"Kiba, Shino, guys… you've gotta be misunderstanding Naruto-kun. Even if he and Sasuke really do have… you know, that kind of relationship, he still definitely wouldn't do something like this."
Hinata was still trying to defend him.
But from the way she phrased it, it was obvious that even Hinata had already started half-accepting that Naruto and Sasuke had some kind of improper thing going on.
"That's true. Their character… well, Naruto's bullshit aside, Sasuke probably wouldn't do something like this, right?"
Shikamaru had been about to speak up for the guy, but the second he opened his mouth, a vivid image flashed through his mind of Naruto as a kid, running around pulling crazy pranks and causing chaos.
He immediately changed his tune.
"He absolutely fucking would!"
A voice full of grief and total indignation barked from behind them.
"Mr. Shigaraki Tanuki?"
Everyone looked at the newcomer in surprise.
"You people clearly already have the answer, yet because of your personal feelings, you still want to deny it. That's nothing but emotional bias!"
Shigaraki Tanuki clenched his fists.
He had overheard Shikamaru's analysis.
Seeing these brats get so close to the truth, only to start making piss-poor excuses for the guy responsible, filled him with absolute anger.
Not long ago, he had run into White Zetsu.
That creepy bastard had told him about the state of his body, and mentioned that if he still wanted kids, all he had to do was earn enough contribution points and drag his ass to Orochimaru.
When he first heard that kind of garbage, of course he had refused to believe it.
But Konoha had recently been going through some heavy reforms, and part of signing up now meant getting a full physical checkup.
His own exam had only been half-completed before he took off with Sai on a mission, making this a perfect chance to get checked and put his damn doubts to rest.
The result?
White Zetsu had been telling the truth.
He had heard of boiling a frog in warm water before. He just never imagined he'd end up being the poor bastard slowly ruined that way!
Despair. Anger. Pain.
Shigaraki Tanuki kept thinking: 'The Raikage pushes his body with lightning all the time and he's perfectly fine—stronger than ever, in fact. Yet I only went through one night of this crap, and it's already destroy my future.'
His grief slowly curdled into pure hatred.
Fortunately, because White Zetsu had handed him a possible backup plan ahead of time, he hadn't completely lost his mind.
At the same time, two major questions had taken root in his head.
'That night, Sai and I both suffered together—so did something happen to Sai too?'
'Though, if those nasty rumors about Sai and Danzo were actually true, then maybe Sai's condition might have some older, messed-up causes mixed into it.'
The second question was way weirder.
The medical exam flat-out stated his future as a father was toast.
Yet that morning, he had still… shown certain signs of life down there.
That was when Shigaraki Tanuki realized some other weird shit might be going on.
'Did the lightning reduce some things while somehow jacking up others?'
With Orochimaru as a possible out, Shigaraki Tanuki's hatred went down a notch.
Which led to the current situation.
He still wanted to track Sasuke down and demand an explanation.
So when he heard Shikamaru describing Sasuke as someone with "good character," even with his anger mostly cooled off, he couldn't help flaring up again.
'A punk who did this to me still counts as having good character?!'
"Mr. Shigaraki Tanuki, are you saying it really was Sasuke? Do you have proof?"
Shikamaru didn't give a damn about being contradicted.
All he cared about was the truth.
The second he heard Tanuki say that, he sniffed out a lead and stepped forward quickly.
"Proof? Hell yeah I do… but I can't show it to you yet."
He almost said more, but caught himself.
His evidence was tied to his future "contribution points," and no matter what, he had to submit one copy to Amegakure first.
"I could have told you before. But after hearing how you were just trying to defend Uchiha Sasuke, I'm not comfortable with it. I'm worried that if I hand over the evidence right now, you'll just destroy the thing. So…"
"Take me to Amegakure first. I want to submit a copy of the evidence there, and only after I've seen the results of your further investigation will I tell you the rest."
Shigaraki Tanuki pulled an excuse out of his ass on the spot.
"All right."
Shikamaru could tell Tanuki's issue wasn't really a lack of trust; the guy clearly had some other motive.
Still, there was no helping it. If they wanted the evidence, they had to play ball.
Fortunately, this wasn't exactly a hard request.
...
Before long, the group reached the outskirts of Amegakure.
Shikamaru had Akamaru sniff around the area, looking for different traces.
Akamaru had memorized three distinct scents: Naruto, Sasuke, and that mysterious Edo Tensei fragment.
The most important one was the mysterious Edo Tensei ninja.
Normally, those zombie bodies had no real scent—but this one was a weird exception.
It smelled like a mix of milk and sweet lilacs.
"Sasori, my man! You'll never guess the crazy thing I saw this morning!"
"Everybody knows I'm hardworking. I always fly around on my bird first thing in the morning to get some exercise."
"But today I stuffed my face with a little too much oden, so I got back a bit late. I sped up on the way back, and then—guess what I saw?"
"A flying ass fragment with a flower stuck right in it was zooming back toward Amegakure right beside me! We were moving at the exact same speed!"
"I was so freaked out I almost blew up my own bird!"
"It was terrifying! Totally cursed!"
Deidara and Sasori happened to pass by the group, and Deidara was waving his arms around like a maniac as he described his morning encounter.
"…And then?" Sasori asked flatly.
Normally, Sasori had no interest in this kind of garbage news.
But the last stubborn traces of his humanity still forced a spark of curiosity out of him.
"And then? Then I kept chasing the thing. I wanted to see whose ass it belonged to, and then something even scarier happened. I somehow ended up right on your bed, Sasori, my man. Do you believe me?"
Deidara wore a completely innocent look.
"…That story doesn't make a shred of sense."
Sasori gave him a sidelong glance and stopped responding.
Because Sasori still had a living core and his brain could still get tired, he needed some downtime too.
Yet this morning, when he woke up, Deidara had been sitting right on top of him with a dazed expression.
And who the hell was Akasuna no Sasori?
He was the guy whom even the naturally obnoxious Nine-Tails jinchūriki, Uzumaki Naruto, had failed to prank properly.
'Would I really be afraid this idiot has some weird designs on me?'
Even if Deidara had dug around and found something, who said it wouldn't just be a bunch of sharpeners and tools in there anyway?
Sasori had merely been curious as to why Deidara ended up there in the first place.
If the blond bomber didn't want to explain, then fine.
But making up such a ridiculous-ass story only made Sasori think even less of Deidara's precious "art."
"I'm seriously not lying!" Deidara looked deeply wronged.
The two of them continued bickering and gradually disappeared into the distance.
Shikamaru's group, however, had stopped dead in their tracks the second those two started talking.
They remained frozen there until the entire weird exchange ended.
"Did you hear that? It's kind of similar." Shikamaru rubbed his chin and thought.
"Similar? Of course it's freaking similar! We were framed too! All of us ended up in places we had no business appearing in. It has to be Sasuke and Naruto—they're trying to drag everyone else down into their messy reputation! Look, even Akatsuki members got hit by this shit!"
The more Kiba talked, the more agitated he became.
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