The scene Shikamaru dropped into looked like the answer key to "Worst-Case Scenario" on a written test.
Clearing: wrecked. Trees: scored, splintered, one of them tilted like something big had tried to suplex it. A weird guy with bandages on his arm had his hand cocked back over a girl's head, air shimmering around his palm like a barely leashed explosion.
The girl was Sylvie.
Her glasses were crooked, one lens cracked. Blood ran from a cut in her hairline, tracking down her cheek. Her pink hair was…shorter. Messy. Chunks of it littered the ground like bright, dead petals.
Naruto was out cold behind her. Sasuke too, slumped against a tree with something dark and ugly marking the side of his neck. That bushy-browed weirdo from earlier—Lee—lay in a heap off to the side, limbs at bad angles.
And the bandage freak was about to turn Sylvie's skull into mist.
"Tch," Shikamaru muttered. "Troublesome."
He didn't think. His hands just moved.
"Shadow Possession Jutsu."
His shadow darted out across the ground, thin and fast, stretching from root to root until it snapped up along the Sound-nin's feet. The guy froze mid-swing, arm locked high above Sylvie's head.
Her pupils blew huge behind the cracked glass. She sucked in a breath that sounded like it had knives in it.
"Choji," Shikamaru snapped.
"Got it!"
Choji hit the ground beside him, already stuffing a handful of chips into his mouth on reflex. He crumpled the bag, shoved it in his pocket, and clapped his hands together.
"Multi-Size Technique!"
His limbs ballooned, body expanding into a round, lethal boulder. The ground trembled under the sudden weight.
"Now!" Shikamaru barked.
He yanked his own arm sideways. The trapped Sound-nin's body followed the motion, jerked off balance and dragged just enough to line him up.
Choji rolled.
The impact sounded like a tree getting punched by another, angrier tree. The bandage guy vanished under several hundred pounds of Akimichi.
Shikamaru's shadow snapped as Zaku—had to be Zaku, based on the forehead protector and the ugly sneer—went flying, the force tearing him out of the jutsu's range. The guy pinwheeled through the air, crashed through one trunk, bounced off another, and disappeared in a shower of broken branches.
Shikamaru winced. "That might've been a little much."
"He's still breathing," Choji said, re-expanding on the other side of the clearing. He sounded relieved. "Probably."
Sylvie just…stood there for a second.
Her knees shook. Her hands were empty and shaking too, fingers curled like they'd forgotten how to uncurl. She swayed once, then caught herself, sucking in another ragged breath.
"Oh my god," she croaked. "I love you guys."
Ino blew past Shikamaru, blonde hair flashing like a warning flag.
"Sylvie!" she shouted.
Her sandals skidded to a stop beside the other girl. Her eyes took everything in at once: the hacked-off hair, the blood, the way Sylvie was still visibly braced in front of the unconscious boys like her body hadn't gotten the news that the immediate threat was gone.
And the hair on the ground.
Ino's mouth went tight.
"You—" she started, voice breaking between outrage and something else. "You cut it? All that work—"
Sylvie let out a hysterical little laugh that sounded like it might turn into sobbing if someone breathed wrong.
"Yeah," she said. "Sorry. Had a…hair emergency."
Ino's hands trembled. For a second, Shikamaru thought she was going to yell about conditioner and proper scissors.
Instead her eyes went bright and hard.
"Those assholes," she hissed. "They made you cut it. I'm gonna kill them."
"Please do," Sylvie said faintly.
Movement at the edge of the clearing snapped Shikamaru's attention away.
The remaining two Sound-nin were regrouping. The mummy one with the metal arm-thing—Dosu, if Shikamaru was remembering the matchups right—and the girl with bells in her hair, Kin. Dosu's head tilted, sound amplifier catching the air like a shark's fin.
"Reinforcements," Dosu said. "Leaf platoon. Nara, Akimichi, Yamanaka."
"Lucky us," Kin muttered.
"Lucky you," Ino shot back, cracking her knuckles. "Now you get a real fight."
Shikamaru tuned out the posturing and looked at the ground.
Ink stains. Little ones, on bark and rock and roots. A swirl at the base of a trunk, partly scuffed. A crescent mark on a stone by the treeline. A smear up on a low-hanging branch, almost lost in the shadow.
He traced lines between them in his head.
That tree base: probably explosive, based on the charred edge. The rock: sticky tag, the kind that would glue someone's foot down. The branch mark he recognized from earlier in the exam—flash seal. He could almost see the cone of effect in his mind, the way the light would catch anyone standing beneath it.
He didn't need to guess how she thought about the field. It was right there on the dirt: routes, choke points, coverage. Just…ink instead of shadows.
"She thinks like I do," he realized aloud, much to his own annoyance. "Troublesome."
"What was that?" Ino asked, not looking away from Kin.
"Nothing," he lied.
Dosu shifted his weight, amplifying gauntlet ticking. "Our mission is unchanged. We take the Uchiha. Kill anyone in the way."
"Wow," Sylvie rasped. "You're really committed to failing this exam with style."
Shikamaru glanced at her. She was still on her feet. Barely. Her burned fingers hovered near her pouches like she didn't trust her hands not to shake if she grabbed anything.
He needed her functional, at least for a little longer.
"Hey," he said, snapping his fingers once to get her attention. "Ink girl."
She squinted over. "Rude."
"Your traps," he said, jerking his chin at the marks. "Explosive. Sticky. Flash. Anything else?"
She blinked, then followed his line of sight, brain catching up through exhaustion.
"Uh," she said. "Explosive there, yeah." She pointed with a jerk of her chin at the burned tree base. "Sticky stone. Flash branch. And there's…one more flash behind you, left side, in case someone tried to flank."
"Got it," he said.
Choji edged closer to his shoulder. "You have a plan?"
"I'm working on one," Shikamaru muttered. "Try not to die while I do it."
"Troublesome…" Choji echoed nervously.
Ino dropped into stance almost in sync with Kin. Their mirrors were uncanny: two girls, two ponytails, the same loose balance on the balls of their feet. One of them had leaves on her hitai-ate. One had sound notes.
"You," Ino snarled. "What did you do to her hair?"
Kin sneered. "What, you mad your little doll stopped playing dress-up?"
Ino's chakra flared like a match being struck.
Before she could launch herself forward, Sylvie tottered between them, nearly tripping over her own feet. She fumbled a hand into her pouch and yanked out three tiny tags already inked with seal-work.
"Hands," she said, voice rough. "All of you. Now."
Shikamaru scowled. "We're in the middle of—"
"Do you want free real-time heart monitors or not?" she snapped.
That shut him up.
He stuck his hand out, palm up.
She slapped the tag into his skin, just below his wrist. Her fingers were hot to the touch, the tips blackened along the chakra channels—burns from something she should not have tried.
The seal sank into his skin in a brief crawl of warmth. A faint, steady thrum answered under it—his own chakra, reflected back at him.
"Okay," she muttered. "You: heartbeat number one. Don't let it stop."
"You're bossy for someone about to fall over," he said.
"Project manager," she said. "We delegate."
She turned, grabbing Ino's wrist next.
"Whoa—" Ino started.
"Hold still," Sylvie said. "This one's 'screams if you pass out.' Try not to test it."
Ino's eyes softened by a hair. "You're shaking."
"Yeah, really hoping to delegate that too," Sylvie said through her teeth.
Choji held his arm out without being asked. "Do I get one?"
"Obviously," Sylvie said. "You're the tank."
The tag stuck, warmed, hummed.
Shikamaru extended his senses, just a little, and…yeah. There they were. Three tiny echoes, three rhythms. If either of them dropped suddenly, she'd know.
Troublesome. Efficient, but troublesome.
"Okay," Sylvie said, stepping back on wobbling legs. "You three play offense. I'm switching to support. Don't die, I have a very limited number of hands."
"That's our job," Ino said tightly. "Yours is not bleeding on my shoes."
"Too late," Sylvie muttered.
Shikamaru sucked in a breath and let his shoulders drop, the way his dad had drilled into him: don't tense up, it wastes energy.
"Alright," he said. "Formation."
Ino and Choji's stances adjusted almost on reflex. A little closer together. Angles shifting so their lines of sight overlapped, so his shadow could stretch just so.
Across the clearing, Dosu nodded once to his team, a smaller, meaner echo of the same thing.
Two trios. Two sets of habits. One wrecked battlefield, wires and ink and bodies everywhere. And in the middle of it, Sylvie's traps, silent and waiting.
"This is such a drag," Shikamaru said. "Shadow Possession Jutsu."
His shadow leapt again.
Kin darted aside as it snapped toward her feet. She was quick; he'd give her that. Dosu didn't move, waiting, gauntlet angled toward the ground like he was listening for something Shikamaru couldn't hear.
Zaku crashed back into the clearing with a groan and a spray of broken twigs, landing hard against the sticky-tagged rock. His hand slapped instinctively against it for balance.
"Don't," Shikamaru started.
The ink flared.
Zaku's palm stuck to the stone like someone had welded it there. He jerked, swore, tried to wrench it free. The rock held.
"Huh," Choji said. "That's new."
"Part of the plan," Shikamaru lied smoothly. "Choji, right side. Ino—"
"I know," Ino snapped. "Mind Body Switch."
Her fingers formed the familiar Yamanaka seal. She inhaled, chakra narrowing into a thin, sharp point—
"Flash," Shikamaru warned.
He twisted his fingers. His shadow jerked, tugging Dosu half a step forward, then an inch to the side. It dragged him just under the branch Sylvie had marked earlier.
The tag there detonated in a burst of white.
Dosu grunted, arm flying up too slow to block. Kin, a few paces away, threw her hands over her eyes with a curse.
Shikamaru squinted against the edge of it, grateful Sylvie had tuned the thing directionally. Only the Sound-nin caught the full blast.
Ino's consciousness shot out of her body.
For one disorienting heartbeat, Shikamaru saw her slump beside him like a puppet with its strings cut. Then Kin's body jerked and straightened, shoulders squaring into a posture that was all Ino.
"Oh, this is disgusting," Kin's mouth said in Ino's voice. "Your chakra feels like cheap perfume."
"Ino, focus," Shikamaru snapped.
She grinned cruelly with Kin's face. "Gladly."
Zaku finally managed to tear his hand free from the rock with a string of curses and a skin-peeling rip. He barely had time to register the freedom before Choji barreled into him, partial-expansion fist slamming into his ribs.
Zaku sailed sideways again, straight into the base of the explosive-marked tree.
"Don't you—" Shikamaru started, too late.
The explosive tag went off with a thunderous bang, sending bark and dirt flying. The tree shuddered but didn't fall. Zaku hit the ground in a coughing, swearing heap.
"Still alive," Choji panted.
"Try to keep him that way," Shikamaru said. "We get disqualified for corpses."
"Ino"—still in Kin's body—jerked her head toward Dosu, who was shaking off the flash like someone emerging from icy water.
"Gotta say," she said, "you picked a good little battlefield artist."
Shikamaru's eyes slid to Sylvie.
She had moved.
While they fought, she'd dragged herself away from the center of the clearing, toward the pile of bodies she apparently considered her problem. Lee first—good choice, broken limbs and alarming bruising. Her hands hovered over his chest, chakra glowing faint green at her palms as she tried to stabilize something inside him.
Her burned fingers trembled. She gritted her teeth and pressed harder.
"Don't you dare die," Shikamaru heard her mutter. "You're the only person here who does warmup stretches, that's, like, culturally important."
Lee didn't answer. His pulse—Shikamaru could almost feel it through the faint echo in his own new tag—stayed slow but steady.
She crawled to Naruto next, hand slapping his cheek lightly.
"Hey, protagonist," she hissed. "You done napping?"
Naruto groaned, eyelids fluttering. His chakra, which had been a burned-out husk before, flickered a little brighter. Nothing near his usual bonfire level, but it was progress.
"Five more minutes," he slurred.
"No," she said. "You're already late."
Shikamaru turned away reluctantly. He didn't have chakra to waste gawking at other people's survival.
"Choji!" he called. "Pin Zaku if he gets up again. Ino, disrupt Dosu's line if he aims at Sylvie."
"On it," Choji said, setting his feet.
"Ino" tilted Kin's head. "I see it. His angles are all sound-based. Cute, but predictable."
Dosu's gauntlet twitched, catching the tiny shift in air pressure as Choji moved. He smiled under his wrappings.
"Konoha teamwork," he said. "How quaint."
"Sound cosplay," Shikamaru shot back. "How lame."
He dropped his hands, fingers weaving into a new pattern. His shadow, already extended, shivered and split, stretching to catch both Dosu and the ground near Zaku. It wasn't a full bind; he didn't have that kind of range with his current chakra reserves. But it was enough to slow them, shape their paths.
He played the field.
Dosu stepped where Shikamaru wanted him: a little too close to the sticky rock, a little too far from where his sound waves would hit Sylvie. Zaku rolled the wrong way, his hand landing again in glue he'd just escaped. Choji moved with the pushes and pulls of shadow, landing hits that looked clumsy but weren't.
It was almost…fun.
Almost.
The Pulse Tags hummed faintly under Shikamaru's skin. Three beats: Ino's—thin but sharp—even while she rode Kin's body. Choji's—strong but a little too fast, adrenaline pumping. And Sylvie's, distant and flickery as she knelt by Sasuke now, finally tearing herself away from the active fight.
Sasuke hadn't moved since they'd arrived.
That was a problem for Future Shikamaru. Present Shikamaru had a loud-mouthed sound-user aiming at his friends.
Dosu's gauntlet came up, metal glinting. Shikamaru felt the air change, the tiny shift that meant "you're about to regret having eardrums."
He twisted his fingers, yanking Dosu's shadow just enough that the arm angled away—toward empty ground.
The sonic blast tore a furrow through the earth, shattering rocks. The feedback hit Zaku, who was halfway through peeling his hand free again.
"Watch it!" Zaku roared.
Dosu didn't apologize. "You should move faster."
Kin's body laughed in Ino's voice. "Boys."
Shikamaru's chakra dipped low.
He gritted his teeth. "Make it count, you two," he muttered. "I've got maybe thirty seconds of this left."
On the edge of his awareness, Sylvie hovered over Sasuke like a nervous moth.
She brushed his hair back from his forehead with shaking fingers, leaning close to check his breathing. Her burned hand hovered over the black, flame-shaped mark on his neck, not quite touching.
"Sasuke," she whispered. "Hey. Wake up. I need you to…not be dying right now, okay?"
Sasuke didn't answer.
His pulse on her tag stuttered once.
Then spiked.
Shikamaru felt it like someone had plucked a string inside his own arm. The rhythm jolted from sluggish to erratic, thudding too hard, too fast.
"That's not good," he muttered.
He didn't have the luxury to look.
But his eyes flicked anyway, just for a heartbeat.
Sylvie froze.
Sasuke's fingers twitched in the dirt. His jaw clenched. The black marks on his neck crawled, spreading like ink spilled into his veins, pulsing with each jump of his heartbeat.
Sylvie's lips moved. Shikamaru couldn't hear what she said over the chaos—over the clash of Zaku's curse words and Choji's grunts and Dosu's muttered calculations.
It didn't matter.
Whatever she tried, it wasn't enough.
Sasuke's whole body jerked once, like something inside him had just snapped a chain.
Shikamaru's shadow faltered.
And the pulse under his skin hammered wildly as the Uchiha started to wake into something that didn't feel like him at all.