Euphoric Dysphoria [A Naruto Fan Fiction]

Chapter 8 - 'A Series of Confusing Events'

Chapter 8 – 'A Series of Confusing Events'

Disclaimer: WE DO NOT OWN NARUTO. BUT ED IS OURS. 

The purpose of this chapter is to give a general hint on all the shadowy macchinations going on 

1.

Nara Shikaku was many things. Head of the Nara Clan, leader of Konoha's Intelligence Division, ex-ANBU captain, one of the most trusted advisors to the Hokage, a brilliant tactical genius, husband to Nara Yoshino, father to Nara Shikamaru, teammate of Akimichi Chouza and Yamanaka Inoichi, friend of the Fourth Hokage, witness of Uzumaki Kushina's pranks, drinking buddy of Morino Ibiki...

However, at that particular moment, Nara Shikaku felt as if he was nothing more but the poor soul on the receiving end of one of the biggest headaches ever known to humanity.

Of course, it was a given that the Hokage's headache was probably even bigger, but today, the normally logical and fair Shikaku decided that it was not worth it to remain logical and waste a few billion more brain cells on it. If that needed him to over-exaggerate everything, like every other mind-numbing fool in the world, then so be it.

'Take things easy. One step at a time. One. Step.'

Right. One step at a time. First things first—he needed to look for his seat.

'Troublesome. So. Damn. Troublesome.'

He found it—of course. It was where he sat every time, where he was supposed to sit every time, in the courtroom-like Meeting Room Which Still Didn't Have A Proper Name.

'One war passes and the other one comes knocking at your door not long after.' Sorta like the tax department, actually.

Inoichi sat to his right, as both the previous head of the T&I department and a clan leader. Chouza one seat behind and two seats left as head of a clan and owner of more than half of the food market of Konoha and Beyond, next to Fugaku as head of clan and police force, and Tsume, as clan head and owner of a third of the vet market. Shibi still hadn't arrived yet, but he would sit next to Hiashi as clan heads, and more minor monopolies of one market or another in their village.

As the last of the people shuffled into the room, Shikaku turned to face the front, working himself out of his usual slouch and getting his mind into gear. Or at least—as much 'into gear' as it was capable of, having not rested in approximately 60 hours or so and surviving solely on the glorious substance known to humanity as coffee.

The Hokage (Sarutobi Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage), seated right where the judge would normally sit, with his advisors (Shimura Danzō, Utatane Koharu, Mitokado Homura) beside him, coughed three times in order to catch his audience's attention. Not that he needed to, seeing as the Meeting Room was pretty much silent.

After a series of greetings and acknowledgements of those present, it officially began.

The meeting was a tense affair; the atmosphere stiff, the mood glum. Shikaku still remembered the days of the Third Shinobi War—the days that had been filled with battle, bloodshed, and more bloodshed, a cycle of never ending massacres. The world had looked as if he had seen it through a bad carmine filter instead of his own eyes—dyed red, discoloured, and distorted.

The last time they had used this very Meeting Room had been back then, when the formal Meeting Room had been destroyed by a particularly vicious bomber clan guy from Iwa, when the war had just begun—with all the clan heads and division heads gathered together, and anyone and everyone important summoned to one place in order for the unpleasant news of 'we'll be battling the other villages to the death' to be delivered.