What A Drag... || Shikamaru x reader

||73||

Edited: 02/06/24

Reuploaded: 06/06/24

° ❄️ °

"Y/n?" someone called me, I turned my head to see the room was filled with my friends and next to me, holding my hand was Shika.

I shakily moved my free hand and pulled the mask off my face before forcing myself to sit up, wiping the tears from my eyes and wincing from my injuries.

"It happened again..." I managed to mutter, my voice hoarse and hurting.

"What did?" that was... Sakura? My vision didn't move from my legs covered by the white blanket.

"Another person... died in front of me," I answered, the tears free falling as I forced myself to look up, "I failed to protect them again... I'm—"

Before I could finish what I was saying, someone's stool clattered to the floor and a pair of arms wrapped around me and forced me into their chest, it didn't take a genius to decipher that it was Shikamaru.

"Whatever happened, you don't have to relive it," he told me, "it wasn't your fault that anything happened."

"It was just the way life played out," Neji's voice piped up. Shikamaru released me and I looked around just as the door opened.

"Unfortunately, that isn't true," Tsunade appeared with Pa in her arms and Shizune close behind her.

"Pa?" I call him, he looked at me and hopped out of Tsunade's arms and landed on my legs.

"I thought you were dead, y/n girl," he sighed, "Ma still wants you over for dinner one day."

"I'd love to go," I nodded before averting my attention to Tsunade who had pulled a stool to the end of my bed and was staring directly at me.

"You need to tell me everything that happened from the moment you arrived in the Hidden Rain," she demanded, I felt Shikamaru's anger.

"From the Land of Rain, huh?" I asked before grabbing the glass of water on the side and gulping it down quickly before sighing.

"We arrived..." I trailed off, my voice was back to normal but there was just something about it that made me never want to speak. Maybe it was because I knew what was going to happen, or because I knew that I could've saved Jiraiya if only I knew how to shadow hop with more than myself in that particular moment, or because the story I would tell them was a nightmare in my reality that would haunt me forever.

"Go on," Tsunade gave me a stern nod, but a sympathetic smile. I closed my eyes and started recalling the events that happened.

From when we arrived, to the fake story and conversation with the old lady at the pork bun stand, to being dragged into one of Jiraiya's lady bar things, then to us finding an empty land and running a bar, where we got a small amount of information out of two lackeys of Nagato's and then to us disguising ourselves as those two men.

Then to the tower where we were attacked by Konan and then to our meeting with Nagato, the long conversation between Jiraiya and Nagato and how it annoyed me how much he talked about being a God and how pain is what shaped him into this.

Then to the fight, when Jiraiya summoned Mr Gamaken. The fight between the weird summons and then to when Ma and Pa joined. To when they escaped through a pipe, and I ended up fighting the Pains before being thrown into pipes and denting them before running after Jiraiya and the Pains who followed after him.

To the frog genjutsu song. Then to the death of the Pains, to when we thought we'd won but, in fact. didn't. To my sinking and then to when I reemerged from the water to be greeted by six Pains, including the three Jiraiya had killed, very much alive. To our fights. My summoning. The Snowflake Guardian mode. To the death of one of the Pains. To Jiraiya's death. Then our escape and then now.

Everyone was silent as they listened.

I felt tears falling down my cheeks but didn't cry. I wiped them away and then looked out the room.

"I could've saved him, I just... couldn't," I mumbled.

"No. You came back alive, that's the best result of this mission. The two of you left the village knowing that one or both of you would die. One of your returned alive, making the mission a success even though the leader of the Akatsuki wasn't actually wiped out," Tsunade assured me, I shot her a glare. I didn't need to be reminded that we didn't kill him. Actually, I had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn't actually there, but it'd sound ridiculous if I just told her that, so I'll just keep it to myself.

"Y/n girl," Pa called me, I looked down at him, "be honest, what did your figure out about the six Pains?"

I looked at him in thought for a moment before deciding I'd tell them.

"First off they all had a different ability. But they could only really do one thing. Next, their eyesight is linked so if they were to separate, they'd go off in pairs, although Jiraiya killed one indefinitely so there would be a pair and a three. If we want to destroy them, we need to get them into a one-on-one fight. Next, their chakra rods definitely are something to take into consideration. Traditionally..." I trailed off, trying to remember what I'd figured out during the fight.

"Traditionally? Traditionally what?" Hyousuke stepped forward, Tsunade sighed and silence him, waiting for me to continue. I frowned for a moment as I put my hand up to tell him to stop while I tried to recall it in a coherent way.

"Traditionally, these kind of chakra rods are used to disrupt someone's chakra, making it easier to control them meaning that these Pains are merely puppets. Or at least that's what I thought until I became one with the fashion and had a pole stuck into my stomach," I laughed at my terrible sense of humour but quickly shut myself up when everyone looked at me annoyed, "I mean—I think that, if we take the chakra rods out of them, we might find it easier to take them down because not only can chakra be taken away through these rods, but they can also be the cause for a dead person's chakra to awaken again."

They all just listened before I tapped Pa's back.

"Before you tell me what Jiraiya wrote, because I'm sure you've figure it out already I just want to give my conclusion of the whole situation," I said before taking a deep breath in and the exhaling, "I don't think the real Pain was amongst them. I don't think Nagato was actually there because I have a feeling he would've been able to do a whole lot more than one thing but all six of them didn't seem to be able to do much than what they showed skills for."

Pa looked at me shocked before holding my hand and looking at me sternly.

"Jiraiya figured out the truth right before his death, he wrote it on my back. He had also come to the conclusion that the real Pain wasn't there," he told me. I nodded in understanding. So I was correct.

"Wait—does... does... does Naruto know about—" I stopped myself when they nodded. I looked away. I can't help but to feel guilty.

I could've helped him.

I could've saved him.

If I just started healing him.

If I didn't get impaled by a stupid pole.

If only I'd—

"Stop those thoughts," Shikamaru said, we all looked at him surprised, "it was written on your face. You're thinking 'what if I did this' or 'what if I did that' maybe even 'this is my fault' you're feeling guilty. Stop now."

"You know me so well..." I mumbled, annoyed that he could read me so easily.

"Y-y/n, M-master J-Jiraiya may have d-died but the fact that you are a-alive now, here and safe, is the g-greatest thing that could e-ever happened," Hinata stepped forward, "if both you and Jiraiya died then... it wouldn't just be L-Lady T-Tsunade and N-Naruto grieving."

"They aren't the only ones," I told her, looking down at Pa, "the whole of Mount Myoboku are mourning... and so am—"

"So are you, Jiraiya was the person who was first there when Uncle f/n died, he was the one who became your watch partner," Zethran's voice chimed in as the door closed, "looks like you're having a party without me, huh?"