It had been a week

It had been a week since they left the Land of Silence. At Kakashi’s discretion, with the idea that he should recover from his confinement in Fushu Castle and his exhaustion after the battle with Gengo, Shikamaru had been ordered to take a break. But Sakura had healed the wound on his forehead soon after the battle, and he didn’t actually have any bodily injuries that would require him to take time off. And his heart was actually lighter than it had been before he went to the Land of Silence. He had no particular need for time off, but Kakashi had told him to rest in no uncertain terms, and so he was resting, given that he had no other choice.

Choji and Ino and the others had gone out on another mission not long after their return to Konoha, and Naruto and Sakura were still in the Land of Silence. He did go over to Master Kurenai’s house to visit Mirai, but a few hours’ conversation was more than sufficient.

Which meant he had all this time alone with nothing to actually do.

A whole week with no one disturbing him.

For the first time in a long time, his days were quiet.

Sometimes, he spent the entire day staring at a shogi board and moving the pieces by himself; other times, he left the village and went mountain climbing or stared up at the clouds endlessly from the moment the sun climbed up into the sky until the sky was dyed with dusk. He enjoyed every minute of it almost more than he could stand.

He keenly felt the change in himself.

The Shikamaru from before the Land of Silence would certainly have panicked at being away from missions and his work with the alliance for a whole week. He would have been thinking about all sorts of ridiculous things, like whether or not some big thing was happening while he was away, or what if someone made some critical mistake; he wouldn’t have been able to have even a single satisfying day off.

But now, he had relaxed almost too much. This week, about the only time he remembered missions or the alliance was during the ten minutes in his futon before he fell asleep.

Even if he wasn’t there, his comrades would get the job done for him. He had naturally started thinking like this. It wasn’t as though his sense of responsibility had disappeared. It was just that he had created some wiggle room for himself. If there was a situation where he was actually needed, Kakashi or Temari would call him. And he could switch gears in that moment and still handle any situation more than capably. There was no need to spend his time off thinking about rushing headlong into work.

Precisely because he trusted his comrades, he was able to switch gears so completely. But he had been driving himself so hard that he had stopped understanding this very simple fact.

Over his weeklong vacation, he could objectively observe—to the point of unpleasantness—just how himself before the Land of Silence and himself after were different. He came to see how important his comrades were, along with his own small-mindedness and arrogant, mistaken pride in trying to shoulder the burden of anything and everything all by himself.

A person couldn’t live alone. He wasn’t so almighty he could master everything all by himself.

Which was why he had friends.

The very idea of trying to take on the burden alone had been a mistake. And if only to learn this lesson, his trip to the Land of Silence had been a worthwhile one.

When he had very nearly been swayed by Gengo at Fushu Castle, a single hit from Temari had blown everything away. He had seen in that storm the clear answer to the question of who he was.

Basically, Shikamaru was an irresponsible man. Everything was a hassle, and the truth was, he didn’t want to do any of it. If he could have just spaced out, he would have gladly stepped back and bowed out for several days.

That was the real Shikamaru.

And that was all right.

Because he acknowledged this irresponsible, happy-go-lucky self, there were things he could do.

Only someone like him could understand the feelings of those who longed for ordinary lives without dreams. What was wrong with being happy with just right? Dreams weren’t all about aiming for the sky, for some lofty goal or objective.

In a world where war continued, this dream was maybe a difficult one.

And that’s why there was meaning in his being there.

If this world were at peace, if it became a world where everyone could live a quiet life, then those people wishing for a just-right life would get that just-right life. Unfortunately, Shikamaru had been born into a world of war. And so he lived this busy life.

For the sake of the people who would be born in the future, he had to end these wars. This dream didn’t spring from any lofty ideals like Gengo’s. Nor was it anything as noble as ambition or will.

A world in which everyone could live lazy lives…

For someone trying to build such a world, it was a bit like putting the cart before the horse to work frantically to make it happen.

Do work that was just right.

That was enough.

∞

“Seriously. Thanks for all your hard work on this one,” Kakashi said, as he tapped a sheaf of paper against his desk.

Shikamaru had reported to the Hokage’s office to be debriefed on the Land of Silence incident.

“I got the overall picture from the current reports from Sakura, who’s still on the ground there, and from the mission completion reports from Ino and the others. I also heard about your hard work from Soku and Ro, who are getting medical treatment.”

“My…hard work?” The ends of his eyebrows naturally twitched up into an embarrassed expression.

Unable to see through Gengo’s genjutsu, he had been caught up in it, and only when Temari came along and saved him had he been able to wake up; he had been rescued by his comrades, right up until the end. He hadn’t accomplished a single thing by himself.

“Although you really didn’t have to write such a detailed report during your holiday…” Kakashi’s eyes dropped to the mountain of papers in his hand, a bundle of nearly fifty pages. The papers he had been neatening up before were the report Shikamaru had written.

In the end, it had been the present-tense missions and alliance he hadn’t thought about during his break; the incident in the Land of Silence was different. Summarizing everything into a report was one of the duties of a shinobi, and it was only natural that he would do this much during his break. That said, it had been light work, only about an hour a day.

“I’ll look it over.” With a sigh, Kakashi placed the report on top of the mountain of papers on the edge of his desk. And the mountain stretched closer to the sky.

Without a glance at the unsteady pile of paper, Kakashi turned his gaze on Shikamaru. “You’re someone we really need both here and in the alliance. You need to take better care of yourself, okay?”

Someone we really need…

“What a drag.” The words spilled from his lips automatically.

“You’re all right now, huh?” Kakashi laughed, staring fixedly at Shikamaru’s face.

“Yeah.” Shikamaru laughed too.

“Okay then.” The Hokage placed his hand on the back of his neck and shook his head several times before slipping his other hand into a desk drawer. He pulled out a document of some kind and offered it to Shikamaru.

Shikamaru took it and dropped his eyes onto the page. It laid out the details of a mission stamped with a red B-rank mark: Follow and act as guard to a retainer of the daimyo of the Land of Fire to deliver a sovereign message to the Land of Lightning.

Thanks to the impact of the new connections between ninja forged by the alliance, public safety was greatly improved, and traveling back and forth between two countries was markedly easier than it had been in the past. The daimyo’s attendants alone were basically sufficient, but several ninja were attached to the party in case of anything unexpected. It was a case that could be satisfactorily handled by any ninja at the chunin level or higher and didn’t especially require Shikamaru.

“It’s a mission that’s too easy for you, but—”

“Kakashi, can I say something?” Shikamaru said, cutting the Hokage off with his right hand.

Kakashi stared at him with a surprised look. “It’s been a while since you called me Kakashi. You kind of threw me there.”

“I decided to quit twisting myself up into some ideal, worrying about form and appearance all the time.”

“Glad to hear it.” Kakashi nodded, and Shikamaru returned to the issue at hand.

“About this mission, could you give it to someone else?”

“Why?”

“Oh, it’s just that the day after tomorrow…” Averting his eyes, Shikamaru’s cheeks took on a red hue. Cocking his head to one side, Kakashi waited for Shikamaru to continue. “I have a date.”

“Pft!” Kakashi erupted, and Shikamaru glared. “I’m just surprised. I never thought you’d refuse a mission for a date. But that’s great! You go and enjoy.”

“Thank you.”

“That thing called youth, huh?” Kakashi closed his eyes and crossed his arms, nodded several times.

He’d given up on a just-right life. So he deserved this much at least. “Well, I’ll excuse myself then.” He turned his back to Kakashi and set his right foot forward, moving to leave the room.

“Shikamaru.”

When he turned around again, Kakashi was standing up. “I figured maybe the current you might understand a bit better. Can I ask you one more time? What does it mean to be an adult?”

Turning his eyes up to the ceiling, Shikamaru thought about it for a while. And then he let the words that popped into his head come out as is. Honest. “Giving up on something and finding something more important… Maybe something like that. Although I’m not totally sure.”

“Giving up on something and finding something more important, hm?”

“Some guys are like Naruto; they’re totally focused on one thing from the time they’re kids. But most guys are lost and they give up on a thing, but they still keep on walking, and then finally, they find something important, and maybe they live toward that.”

“Makes sense.” Kakashi crossed his arms and lowered his eyes.

“Okay then. I’ll be on my way,” Shikamaru said, turning around, too embarrassed to stay there any longer.

“Go and have fun, Shikamaru!” The instant he closed the door, he heard Kakashi’s bright voice.

“Thank you,” Shikamaru said, words that wouldn’t reach the Hokage.

∞

Get everyone on board and the time flows gently…

Does he look like me?

The baby was crying languidly, as though he had seen through everything in this world, even though he had only just been born into it.

“It’s okay. There’ll be a time when you realize you don’t know anything. You’ll make friends who’ll head toward that moment with you.”

The baby, who of course couldn’t understand anything I said, stared at me, opening wide, single-lidded almond eyes—his mother’s eyes.

“Guess I can’t say ‘what a drag’ or anything anymore.”

“You can a bit. Just don’t get crazy with it. And before you really stop moving, I’ll yank on your cheek again and send you flying.”

“Oh, yeah, right.”

What should we call him?

“What a drag.”

Author/artist Masashi Kishimoto was born in 1974 in rural Okayama Prefecture, Japan. Like many kids, he was first inspired to become a manga artist in elementary school when he read Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama. After spending time in art college, he won the Hop Step Award for new manga artists with his story Karakuri. After considering various genres for his next project, Kishimoto decided on a story steeped in traditional Japanese culture. His first version of Naruto, drawn in 1997, was a one-shot story about fox spirits; his final version, which debuted in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1999, quickly became the most popular ninja manga in the world. The series would also spawn multiple anime series, movies, novels, video games and more. Having concluded the series in late 2014, Masashi Kishimoto has kept himself busy this year with the sidestory Naruto: The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring and writing the story for the latest Naruto movie, Boruto: Naruto the Movie both of which will focus on the title character’s son, Boruto.

Takashi Yano won the Shosetsu Subaru Newcomer Award in 2008 with Jashu. He has published a number of works since then as an expert on period dramas. He is also active in a number of other places, including writing the story for the Assassin’s Creed 4 manga.