A/N Beta'd by Bob Saget, who once punched a man so hard that his arms turned into trombones. Finally have a plan for the transition arc before that allows me to get to the next arc. God damn did that take a long time.

ooo

glint glint

"Uuuuuuuuuh." A sound straight out of a low budget zombie movie echoed around the modest apartment.

glint glint.

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuugh!" Again it echoed as Tetsuo cracked one eye open to glare at the offending sun, which dared to shine so fucking early. Yesterday-Tetsuo had apparently decided it would be a fun idea to stick a mirror at a carefully calculated angle to wake him at this exact moment. Morning-Tetsuo concluded that yesterday-Tetsuo was an arsehole and could suck a dick. That fucker knew perfectly well that he'd been up till three working on making the fragmentation blades properly ready for mass production with the new internal ridges. Knew perfectly well, and then he went and pulled shit like this anyway.

Arsehole.

I hate this bit, he thought for the hundredth time as he squinted into the bathroom through bleary eyes. Directives carved deep into his grey matter over long days asserted themselves, and he sucked in a deep breath. A quick flicker of handseals, then Tetsuo was sliding down a board to splash into a cold bath while a large rock settled itself into his bed. It hadn't been particularly difficult to find an angle for the board where the rock would rest dry and out of the water, while he would not.

"MOTHERFUCKER!"

It was a wide awake but not particularly cheery Tetsuo that showed up to the Nara estate shortly afterwards, wearing his new clothing. He felt hollowed out and jittery, like his insides had been packed with cold earth and his senses numbed. Sounds were both louder and harder to focus on. The symptoms of sleep deprivation were old friends to his past life, less so in this one.

He nodded to the guard on duty as he passed a simple fenced border designed less to keep people out than simply to make it more obvious if they were slipping in. He really did love the Nara estate. A long curving sine wave of homely, well loved houses, all backing onto deep forests. The divide between bright lawn and cool shady forest was abrupt, looking like the cover of a storybook Tetsuo's other mind had once seen. The whole place smelt of rich, deep loam with subtle hints of deer and man. There were fewer trees above the houses, but what few there were appeared to have been cleverly placed and guided in their growth to ensure patches of light and shadow at all hours of the day. It was both beautiful, and an effective defensive measure for a clan whose very shadows were weapons. The trees had lanterns on their trunks, and when they were lit at night the entire place seemed criss-crossed in intersecting black paths, while the darkness was lit with warming golden glows.

Shikamaru was waiting instead of his usual contact, sitting with his back against a wooden post on his family's porch, shogi board set up and ready in front of him. Tetsuo passed over a scroll containing the latest version of the designs, altered for the umpteenth time after talking things over with the specialist the Nara hired. Shikamaru looked them over for a bit, then looked up slowly. "We should talk." The first piece moved forwards.

click

Tetsuo sunk down opposite him and put his back to his own post. Put this off too long already, I suppose. He decided, knew it wasn't a smart move, not like waiting would make things any better. Maybe the next round of alterations… ah well. "Alright." He stared blankly at the board for a moment, then made his own move.

click

"Clearly you're annoyed with me. I'd prefer it if you'd tell me why."

Shikamaru's eyes flickered to the scroll and back again. "Let's start with the easier stuff: where the hell did you find the time to learn all the things you know? We're twelve. They tell me these designs show an understanding of metallurgy more suited to a trained professional, and that's barely the tip of spear of the knowledge you've shown."

click

Careful control of body language, don't show anything you don't want to show. "I spend a lot of time in the library."

click

"Sakura spends a lot of time in the library. She makes a good baseline for how much a person can learn. You spend most of your time training then pull brand new ideas no-one has ever heard of from thin air. Everyone else might be happy to call it genius, but I've got the inside view of what it's like to be a so-called genius and it doesn't match up. This new clothing you're wearing - what did you call it - camouflage? The solutions all so deceptively simple in retrospect so everyone can lie to themselves and say they could have thought of it, but they didn't, not in the 70 years since Konoha was founded. There's too much, from too much complicated knowledge to come to these simple answers from too many fields of study that you haven't had access to, and most of it is too advanced for you to have figured it out by yourself. "

click

Tetsuo sighed. Guess my excuses weren't as good as I thought. Really don't like doing this to Shikamaru. Not knowing things eats at him. Still, needs must. All the same, it offended something in Tetsuo's core more than a little to respond to the search for knowledge in such a manner. It was useful at least that his sour expression matched what his expression would be if he were keeping the same secrets that he was pretending to. "Bloodline secrets."

click

Shikamaru's stare was every bit as unimpressed as that statement deserved. "Bloodline secrets." Disappointment dripped from his tone.

click

Tetsuo matched his stare with a slightly cornered one. "Bloodline secrets. If I tell people and I ever have kids, then they won't have as much of an advantage." He looked up to the sky briefly. "Or at least, I think they're bloodline secrets." He chuckled bitterly, harsh consonants echoing off the nearby house. "Don't exactly have any Nakano around I can ask, do I? For all I know I'm a newblood, or a fucking oneshot." I hate using social conventions against him like this, especially since he knows I'm doing it and still can't cross that line. Newbloods were where a new bloodline cropped up from the random combination of genes in the general populace and was passed on to their kids. Oneshots were similar, but their abilities were not passed down.

"I can accept that, I suppose. Wouldn't be the weirdest bloodline out there. I'm not exactly happy about it, but I won't push." Shikamaru gave Tetsuo a measuring look laced with a small amount of pity, then appeared to decide something. "While the Hokage's office is not... technically supposed to keep records on bloodline abilities that are not explicitly told to him by the clans, there is an… understanding that you might not be aware of. That the clans tacitly accept that no military commander would be entirely competent if he didn't try to figure out what exactly the forces under their command were capable of." Their game continued in silence for a few moments while Tetsuo processed this new information.

Tetsuo frowned slightly. "So… how would one go about getting… access to this information that doesn't technically exist?"

"Asking the Hokage - discreetly - would probably be your best bet."

Tetsuo gave an answering nod and their game continued in silence for a time.

Tetsuo was trying to figure out how to get out of a tricky trap Shikamru had set up three moves in the future. Shogi - much like ninja combat - was a game of constant offence, and Tetsuo was a step behind. "You said there was more?"

click

Shikamaru's eyes rested on the small pock-marks that dotted Tetsuo's neck from Anko's senbon. Subtle things, they looked more like blemishes than scars if you didn't know what you were looking at. "You're taking risks. Too many risks, I don't like what it implies."

click

"And what does it imply?" Tetsuo responded blandly while his heart raced.

click

"I know you Tetsuo, better than anyone. I know how you think. I know how you decide things, the alien logic that turns the gears inside your head. You did try to to explain it after all. I can see the shape of the holes in your thinking. The hidden things whose presence can be inferred by how they move the things that can be seen. Every action you take moves towards a single purpose. Most of it would make sense, be helpful even, if your goal was to make our class be stronger. The training disguised as pranks, manipulating people into watching the chuunin exams, the impromptu lessons on drugging people, convincing me to come train with you and Sasuke. You even help people who don't like you like Sakura so it's probably not purely for your own benefit.

Tetsuo set back to listen. When Shikamaru got like this it was best to wait it out, he had a certain need to explain the whole thing.

"And that makes sense, fine, but there are parts that don't make sense. You're taking risks. Unsupervised sealing. Explosives manufacture. Whatever it is that got you those scars that you and Sasuke won't give details about, but he seems grateful for. That thing with Gai that put you in the hospital. You're preparing for something big. Something that you believe to have a high chance of your death, or of an outcome you consider more important than your death. Something that means Sasuke would say 'the long term is meaningless if you don't survive the short'. So. Tell me why."

Tetsuo sighed. "Man, I should have known I couldn't keep something like this from you forever." Tell a small truth to hide a big lie. "Me and Sasuke, we're going to have to kill Itachi."

He sucked in a hissing breath. "Do you have a deep and abiding desire to commit suicide?"

"I'd have hoped you'd have a little more faith in me than that. I have plans."

"You just named one of the most dangerous S-ranked ninja in existence. Forgive me if I'm not overflowing with confidence in your 'plans'. There is a level of power disparity that crushes any level of intelligence and trickery to dust."

Tetsuo sat up straighter, looked Shikamaru straight in the eye and tried to impress exactly how serious he was about this into every syllable. Each word fell like tombstones crashing onto rock from high above. "He's going to come for Sasuke eventually, and I'm not abandoning him to die alone." He needs eternal mangekyou from his brother's sockets, I need his current eyes. It is a dangerous but necessary step to make every other step safer.

"So instead you want to die together with him? How fucking noble." He spoke the word like a curse. Oh if only you knew, Shikamaru. Nobility is the furthest thing from my mind.

"I have no intention of dying." Not now, not ever.

Shikamaru moved a piece, glancing down then staring off into the distance forest.

click

"A lot of people have said those words. Some of them even came back afterwards. Checkmate."

ooo

A/N Next update is a mission, so if anyone wants to give me a name for the seven or so chapters that this brings to a close, that would be much appreciated. I'll pick the one I like most.