A cold-thinking ninja would never have left so many loose ends. They wouldn't have left Harika's belongings behind like that, without knowing whether any loose end could come back to haunt them. No. Whoever had kidnapped Harika had done so opportunistically and with a clouded mind.
The kidnapper was someone who knew Harika, Naruto, or him. In fact, what if the real objective wasn't to get rid of Harika but to hurt him? Quite a few people had seen their… argument with Harika, had seen him chasing after her like the lovesick idiot he was. If someone wanted to hurt him, he had practically handed them one of his greatest weaknesses on a silver platter.
"When did Harika mention anything related to the scroll to you?"
"A couple of days ago. Maybe more."
"Let's say five days," he said, nodding. "It's clear the person who kidnapped her was spying on you, otherwise, why steal something they didn't know what it was? The kidnapper was in Konoha; maybe they're still in Konoha. Clearly a ninja."
"And where do you think Harika might be?"
"That's the problem… I think they used the information from the scroll to send Harika far away. I can't contact her through a device she herself created and that, until now, worked. The same thing happened when she tried to contact her friends upon arriving here."
"And you don't think that… they could have killed her and returned her body?"
"…" Shikamaru relaxed his jaw when he noticed his teeth grinding from rage and worry just imagining it. "I want to believe she's alive. If someone had wanted to kill her, they would have simply done it without so many detours. No. It's clear that making her disappear is the goal. Someone saw the opportunity and took it, without caring about anything else. All of this smells wrong to me… What ninja would act so recklessly? And it has to be a ninja, because Harika could easily overpower any civilian. Besides, Harika opened the door of her own free will, since she was kidnapped on the landing in the middle of the night, outside her protections and my traps. That means the kidnapper disguised themselves as someone she knows. Most likely…"
"Me or you."
"Exactly."
"…"
"Naruto, explain everything that's happened these past few days in relation to Harika."
"All right."
Naruto spoke for a while, and then they fell silent, thinking over everything they had discovered. He began to ask himself the questions again, just as his father had taught him when he was a four-year-old kid. Once he managed to answer all the questions, the mystery would be solved.
Who? Someone who had a problem with Harika, or someone who wanted to use his girlfriend to hurt Naruto or him. Someone who had been in the village days before her disappearance. A ninja. Unknown identity.
How? By impersonating Naruto or him, confirming the theory that it was a ninja. Likely using some kind of drug to keep Harika from screaming.
When? In the middle of the night. It showed premeditation, corroborating the theory that someone had been spying on Harika.
Where? On the stairway landing, bypassing the protections. Once again, it confirmed the theory that they knew about Harika's protections. Possibly… someone had been probing his traps and barriers.
Why? The great unknown. The moment he knew the motive, he would know the culprit's identity. What did he know about the why so far? Emotional motives. Who could hate Harika if she barely knew anyone? No. Wrong question. People don't need great reasons to commit atrocities… Another question. Who had Harika interacted with in recent days who was a ninja and knew she was connected to Naruto or to him? The kidnapper had used the form of someone familiar so Harika would open the door, so they had to know she had a relationship with both of them. Let's see: Ino and Chouji were ruled out since they'd been on a mission with him. Naruto was the one who had convinced Harika to move to Konoha and the one who had warned him about the kidnapping (and he was Naruto), so he was ruled out as well. Sakura had known Harika for ten minutes at most, didn't know what relationship she had with Shikamaru, and wouldn't want to hurt Naruto either. Sai… Naruto's new teammate had been the target of a joke by his girlfriend, but was that really enough of a motive?
"Tell me about Sai."
"What do you want me to tell you?"
"Does he strike you as someone driven by passion?"
"Ha! No way in hell! He's like a white broomstick with a dark wig and no emotions! He smiles and it's like your blood freezes—he looks like he doesn't have feelings."
"Definitely not," Shikamaru shook his head. He was the complete opposite of what the kidnapper had shown. "No. We're looking for someone emotional. Someone intelligent, but not too intelligent. Someone who thinks they're smart, but is clouded by their feelings."
"There could be quite a few of those in Konoha."
"I know, but ones who want to hurt Harika or me? I doubt it."
"You?" Naruto asked, surprised. Then he seemed to think it over. "Huh. Actually… yeah, it's possible. If they take away what you love most, they'd be attacking you directly."
"I know. Who else would Harika have interacted with?" he muttered to himself, pacing around the apartment as if searching for mental clarity. "Who would want to hurt her, or hurt me, who's known her since she arrived in Konoha?"
"Wait, Shikamaru… I don't think they want to hurt just you. I think that… what if… they want to hurt both of you?"
"What?" Shikamaru spun around sharply, seeing the horror on Naruto's face. "Do you have a lead?"
"It wouldn't be possible… that it was Temari, right?"
"Temari? She went back to Suna. As far as I know, she left the same day I went on my mission."
"No. No, no- she didn't. She stayed with the delegation. I don't know why, but I saw her."
Shikamaru felt like a complete fucking idiot when everything clicked perfectly into place. His mind stopped spinning and tied up every loose end. He hadn't even considered her because he thought she was far away, very far from Harika. He hadn't entertained the possibility that Temari might have stayed in Konoha when the last time he'd seen her, from a distance, she had been leaving, about to pass through the village gates. Why would she change her mind? Had she realized he was going on a mission? Was she waiting for him to leave to kidnap his girlfriend? Had she pretended to go to Suna just to have an alibi?
The moment he fully grasped that TEMARI had kidnapped Harika… he lunged toward the terrace doors, ready to go find her and kill her, when Naruto intercepted him. They crashed to the ground, fighting in Harika's apartment and smashing the terrace door.
"What the fuck are you doing, Naruto!? Let me go! I'M GOING TO KILL HER!"
"You're not thinking clearly!"
"What do you mean I'm not!? That- that bitch kidnapped my girlfriend! Get off me!"
"But she's also the Kazekage's sister! And we don't even know if it's true!"
Shikamaru shouted, furious, but Naruto was just as strong as he was. At that moment Chouji and Ino appeared, and before he could do anything more than growl and swallow his screams so as not to draw attention, he was knocked unconscious and dragged away.
…
"Are you calmer now?" Chouji asked when he noticed him coming to.
The rage took hold of him again as he regained consciousness and his mind reminded him why he'd been knocked out. He opened his eyes to see he was deep in the forest, accompanied by his team—minus Asuma—and Naruto. To top it all off, he was bound with chakra restraints. He shot a glare at Ino, the only one who could have gotten her hands on something like those, and then at Naruto.
"Naruto told us everything," Ino said, sighing as she sat down on the ground without any grace at all. She covered her eyes with her hands as if she were about to cry. "Fuck. This is my fault."
"What are you talking about?"
"The day we left on the mission… before we left, I ran into Temari near Konoha's gates and I couldn't help myself. You know I've always hated how she treated Shikamaru like a rag doll!" she justified herself toward Chouji, who sighed and nodded. "So, I told her… that you'd finally found someone who treated you the way you deserved, someone you loved. That's all I said! I didn't even mention Harika!"
Shikamaru slammed his head against the tree trunk, needing the pain to keep himself from calling her an idiot. Ino wasn't an idiot. She hadn't even done it on purpose, but it was clear that was what had triggered Temari's change of heart. The pain calmed him a little, soothing his rage.
"But Temari saw us before. She's not completely useless. She only had to add two plus two to know my new girlfriend was Harika," he thought aloud. "Fuck. Fuck! Why the hell did she do this!? Why!?"
"…"
"Because she's obsessed with the idea of you," Chouji finally replied. "I don't even think Temari is in love with you, but she's gotten it into her head that you're perfect for her. And I think that even if she knows you'll never go back to her… she feels better sending your girlfriend far away."
"Maybe I would have been, if I hadn't met Harika," he admitted. "I would have done everything she told me to do. Temari has always been someone who needs to control everything, and I would have handed that control to her without a second thought."
"But you left her. I think for someone like that, you leaving her, and not the other way around, must have felt like a kick in the stomach."
And seeing him with Harika, seeing how he had behaved, begging his girlfriend to listen to him and leaving Temari standing there without a second glance in favour of Harika… it must have felt like a bucket of cold water to Temari. He had never shown Temari any affection because he truly hadn't been in love with her. For Temari, the fact that Shikamaru could be attentive and loving, just not with her, must have hurt and infuriated her. Especially because he had broken up with her relatively recently. But kidnapping Harika because of that? Did she think that sending Harika far away would make him forget about her, or did she just want to hurt him? Something told him it was a mix of both.
Now he could imagine Temari spying on Harika, trying to see what had made him fall in love with her, overhearing something secret about the scroll. Undoubtedly, it had been fortuitous: she had seen the opportunity and taken it. She had used the scroll to send Harika far away, likely taking advantage of the fact that she was leaving Konoha legitimately with Suna's delegation so she could slip away for a moment to get rid of Harika. If Temari had seen the scroll, it was clear she would have thought of using the nearest Nexus to remove his girlfriend as quickly as possible, and that point was the Uzumaki Temple.
The urge to find her and interrogate her, to hurt her, was overwhelming, but right now it was practically impossible. He was bound hand and foot, his chakra immobilized, and miles away from Temari.
"And we found something you should see," Ino said, jumping to her feet abruptly. She pulled from her backpack something that looked burned and twisted by flames. "This was outside Harika's apartment. It set a small part of the façade on fire before being extinguished as if by magic."
Shikamaru trembled as he realized that Temari really had tried to get rid of Harika's belongings. She hadn't been able to get into the apartment, but she had tried to eliminate loose ends by setting the place on fire. He was sure that the moment she saw the flames, she fled with Harika in her arms, without stopping to see whether the entire building would burn or not. Unfortunately for Temari, his girlfriend's protections had worked too well and had extinguished the fire within seconds. If only Temari had stayed a few moments longer instead of fleeing the scene like a common criminal, she would have realized her plan had failed.
Even so, he had to admit it was a halfway decent plan. If the fire had consumed Harika's apartment, he would have had almost no threads left to pull.
"Oh, Temari… you let your feelings get the better of you," Shikamaru hissed inwardly, realizing his ex-girlfriend had acted driven by her blind thirst for revenge. "And you're going to pay for it. Sooner or later…"
"So, what do we do now?" Chouji asked, clearly worried. He glanced at Shikamaru sideways, knowing he must be plotting something. "We can't go after Temari. We don't know for sure if this is her doing."
"I don't care about Temari."
"You don't even believe that yourself."
The sarcasm in Ino's voice exasperated him so much he couldn't help shooting her a sharp look. His friend raised her hands in a gesture of peace while Chouji elbowed her lightly. Meanwhile, Naruto was pacing back and forth, still incredulous that Temari could have done something like this. Shikamaru himself found it hard to believe. Temari could be many things, but endangering their alliance just because he had rejected her? Did she think what had happened wouldn't escalate because Harika was a "civilian" with no ties to Konoha's ninja clans? He didn't understand it at all. Honestly… what did she expect to happen now that his girlfriend was gone? Did she think he would shrug, forget about Harika, and end up being hers?
"I don't care about Temari," he repeated, dragging out the words, still sprawled on the ground. "What matters right now is Harika. I have to go after her. No. I'm going to go after her, so take these cuffs off me, Ino."
"And that's it? I just take the cuffs off and let you wander off to look for your girlfriend? Are you insane!? How are you going to leave the village without permission? That's treason!"
"I'm not going to sit around waiting for approval!" he shouted, glaring at Ino. "Don't you understand that I can't stay here, waiting, doing nothing!?"
"The Shikamaru from a few months ago would have been eager to leave, yes, but he would have consulted your father, the Hokage. You would have done things by the book," Ino threw her hands into the air as if pleading with the heavens. "You never would have thought of discarding protocol, not when it could get you exiled! So no, I don't understand it! Think, please! What's changed, Shikamaru?"
"THAT I'M COMPLETELY IN LOVE WITH HER!"
His shout echoed through the clearing, fading among the trees. He saw the stunned expressions of his team, Ino's shocked face, she clearly hadn't understood the intensity of his feelings, and the lack of surprise on Naruto's face, to whom he had spoken at length about Harika during his moments of weakness, when they had been apart. He had never been one to express his feelings and emotions, preferring to keep his distance to protect himself, but since meeting Harika everything had changed.
Sometimes he found himself smiling in the street, longing to shout to the four winds that he was madly in love with her; only decorum kept him from proclaiming his love to strangers. He had talked to Ino and Chouji about Harika, of course, and had answered many of their questions, but they had never directly asked whether he loved his girlfriend or not. Perhaps because they mistakenly believed he was the same as before, the one who didn't talk about his feelings. If they had asked, he would have told them how much he loved her, how much he longed to return home to be with her, how much he wanted to wake up in the morning with her by his side again, or how he counted the hours until he could sleep with her in his arms.
The village? Yes, it would hurt to leave by his own choice, but it would hurt even more to stay in his new home waiting for the higher-ups to grant him permission to leave Konoha. Being exiled or stripped of his rank would break his heart, but he would survive. However, if he did nothing and then Harika-… if he did nothing and lost Harika, he would never get over it. He would live the rest of his days feeling like a coward, guilty for not having tried. No. He had to go after her, he had to make sure she was safe, he had to be with her again no matter the cost.
"Take the cuffs off me, Ino," he asked again, having regained his composure and patience. He looked his friend straight in the eyes so she would know he meant it. "Do it, or I'll never forgive you."
Ino closed her eyes and took a breath. She looked at Naruto, who said nothing, and then at Chouji. When Chouji nodded silently, Ino stepped forward and removed the cuffs. His chakra began to flow through his body again, electrifying his skin, and he had to stretch a bit to shake off the stiffness. He stood up, brushed the dirt off himself without a word, and then checked the scroll. When he saw he still had it on him, he finally relaxed.
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going after her. You stay here."
"You think we're going to let you go alone?" Ino asked with a scoffing sound. "No fucking way."
"We don't all need to get exiled."
"We're not letting you go alone, Shikamaru! We're a team!"
"And that's exactly why I need you to stay here," he reminded them. "My plan is to come back with her. That's what we both talked about, living here in Konoha, so if we want to return, I'll need you to stay behind and smooth the way."
"We will," Chouji promised, taking Ino by the shoulder as she clearly debated whether to argue further. "Are you leaving now?"
"The sooner, the better."
"I'm going with you."
All of Team 10 turned to look at Naruto. Shikamaru said nothing and didn't ask for his reasons as Naruto raised his hands in a placating gesture under Ino's stunned gaze, and to a lesser extent, Chouji's. Shikamaru didn't quite understand it either. In fact, he was almost nervous about what he himself was about to do—he'd only known Harika for a few months, and here he was, about to risk his neck for her. But Naruto?
"Why?" Chouji finally asked.
"I've spent years trying to bring Sasuke back, without much success. Sasuke is my rival, but he's also my teammate… and my friend who's suffering," Naruto said with a sad expression. "Harika wants to be with Shikamaru, I know that, and both Shikamaru and Harika are my friends. If I can help you both achieve what I haven't been able to achieve with Sasuke… it would make me very happy."
"If that's what you want, Naruto, I won't deny your help. Besides, the fact that you're coming with me will surely be very useful when we return."
"Obviously. Who would say no to letting a jinchūriki back into the village?"
"So, when do we leave?"
"In half an hour. We meet here."
Shikamaru nodded without saying anything else and headed toward his house. He had to prepare to escape Konoha and find his girlfriend. No matter the cost. As for Temari… he would start thinking about what he was going to do to her when they returned. Because she was going to pay.