Naruto: If I ask you to kill Sasuke, you will become a succubus?

"You can't close your mouth." Shikamaru stood in the yard, his hands in his pockets, looking at me and jokingly said, "Why are you so surprised?"

My mouth isn't open that wide!

"How...how did you find this place?!"

"Well..." Shikamaru's eyes shifted for a moment: "I prayed to the heavens and said, God, please tell me where Chaolu is. Then I followed my intuition and felt that you should be here, so I came here."

"…You must be kidding, right?"

Shikamaru looked at me and smiled, "How have you been lately, Asaka?"

His casual tone made me feel a little at a loss for a moment: "Recently, it's been pretty good."

"Is that true?"

"Ah."

"That's good."

"how about you?"

"To be honest... it's not good."

I looked at him and was silent for a moment: "Is it because of me?"

"Can I sit down and talk to you?"

I nodded hesitantly, somewhat confused about the situation.

Shikamaru doesn't look like he's here to accuse me, but given our current position, can we just chat casually like this?

He sat down in the corridor, a little closer to me.

I feel a little uneasy - is it really okay to get along peacefully like this?

Shikamaru turned his body and looked at me, as if I was simply a friend he hadn't seen for a long time, rather than a traitor who defected from the village to Kirigakure: "The situation in the village was very chaotic before, and recently, with the new Hokage taking office, things have finally gotten a little better."

"Tsunade-sama?"

"Yes. I heard that you have met her." He looked at my hand: "She mentioned you and said that your hand was injured... Is it okay now?"

"Um……"

"That's good." Shikamaru said, "I'm really afraid of seeing you... seeing that your sleeves are empty."

We were all silent for a moment, until Shikamaru spoke again, his voice choking with sobs: "I'm not doing well because I'm worried that you're not doing well out there."

Inexplicably, these words seemed to pierce my heart. I felt a sour and numb feeling from the bottom of my heart, and my throat was dry.

"How can you be a traitor?" Shikamaru lowered his eyes and said, "You don't even know a lot of the most basic common sense, and you are afraid of hurting others. What if you are bullied? What if you are deceived? What if you have to do something that makes you suffer?"

I clenched my fingers, suppressing the urge in my heart to run to him, to hug him, to comfort him, to make him not feel so sad.

I kept recalling Mr. Zabuza's face and thinking about his words -

Now that you have left Konoha, it will not be good for anyone to treat your former partners as companions and get entangled with them.

Besides, Shikamaru is just Shikamaru, he is not Lord Shikamaru.

I said in a stiff tone: "Don't underestimate me! To be a rebel ninja, I don't need to be as smart as you."

For some reason, Shikamaru suddenly laughed when he heard this.

He looked at me with a smile, and his beautifully shaped eyes were clearly a little wet.

"I'm sorry, Chaolu."

"……Why do you say that?"

"I always feel that Naruto is a fool who can't do anything for you. Shino is always passive and just stands by your side silently... I always feel that I am different from them. I always feel that I can do more than them. But this time, I couldn't help you at all regarding your matter."

"..."

"I'm angry about why I didn't pay more attention to you. I'm angry about why I didn't notice that the relationship between Kakashi-sensei and you had become strange. I'm angry about why Xiao Li could see that you were in a bad mood when he first met you, but I didn't realize how much pressure and grievance you were carrying at the time. I was so self-righteous when I heard you say it was because of your menstrual period, and I really thought it was like that."

"No..." I couldn't help but explain for him: "Because after the separation, we didn't have much time to see each other, and you don't have the ability to read minds, how could you know why I'm unhappy?"

But Shikamaru didn't seem relieved, "Sasuke also left the village."

I knew he would leave sooner or later.

In the past, I naively thought that because I had an unknown origin but possessed the Sharingan, people would be suspicious and on guard against me. But Sasuke was different. He had a clean background, and if he could stay in Konoha, there would be no problem.

But when Danzo attacked me, I realized that sometimes having the Sharingan itself is a sin.

"When?"

"Not long after you left...Uchiha Itachi came to Konoha."

"!!"

When I think about how I once wanted to find him but didn’t know his whereabouts, I didn’t expect that he went to Konoha.

We just missed it.

What would happen if I found him then...?

At this moment, would I not appear in the Hidden Mist Village?

"Sasuke was severely injured by him and was in a coma in the hospital for several days until Lady Tsunade arrived and cured him. But he defected not long after his health improved."

"...That's it."

"I thought he was here to see you, but it seems he's not here."

"He wants more power, so he should go to Orochimaru."

He will get what he wants, but I feel a little uncertain and uneasy about what the world will become like after he gets what he wants.

Shikamaru continued, "Hiashi-sama said that when he went to look for Neji, he saw you coming out of the medical room. What happened between you and Neji at that time that led him to leave with you afterwards, right?"

"..."

"The same is true for Gaara of the Sand Village." Shikamaru paused, "Hiashi-sama refused to recognize that Neji had defected. If he wanted to protect Neji, he had to put the blame on you. The village now believes that your Sharingan can distort the will of others."

I subconsciously opened my mouth to explain, but after thinking it over, I closed it again.

"However, the Hokage did not issue an execution order for you or Sasuke. I think that must be the result of Naruto's plea. In the end, that last guy did much more for you than I did."

"Why did you come to the Hidden Mist Village?" I wanted to know how Naruto was doing recently, but I was a little afraid to hear Naruto's name, afraid to know that he was not doing well, so I changed the subject and asked, "As a Genin, are you qualified to participate in the delegation?"

"I'm already a chunin, Asaka."

I was taken aback.

"Although the Chunin Exam turned out to be a mess, how should I put it... the selection criteria is that if the examiner thinks you have potential, then you will be qualified and pass, so I became the only candidate who passed the exam and became a Chunin."

"congratulations."

"Naruto followed Master Jiraiya and left the village to practice." Shikamaru looked at me for a while, perhaps because he saw that I was keeping a distance, he asked directly: "Do you really think that we are no longer companions?"

Since Shikamaru asked directly, I also became direct.

"I have explained the ability of my Sharingan many, many times. But people are only willing to believe what they believe. The people of Konoha... the upper echelons of Konoha, they fear the Uchiha, they fear the illusions of the Sharingan, so they are willing to believe that the Uchiha are dangerous and that the Uchiha's abilities are evil. But the people of the Hidden Mist Village trust me, recognize me, and are willing to follow me, so they believe that I am just seeing into people's hearts."

"..."

"I really have no way to explain my life experience clearly, so I can understand why Konoha is suspicious of me. Why don't you treat me as a spy from the Hidden Mist Village, maybe it will be easier for us."

Shikamaru frowned.

"Besides, because I know you are very powerful, I can't easily reveal information about me to you. I don't want to fight you, but I have to consider the possibility that we may have to stand on opposite sides in the future."

"..."

"Everyone only believes what they want to believe... This is what you told me. If what I want to do conflicts with what others want to do, do what I want to do... This is also what you told me. Shikamaru... I am very happy that I knew you when I was a child and that I could be friends with you, but we can no longer walk on the same path."

Shikamaru smiled bitterly: "You...you remember so clearly what I said to you so long ago, but you want to draw a line between us. How can I accept this?"

I pursed my lips and said, "I just have a good memory."

He was silent for a while, then took out a familiar bell from the ninja tool bag on his waist: "This was given to Shino by Kakashi-sensei, and then given to me. He asked me to give it to you if I could meet you."

"…I am a ninja from the Hidden Mist Village. Why would a ninja from Konoha give me this?"

"I hope you can protect yourself better. I hope I can still help you even though I'm not by your side."

"..."

"You and Shino have been rivals several times before, but you have never used bugs on each other in battle... I believe Shino will never do that in the future. Do you believe him?"

I watched as Shikamaru placed the bell on the floor and gently rolled it towards me.

The bell hit my knee and stopped.

I looked at it. “I’m not going to take that risk.”

"I am just handing it over to you on behalf of someone else. As for what you want to do with it, that is your freedom. If you really don't want it, throw it away, destroy it, whatever you want."

"...Why?" I looked at him puzzledly: "Why do you trust me so much?"

Having read Tone's memories, I can understand why Shino trusts me because he is confident in his own observation skills, but what about Shikamaru?

"Yes, why?" Shikamaru looked up at the sky, "Because I prayed to the heavens and said, God, please tell me whether Chaolu is trustworthy. Then I followed my intuition and felt that you are trustworthy."

"How can such a thing happen?"

"Then how do you think I found you without the help of the gods?"

"You must have discovered something that I didn't notice!"

"Yeah, isn't it the same with trusting you? I made my judgment," Shikamaru smiled confidently at me, "So far, my judgment has never been wrong."

I was momentarily dumbfounded.

"We won't stand on opposite sides," Shikamaru said, "because I know you haven't done anything wrong. Even if your background is unknown, you haven't done anything wrong."