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It was a perfectly average day when Shino found the seal. It was even the equinox, so it even had the average amount of time in the day. Shino just happened to be in the right place at the very wrong time.
The first time he repeated his day he thought that the first time through had just been a very realistic dream. To be fair, all he had planned for the day was wandering through the forest looking for insects, something he had done hundreds of times before, and had done in his dreams before. Then he found a weird seal in the forest near dusk and suddenly woke up in bed.
In his defense, he wasn't an idiot. Anyone who had seen Shikako at the Grass Chunin exams or even just been classmates with her had a healthy respect for the destructive capability of seals, and he had investigated the design with his Kikaichu to see if it actually was a seal before coming closer than three paces, which is when he had noticed it in the first place. Three paces was close enough to give him a severe case of deja vu.
Even the fact that his sister's morning conversation had been the same didn't faze him. Chiyako had been looking forward to the outing with her classmates for a week, and he could have predicted what she was going to say fairly accurately... if "generic breathless babbling type three" was considered to be a prediction.
It was when he suddenly woke in bed for the third time, without finding the seal this time, that he decided that he needed to talk to someone, and no one specialized in weirdness like Shikako.
Of course, not even he was tactless enough to say that outloud. There was a saying along the lines of "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." It was one of the guiding principles of his social interactions.
It had taken Shino a day to find the seal again, but convincing Shikako to inspect it was painless. She didn't even bring up the fact that protocol was to report it and let the tower send someone to inspect it. Of course, there was a good chance they would send her, so perhaps she viewed it as saving time by cutting out the middleman. Her reasoning wasn't directly relevant to the issue at hand, so he didn't ask.
"Okay, I think I can see how this seal might cause your problem. I'll give you a trust password so we don't waste as much time explaining next time. Hopefully I can decode it with a full day, otherwise you're going to need to learn enough sealing to give me a boost."
Shino froze for a moment. "I am concerned. Why? Because it is clear that you have considered this type of situation as a possibility."
"Congratulations, you're an honorary member of Team Seven. Here's your trust password: bɪl ˈmɜri aɪ gɑt ju beɪb."
"...Those don't sound like real words."
Shikako huffed. "It wouldn't be much of a trust password if someone else could think of it."
"I am unsure if I am more impressed or appalled by your preparations. However, rather than determine which is the case, it would be a more productive use of our time if you would help me with pronouncing the password."
"Actually, this might be more of a ˈrɪʧərd din ˈændərsən ˈwɪndoʊ ʌv ˌɑpərˈtunəti situation."
"I am curious as to what the difference is."
"bɪl ˈmɜri aɪ gɑt ju beɪb is waking up in bed and repeating twenty four hours, but having no idea what causes the loop. ˈrɪʧərd din ˈændərsən ˈwɪndoʊ ʌv ˌɑpərˈtunəti is for repeating ten hours, looping back to the middle of breakfast and having some idea what the cause is, but needing help from someone not looping to break the loop."
"Appalled." It was one (disturbing) thing to have a trust password for time travel in general. It was another (terrifying) thing that she had multiple passwords that seemed to have nothing in common to denote different kinds of time travel.
Shino appreciated the fact that Shikako was willing to drop everything to pack the most into every day. It efficiently maximized the amount of memory she could access. However, this was not normal behavior. Not even members of his own clan were that helpful. This was unlikely a deficiency of character on his clan's part and a statement reflecting the fact that they have insufficient knowledge to help and needed much more explanation to understand the situation he was in. For instance, it took an hour just to explain the idea of a time loop to his father.
Shino didn't consider himself the type to jump to conclusions. He was quick to hypothesize, but he was open to his theories being adjusted by new facts. At the moment the Aburame had three hypotheses for Shikako's behavior in his time loop: one, Team Seven's mission history was even more colorful than Shino had already put together (and that was already a very sparkly rainbow); two, she had experienced a time loop before, either from Shino's point of view or her own; three, Shikako is just that good of a friend.
He also considered the hypothesis that the Nara might simply be insane, but discarded that almost immediately. Whatever the cause for her actions, they were productive, which ruled out insanity by definition.
None of the remaining hypotheses were mutually exclusive. That last viable hypothesis was particularly important, as Shikako would probably never truly understand how much her friendship meant to him. That was the case even before the time loop. He wasn't particularly clear exactly on how Shikako decided they were friends aside from being classmates at the Academy, but perhaps that was enough for her.
If anything solidified the belief that she considered him her friend it was how she treated his sister, which went above and beyond anything he could have hoped for. Not only did Shikako act in a friendly manner to Chiyako, she also ensured that Chiyako had friends her own age.
The engineered social backlash for the bullies was something Shino probably shouldn't have found as satisfying as he did. However, it was likely meant as education rather than retribution. The entire village had seen what happened when Shikako attempted social retribution with the storage seal event. Being snubbed for the kunoichi club was not on the same scale.
No, perhaps as both an older and younger sister, Shikako could have understood what her friendship meant to Shino before the time loop.
Now, however, having someone believe him about what was happening almost instantly was a prize beyond measure. Again, it made Shikako feel more welcoming than even his own clan.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect about Shikako's trust password system, even worse than the lack of pattern between passwords for related scenarios, was the specificity. ˈvɜrnər vɪngeɪ ˈkʊki ˈmɑnstər referred to a situation where they're trapped in a time loop and don't keep their memory but somehow get information out of the loop that they can reference.
Truly, the mind of a Nara was intimidating in the breadth of vision. Shino was stuck in a time loop, but he doubted that he could come up with that scenario himself.
He also tested this trust password twice. The first time was less successful because he couldn't pronounce it properly. The V sounds came out like B's. Once she understood what he was saying, she began asking after the "cookie" and what mechanism was being used to transmit information forward. Some hypotheticals were contact from the summons realm and talking to ghosts.
Part of him had been hoping that the trust password system was bogus. Not that he wanted her to lie to him, but it had disturbing implications that she felt the need for such an elaborate system. She refused to share more passwords because she would need to invalidate them, and trusted that he would tell her the three she had shared, but she did share some of the other situations. Why she had a password for time traveling, flesh devouring shadow monsters that lived in books was something Shino did not want to investigate.
Despite having previously hypothesized that Shikako had experienced a time loop before, the realization that the hypothetical experience might explain her remarkable skill growth caused Shino to freeze in place for two minutes and forty three seconds.
If he was remembering his timeline correctly, Shikako had emerged from the Academy barely able to do more than copy existing explosive seals. For an academy student that was still fairly impressive, but it paled significantly in comparison to her showing at the Grass Chunin Exam. Setting seals with a touch, like her touch blasts that she had demonstrated in the attack by Sand and Sound, was a skill that he believed normally took years of dedicated study to accomplish. Granted, Shikako was a motivated Nara, and normal growth curves at intellectual pursuits were to be considered inaccurate.
Still, if that skill had emerged before the Konoha Exam, that set a probable time period for her own time loop. Given her focus on raw destruction and the fact that Shikako seemed to be unfamiliar with the specifics of the seal they were deconstructing now, Shino believed that her loop was ended by destroying an artifact of some sort.
Shino adjusted his conclusions when he realized that Shikako had an appallingly complete and practical knowledge regarding black holes, a concept that he had been blissfully unfamiliar with previous to the time loop.
Shino did his level best to pretend that day never happened, which, under the circumstances, was easier than normal.
Shino had long considered whether or not people had souls to be an academic topic. Why? Knowing one way or the other wouldn't change how he lived his life.
In contrast, Shikako not only knew for certain that souls were real, but had some knowledge on how to manipulate them. If he had any doubts that she had lived a lot longer than her chronological age would suggest, they were dispelled now. (The alternative was to believe that the Nara were even more scary than he wanted to even contemplate.)
The surprise was enough for Shino to abandon his usual policy of not prying. "Shikako, why do you have a seal to remove a person's soul from their body?"
"Classified," she sang.
He frowned slightly. "This doesn't look like the same style as your seals."
"Classified~ Though they probably should have told me I couldn't use it on people. But, uh, could you keep quiet about this anyway?"
They had most likely thought that not removing people's souls was common sense and didn't need to be said. Still, Shino trusted Shikako, and he allowed her to use the seal on him. Granted, this was only after exhausting every other avenue of research that they (mostly Shikako) could think of.
"Well, the good news is that we now know why the seal keeps activating even when the physical seal is inert and you don't come anywhere near it."
"The bad news is that it seems to have transfered to my soul," Shino said, looking at the projection of his soul that appeared to be an arm, which was covered in a spidery script. Some absurd corner of his brain wondered how he could talk.
"Congratulations, you're an honorary member of Team Seven."
She didn't say it every loop. Despite not remembering things, Shikako only brought it out when Shino learned something new and disturbing. It didn't occur to Shino the first time she said this, but after hearing her say it for the first time for the fifth time, Shino understood.
"That is less of a statement of honor and more of a statement of sympathy."
Shikako shrugged sheepishly.
(For the record, the first time was finding out about the time loop. The second time was when she worked out how Shino's Kikaichu triggered the seal. The third time was when he tried the other trust password. The fourth time involved her gleefully explaining black holes and what they had to do with time to him.)
Shino was shocked when Shikako met him halfway rather than him visiting her at her home. "You don't need to give me a trust password this time."
"You activated the seal yourself."
She shrugged. "I'm guessing I tried before, but only after I saw how it bonded to your soul did it work properly. Or rather, I think I automatically tried fighting off the soul binding before? I had to deliberately let it happen this time." She made a face. "It felt weird."
Shino stared at Shikako long enough for her to shuffle uncomfortably. "That was reckless," he finally said.
"But, it let me confirm something?"
Shino sighed. "Was it worth the risk?"
"It worked, so yes?"
This obviously wasn't a productive line of discussion. "What did you confirm?"
"This is a time travel situation."
"I thought that was already confirmed. Why? You accepted the trust password without issue."
"Oh, there are other possibilities for things that look like time travel. For instance, it could be a genjutsu, but I don't think there's a genjutsu that could fake that feeling on my soul. It's a very distinctive sensation."
"I don't recall anything like that."
"Well, you don't have chakra hypersensitivity, and probably have died fewer times than I have."
"I feel it prudent to mention that despite my clan's notorious lack of affect, I find this conversation to be disturbing. Perhaps necessary, but nonetheless disturbing. Why? Dying is not commonly discussed as happening more than once for a given individual."
Shikako shrugged. "It should be more common with Tsunade here. I mean not really common because she's also good about not assigning horrible missions, but stuff happens."
Apparently Shino had mistaken the accuracy of the adjective "legendary" when applied to the Hokage's medical skills. He also possibly underestimated the number of things that Shikako could apply the term "stuff" to.
"Anyway, the seal has a fairly unforgiving planetary alignment requirement so activating it a second time eliminated the possibility that it was just resetting the physical state of the planet."
"That was a possibility?"
"There was one area in the seal that could have been either recurrence or recreation. It wasn't clear to me which. Wait. Was it yesterday, er, the previous today that we used the seal to project your soul from your body?"
"Yes."
"That should eliminate continually being shuffled to an alternate universe, because I didn't see a targeting component and the chances of us being shuffled to the same universe is almost infinitesimal."
"That was a possibility?" Shino felt stupid repeating it, but it was clear that he hadn't even begun to plumb the depths of Shikako's imagination.
"A small one, though I'm not sure how it fits in with either recurrence or recreation. A bit horrible, too. Either you'd be leaving brain dead versions of yourself in random alternate universes or a copy of you would go on and wonder why the loop ended with no actions on his part. That would be bad if you went crazy in any of your loops and mooned the Council or something."
Shino had resolved not to be horrified by Shikako's imagination near the beginning of the loops, but he was not living up to the resolution. Exposure did not seem to make things any better. Sadly, it would almost be better if she was homicidal, because there's only so many ways you can threaten to kill someone, and he was trained to deal with people wanting to kill him.
Still it had to be said, "You are a good friend."
She blushed and mumbled something that could have been "Thanks."
"Would it make sense to bring other people as well?"
Shikako shrugged. "I'm pretty sure I can remove the seal on myself, but I think you'll need to remove your own. Maybe not need, but it's a very good idea. Every person we bring in is another person we need to teach."
"You don't think you'd be able to remove my seal?"
"Are you familiar with the concept of purifying medical chakra? The soul isn't the body, I think incompatible energy directed to the soul would be, ah, somewhat worse than impure chakra to the body. If we didn't have time, I might risk it, but time is one thing we have plenty of."
Shino did not groan at that statement and congratulated himself on his restraint.
"Right. So our long term goal - if that phrase means anything when we're repeating the same day - is to get you to be able to sense spiritual bodies like souls."
"Will this involve any more... out of body experiences?"
"Hopefully not? I've got some exercises that should help."
"What? How?" Shino blurted out.
Shikako waved a hand. "Classified project."
"Please at least tell me that it was the same one as before."
Shikako visibly thought for a second. Shino honestly couldn't tell if the delay was for the purpose of messing with him or not. "I think I can admit that much."
That was a relief. He didn't want to consider the implications of multiple classified projects that involved dealing directly with souls.
"We're lucky in that this seal doesn't seem to be a trap, or at least not a deliberate one. At a guess, it was intended to be a training tool. So no weird snares for the unwary. It should be easy to dispel once you can properly sense it. In theory."
"Have you tried disrupting yours?"
"No. If I tried then the likely result would be that I'd be kicked out of the loop. I guess I could try and then reactivate the seal, but I'd honestly rather not mess with my soul more than strictly necessary." Shikako frowned at that last part.
"I don't blame you."
Technically, Team Seven's favorite training ground was completely unreserved and anyone could use it. In practice, everyone was too scared of possibly finding some leftover seal of Shikako's or trap of Naruto's to want to come anywhere near the place unless visiting the memorial stone. Naruto's prank traps were actually worse than the lethal ones because he didn't put his heart into the lethal ones.
As far as Shino knew, the possibility of running into an old seal was entirely theoretical. Still no one wanted to chance it, making it a convenient place to meet now that Shikako didn't need to examine the seal Shino found, especially with Sasuke on duty all day and Kakashi dealing with Kumo.
He found that having a home base of sorts to be a comforting touchstone. Why? Going somewhere to be alone with the only other person who retained her memory made it easier to believe that things were moving forward. That sense of progress was vital to his mental health because life in the time loop had been a series of unfortunate implications one after another.
This today he realized an implication behind the fact that Shikako was still obeying rules on information control, and had been even when he was looping by himself: to Shikako this was still business as usual. This wasn't an outrageous situation where the rules needed to be thrown out of the window to solve things.
His first reaction was a sort of resigned horror that Shikako considered this to be a normal unusual situation. It would have been stronger had he realized this near the beginning of the loops, but he was developing some level of immunity there. His second reaction was pleasure at Shikako's confidence that he could solve his problem with those restrictions in place.
It turned out that Shikako just didn't think that it would help.
"I mean places more than a day's travel away wouldn't be useful since you couldn't get there in time. Then there are places that were thoroughly destroyed... but I guess those are all more than a day away, too. There might be a couple of options if the seal could keep you from dying? That's not something you want to experiment with."
"Pardon? Why would the seal keep me from dying?"
"Well, I don't think that this one would, but if the loop was a curse from the Shinigami, for example, then he might just deny you the freedom of death."
Yes, Shino was still disturbed by her imagination, and even more disturbed that her mission history had so many potential sources of information for this situation. From her use of plurals, that was a minimum of four different potential sources, and that was being extremely generous with combining those categories. He took some consolation in the fact that Shikako was adept at lateral thinking, so those sources may not be directly applicable.
Actually, given that the relevant topics were time travel and soul manipulation that was still rather frightening.
"This is an exercise that, as far as I know, was only practiced by the Kato clan."
"...This isn't a clan secret, is it?"
Shikako waved off his question. "Nah. It has a long and honorable tradition of being shared with allies who promptly ignore it."
Shino tilted his head forward slightly in question.
"The Kato clan's signature jutsu was sending their spirits outside their bodies. This exercise was really the first one out of dozens along that path. Anyone outside the clan who demonstrated any kind of affinity with it was looked at as prime targets for marriage."
That was a much more sensible method for looking for a mate than most humans practiced.
"Is this why the Hokage's assistant is still unattached?"
Shikako looked around in alarm. "Are you trying to find out if the seal will work when you're dead!?"
Oh. Another one of those illogically sensitive topics. There was a reason Shino usually avoided asking people personal questions. He decided not to ask if Shikako knowing this exercise meant that she had been scouted to join the Kato clan.
"We should really spend some time with our friends and family today."
Shino furrowed his brow. "They would not remember the event."
"Really the idea is to refresh your memory about things they're currently paying attention to, so you don't get thrown into T&I as an imposter once the loop ends. I have some backup plans if it becomes necessary, but really we want to avoid drawing attention in the first place."
"I feel a sense of... unease when you mention backup plans."
"The most effective one is to pretend that we started dating," Shikako said bluntly. "People in new relationships often forget-" She waved her hands around. "-things." Despite her lack of specificity, Shino had noticed this phenomenon before. Bizarre forgetfulness regarding appointments. Lack of attention to family members. Shikako sounded about as disgusted about it as Shino felt.
"That sounds effective, but suboptimal. Why? Your brother would kill me." Shino was certain that wasn't hyperbole.
"Which is why we don't want things coming up in the first place."
"Will we not report this event?"
"And it will be classified."
Shino acknowledged her point by closing his eyes and sighing. The powers that be would step in to cover things up, but they would be happier not needing to cover things up, and that cover up might involve explanations that would cause Shino's death by twin.
"Shika likes you. You might get by only being maimed slightly. Also, we don't want to get into the habit of just interacting with each other. If we regularly take days off where we interact with a broad group of other people it should keep our minds from fossilizing into weird patterns. Think of it like mental health days."
Shino didn't ask whether they were more for her benefit or his. He didn't actually need confirmation that he was bad enough company that she needed frequent breaks from him.
Shino stared in shock. He didn't consider Shikako straight up telling people she was stuck in a time loop to be a viable tactic.
"...so it would be great if you could remind me of anything I need to know that would be relevant for the next week or so. Oh, and Shino's stuck with me, so let him know what he should remember, too."
"Aw, man, she got you, too?"
Shino was glad that he habitually wore sunglasses, otherwise the staring would be quite rude at this point. "Kiba, you believe her?"
The Inuzuka shrugged as Hinata replied "It is Shikako."
Akamaru barked and Kiba nodded at his partner. "You said it."
"I'll have you know that Shino was the one who triggered the seal, I just added myself to the loop to help."
"I thought you said this would be classified."
"Well, it's not classified yet, and is it really leaking classified information if they won't remember it when time resets?"
Kiba barked in laughter. "That's Shikako for you, so straightforward she's twisty."
"This would not work if I tried that approach." Shino wasn't sure what emotion he would want to try to put into his voice if he was capable of it at the moment.
"It is Shikako," Hinata repeated.
"Have you tried doing anything crazy like painting the Hokage tower pink?" asked Kiba.
"I'm on a team with Naruto. That's not crazy, that's a Tuesday."
Hinata clapped her hands. "Oh! How about any foods you want to cook now that you don't need to do the dishes afterwards?"
Shikako turned to Shino. "Tomorrow we're taking the day off for cooking. Gyoza, cake, and lots and lots of bacon."
Shino wasn't sure which was worse: the number of people who believed Shikako or the number of people who didn't but went along with it anyway. There was no third category.
At this point Shino was sure that any disorientation he exhibited when they were out of the loop could be explained away by "existential questions after talking with Shikako". It wouldn't even be a lie.
Despite the deleterious effect on his sense of normality, Shino found that his mood was distinctly improved for the better with Shikako in the loop with him. Part of that was simply having someone around who remembered things. Part of that was a sense of progress as he learned what he needed to know to remove the seal. A good chunk was having someone around who seemed to know what she was doing.
Case in point: "We should gather some intelligence."
"What kind of intelligence?"
"At a minimum, see if there are any missions that went south today that might have been saved if there was more information available in the morning. Er, Tsunade is more forgiving about paperwork for weird stuff if you can show some sort of positive result?"
Granted, just because Shino agreed with her suggested course of action didn't mean he agreed with the reasoning behind it. That said, if even one life could be saved then this headache would have been worth it.
"Otherwise she might have us do nothing but catch Tora for a month straight."
Upon further reflection, there was some merit for Shikako's thought process as well.
As mentioned, it was a perfectly average day, and on average days missions don't go so wrong that they lose shinobi within a day's travel of Konoha. There were a few injuries (three of which were due to Tora) but nothing more serious than a broken arm (Tora should not be a D rank mission).
Shino felt annoyed at the part of him that was disappointed that nothing serious went wrong, especially when Shikako's reaction was to smile about it first and then get disappointed they didn't have information to ward off Tora duty.
His initial hypothesis was that Shikako had more empathy for missions gone wrong due to her own history of injuries, which made him feel bad. Then he remembered Shikamaru's arm and modified that theory to feeling more empathy because of having more experience with teammates getting injured. That made him feel even worse.
Shino's training thankfully did not involve any further out of body experiences. In addition to the publicly available Kato clan exercises, it involved a lot of chakra sensing exercises straight out of the sensory squad. It was difficult for Shino because he had offloaded most of his sensing ability to his hive. Perhaps the most frustrating part of it was that Shino knew that given a year he could adapt his hive to help, but his hive couldn't evolve with the daily resets.
Shikako had said that she was working on this skill for classified reasons, and Shino would respect that. That didn't mean he couldn't speculate. On the face of it, detecting souls was inferior to chakra detection. Chakra was much easier to sense. However, that meant techniques to fool chakra senses were more advanced. Though counter-counter measures were also fairly advanced. About the only thing that Kikaichu were fooled by were shadow clones, which were a Konoha specific technique. Well, researching a way to counter a Konoha specific technique would explain classification.
Shino had managed to forget that Shikako's specialization when she reached Tokubetsu Jounin was sensing. Why? It had been obviously a political maneuver to avoid being stuck in research.
It was an object lesson in being too focused on looking for hidden meanings that he missed the obvious: Tsume would not have offered Shikako that promotion in her department before the ink was dry on her Chunin promotion if Shikako did not have the skills necessary.
Oh, of course. The seal Shikako had to force a person out of their body. It wasn't hers, so if she was studying it, it might be an enemy technique that she's trying to work countermeasures for.
The problem with this line of speculation was that Shino wasn't supposed to be speculating, and instead working on sensing exercises. He honestly hated them. Bypassing his Kikaichu was like... trying to read with the tips of his fingers with a side helping of infidelity.
"Are there other approaches to take? Why? I feel that these exercises are weakening my connection to my hive."
Shikako flinched at that. Shino didn't like the part of him that felt gratified at that flinch. Appreciating empathy was nice; inflicting discomfort on his very good (best?) friend was not. That was twice the case when it was also frustration that he just wasn't very talented at this. He was in no danger of Shizune drafting him to rebuild her clan at least.
"Sure. The next thing to try would be... teaching you sealing? Dad might get a little annoyed, but this is extenuating circumstances."
And this was another reason why Shino appreciated Shikako's friendship. She trusted his judgement and priorities and just offered an alternative, even if it came at a cost to her. Having an alternative right away was also something worth considerable gratitude. There was one obvious question, however. "Why would your father be annoyed?"
"Technically sealing is clan knowledge now. But it's not a secret secret, you know? Just secret enough to generate paperwork if I teach anyone else. Otherwise I'd never be able to collaborate with Tenten."
"I was under the impression that you were teaching me sealing before." Was any of that after Shikako joined the loop?
Shikako waved it off. "Reading seals is declass stuff. You'll need to create your own seal for this."
Two subjective weeks later and they increased the frequency of their mental health days. Learning sealing was hard and did not suit his temperament. Still, this was a path where he didn't feel like he was losing anything.
"I still don't see where there's a planetary alignment requirement in this seal."
"Hmm? Oh, it's sort of implicit. You see how it would only work on dusk of a day where the day is the same length as the night?"
The person who wrote the seal seemed to imagine time as a place and the travel involved moving towards the sun, and it would only line up on the equinox. He didn't quite understand how that worked, since that would imply that Shino would have needed to be in the same place every night for the seal to work, but it obviously did work. "Yes."
"The problem is that space curves and the path he imagined is only straight if there's a planetary body between here and the sun. Well, offset a little. Not exactly between us and the sun."
"What."
"That's the simple version. Actually, that's simplifying the simplified version. Still, I can't imagine the seal works more than once every thirty to seventy years. It probably looked like a failure the first time to whoever tried it."
He'd feel like he was being condescended to, but he still had trouble with the concept of curved space, which came up quite a bit when Shikako tried to explain black holes. He'd ask how she knew this kind of subject matter, but he was certain that the answer was classified... or perhaps just plain boring. It's possible that was the kind of thing available in some of the dustier corners of libraries that he would never find.
It occured to Shino that he would only ever be a tenth as dangerous with seals as Shikako, if that. The true danger behind seals was their ability to weaponize other knowledge you had, and Shino would never have the breadth of knowledge as the Nara. Quite frankly he didn't care enough. While his skills weren't completely one dimensional, his passion was with his insects. Seals didn't add much there.
"You spent yesterday with my sister."
"Technically? I was actually picking Iruka's brain for teaching tips. It's just that to do that I needed to help out with his class."
He was flattered that she would think about improving her teaching with her free time, but "Was yesterday not intended to be a mental health day?"
"That just means doing something different, not necessarily non-productive."
Shino felt it was odd that Shikako knew what Chiyako had done that day and he didn't, so on their next mental health day, he tagged along on the school outing. Unlike Shikako, he didn't interact with the students, and just practiced his stealth by observing (not stalking) his sister.
He might have approached to help Iruka out, but there were two girls in the class that frankly gave him a creepy sensation down his back. One looked like she could be Shikako's sister, but was dressed like Ino did in the academy and the other looked like a typical Yamanaka but was dressed in typical Nara clothing. It was disturbing enough to see. He didn't want to find out what their personalities were like. Even Iruka seemed unsettled by the two, though it was subtle.
The next today he gave Chiyako a storage scroll with a towel and some spare socks. They may not have gotten any intelligence that could help any missions, but Shino felt a sense of satisfaction in giving Chiyako the ability to help with some of the minor mishaps that occurred during the class outing.
Over time, for some sense of the word, the scroll Shino gave her became more elaborate. Part of this was practice creating seals giving him the ability to make a storage scroll more quickly. Part of it was hearing about or seeing minor mishaps that made additional items useful. So he added things like snacks, first aid items, and so on.
One day he stopped and just looked at all the things he had put in that scroll, and realized that quite a bit of time must have passed.
"About six months for me. I have a list of people I rotate through to spend time with on my mental health days. I've looped through the list three times and some change, which would put it at about twenty seven weeks, assuming we've been good about keeping those days regular. I mean I know we haven't been one hundred percent regular like the time I declared it would be cooking day, but it should be good for a rough estimate."
"...I see." Six months? "Have I thanked you lately for being a good friend?" He doubted that he would be anywhere near sane if he had been doing this himself.
"You can treat me to hot pot."
Shino lifted an eyebrow. Spending money on food in the loop wasn't an issue. They could eat as well or as poorly as they wanted. There had been a week before Shikako entered the loop where he didn't bother eating anything except at breakfast with his family.
"After we get out of the loop, obviously."
"We should do a dry run for reporting in."
"To what end?"
"Find out what they'll ask us, so that we'll have the answers. See if we get thrown into T&I. Find out if there's any information that they think we should bring back. Who knows? They might have trust passwords that might make things easier."
"Why now?"
Shikako clapped Shino on the back. "We're getting close."
Shino stared at his failed seal. "Really?"
"Really."
He suspected that this was a lie and that she was actually trying to get him to focus on something productive rather than his latest failure. Or perhaps her idea of close was not the same as his. There was also the possibility that she just thought he was smarter than he actually was. Whatever the case, he wouldn't fight her on this.
"Lesson learned: they'll believe anything as long as I mention that I was with you. Next time I should lead with the fact that you were in the time loop with me."
Shikako glared at Shino.
"It is also quite odd that the only thing that they wished me to pass back is to change the coffee filter."
Shikako's face twisted in disgust. "That sounds unsanitary. Well, I didn't get much better. "
Shino furrowed his brow. "Not much better?"
The Nara crossed her arms and huffed. "Calling an exorcist is hardly productive advice."
"Good morning, Kiba."
"Hey, Shino. Were we meeting up?"
"No. I am trapped in a time loop with Shikako."
"What?"
"Every day when the sun sets, my day resets and I wake up in bed."
"That's messed up. How can I help?"
"The previous today I asked you if there was one thing I should tell you in the morning and you said that I should tell you. Ahem. 'She's engaged.' I will be back before dusk to see if that is still the message you want to send yourself."
"Wait. Who's engaged?"
"Unknown. You didn't want to tell me and you didn't want to tell me why you didn't want to tell me."
"The previous today I asked you if there was one thing I should tell you in the morning and you said that I should tell you. Ahem. 'She's really engaged, dumbass. Shino's not messing with you.' I will be back before dusk to see if that is still the message you want to send yourself."
"The previous today I asked you if there was one thing I should tell you in the morning and you said that I should tell you. Ahem. 'Shithead, she's engaged. Shino's not messing with you. Your balls are on the line here.' I will be back before dusk to see if that is still the message you want to send yourself. I have no confidence you will listen to the warning this time as you haven't the last five times."
"Fuck it. Just tell me Hana's pissed at me and I should hide for the day."
"Shino, are you okay?"
"Why would that not be the case?"
"You kind of died yesterday. It was a bit messy, too."
"What."
"No experiments setting seals with your Kikaichu. Obviously something went very, very wrong with that. I'm taking a mental health day. Or three."
"I am sorry I made you witness that."
"The thing that's really bothering me is wondering if there were days we both died and we just don't remember them?"
"I find that possibility unlikely. Why? We would likely have repeated the same actions that caused our deaths since the only things that change are our memories."
"That we know of. There may still be things that are truly random chance." This led to a lecture on some truly disturbing theories on the nature of reality including the idea of a cat that was both alive and dead.
Is this what Nara think about when they watch clouds all day? Was it how Shikako could turn into shadow? Because she honestly believed she was simultaneously body and shadow at the same time?
"...still, if you didn't keep your memories from yesterday it's likely if we both died neither of us would loop, so I don't really need to worry about it."
"Perhaps next time start with that?"
"What?"
Shino closed his eyes and wished that he thought she was deliberately messing with him for giving her a scare.
Shino had his own theory about the sealing script that Shikako used. Twins often developed their own language before they learn to speak properly from their parents. It was likely that Shikako had codified their twin language and used it for her seals. As Shino started putting together his own sealing script it occurred to him that the trust passwords she used were likely from this twin language as well.
In a very real sense, Shikako had weaponized the love for her twin in her seals.
And as far as Shino could tell, Shikamaru had completely forgotten their twin language. It was no wonder that they had such trouble getting along now.
While obviously Shikako's script wouldn't be learnable by him, he was inspired by how she combined kanji with her own language. Some things made more sense for Shino when expressed as insects do. So he threw in curves based on bee dances and sharp twists based on the antenna motions of ants.
Like Shikako, the first seal he could set by a touch was an explosive seal. His seal also had the kanji for blast in the center. Radius and timer were set with bee dance curves and intensity was set with the ant antenna twists.
Given the connection to insects he thought being able to set them with his Kikaichu would be eminently feasible. Even if it didn't work, he didn't think it would be fatal. Sadly, he agreed with her conclusion that research on that subject should be discontinued. He didn't want to risk what Shikako considered to be a messy death.
It was hard to explain the relationship of an Aburame to their hive to people outside the clan. The concepts weren't hard to say, but it seemed that they were hard to accept. An Aburame lived in harmony with their hive. To say it was part of them was both accurate and horribly inaccurate.
On one level Shino was happy that the hive was not part of his soul because that would imply that he had subsumed its existence in a way that would be anathema to him.
On another level, souls implied things like reincarnation and the afterlife and the idea that he would be eventually separated from his hive was equally anathema.
Why was this important? He had to internalize an understanding of what was part of his soul and what was not part of his soul to remove the seal from it. The emotional part of that was much harder than the intellectual. He spent a lot of time talking to various Inuzuka about what it was like losing their partner and how to prepare for it.
Kiba turned out to be singularly unhelpful. He acknowledged that it was almost inevitable that either he or Akamaru would outlive each other unless they died in the same battle, but he was convinced that they'd meet up in the Pure Land eventually. Shino didn't think that either his hive or the individual Kikaichu had souls, meaning that long term view wasn't applicable.
There were questions about why Shino was asking about this kind of topic, but "existential questions after talking with Shikako" was a very useful excuse. Not only was it completely true, but it also generated quite a bit of sympathy and prevented people from wanting to know more.
"I can't believe that so many people regard us as... as... cognito hazards!"
Shino nodded. "That is a good term. I will have to remember it in the future. Take comfort that people believe that you only accidentally inflict mental damage."
"That's an odd distinction.... Dammit, Kakashi-sensei."
"Indeed. Though people are aware that when you inflict social damage it is quite deliberate, which is why multiple departments now have actual policies against insulting your brother."
A look of satisfaction flashed across Shikako's face before she said "But all of us? Sasuke's a perfectly normal Uchiha. I think. From what I remember."
"Bad mission luck that often leads to traumatizing events."
Shikako visibly braced herself. "And what do people think about Naruto?"
"Actually, absence has led people to remember his pranks with fondness. Painting the Hokage monument isn't traumatizing."
"...Well.... Maybe that would help with his dream of being Hokage?"
"Indeed. There are not many qualified candidates willing to become legally responsible for Team Seven's activities."
Shikako narrowed her eyes. "When we get out of this loop, I am so making sure everyone knows I made you an honorary member."
Shino wouldn't have gone so far as to label Ino a friend. He had nothing against the blonde girl, but they just didn't have very much in common. It was a surprise to him that Ino felt that he was a friend. It seemed that treating her exactly the same despite the change to her eyes meant a lot to her.
To be honest, Shino was equally uncomfortable before and after, but equally uncomfortable looked like equally comfortable to her. Before she was a boy crazy, fashion conscious girl. Perhaps she wasn't as bad as she was back in the Academy, but she was still so alien to him that being tainted by contact with Orochimaru's mind made her more relatable.
Or rather contact with Orochimaru's soul.
Ino had a mission on their eternal today, but they were able to bribe her with a good meal and an hour was enough to convey what was known and unclassified about the cursed seal. That was largely because Shikako had already studied it and Ino didn't have much to add on top of that. Shino was disturbed because he had worked to contain Sasuke's cursed seal when it was first applied and didn't realize anything like a soul fragment was involved. It made him wonder how many Team Seven worthy events happened around him and he just didn't notice. Perhaps the difference between them and anyone else was simply that they were simply more observant.
Then Shino considered the five different snafus Sasuke could run into doing in village patrol just today depending on what kind of warning they gave him and decided that Team Seven was just cursed.
Still, how had Shino missed the fact the jutsu Orochimaru had used to kill the Sandaime involved summoning the souls of the Shodaime and Nidaime? So much for souls not making a difference in his life.
...And Shino now had an idea about one of the rejected potential resources Shikako considered. Orochimaru wasn't what Shino would consider a sane option, but at least Shikako didn't consider it viable without some sort of immortality being on the table. Shino would have just labeled it non-viable without the caveat, but Shikako obviously had different standards.
"I had been hoping for some grand epiphany," Shino said as he stared at the seal.
"Instead of just futzing around until you came up with something that looked like it might work?"
"Indeed."
"Well maybe tomorrow will bring an enemy that we can just hit."
Shino suppressed a sigh. It felt wrong that he agreed with her. Thankfully they were able to do some training in the Forest of Death so they didn't get too soft in their eternal day, but it would feel very nice to just punch someone in the face who deserved it. And hopefully they averted whatever the heck happened that made Kiba deserve it.
Otherwise, Chiyako had a very good day where she would at least be momentarily popular for being prepared for everything that could go wrong on her school outing. Hinata got told about a store that closed early. Shino didn't know what the message Kurenai gave herself meant, but had an impression it involved Asuma, and therefore had no intention of finding out more.
Shikako, it seemed, had a lot of messages involving forms for her clan and her brother's team. Telling them what form they would need for the day conveyed a lot of information. Shino wasn't clear on how she kept them straight in her head, but he wasn't the one from a clan of geniuses. Then again, he didn't spend a lot of time in the tower either.
Activating the seal was anticlimactic: just a faint tingle on the edge of his senses. Then Shikako popped him out of his body, which, again, was something he despised, and they looked for traces of the seal. Thankfully there was nothing.
Repeat with Shikako, and together they watched the sun go down. Finally.
"See you tomorrow."
"See you tomorrow." It felt good to be able to say that and actually mean it.
Then Shino discovered that he had forgotten how to fall asleep, another sentence he never thought he would need.
"We're off duty until a Yamanaka clears us."
Shino sighed. "Annoying, but not unexpected." They had just gone the better part of a year where nothing new really happened and would need to get used to new things again.
"I know. It's even worse than the time we spent in the loop."
"...You have an odd sense of priorities."
Shikako shrugged. "It was a bit annoying because I couldn't take notes, but I did get a lot of seal work done." She clapped him on the shoulder. "You get to learn my seal to counter Edo Tensai."
"I am very concerned. Why? Everything you do has a reason." That, perhaps, wasn't strictly true, but if the jutsu that took the life of the Sandaime could be easily countered, it wouldn't have taken the life of the Sandaime.
She shrugged. "I had a spare afternoon."
"That was a horrible joke."
Another shrug. "Want to find out if Kiba believes Hana today?"
"Believes her about what?"
Shikako gave him a funny look. "About being engaged."
"Is that what that was about?"
"Why did you think he kept getting beat up? There aren't many people he'd just let do that."
"I was under the impression that he had sexually harassed an engaged woman."
"That doesn't sound like Kiba at all."
"Deliberately, no. Accidentally?"
Shikako looked skyward briefly. "Point."
"Why wouldn't he believe his sister had gotten engaged?"
"Because it's to another girl."
"...He might have forgotten that was legal," Shino tried, not really believing it himself. He didn't think Kiba was a homophobe, but he could be rather casually insensitive. It probably simply never occurred to him that Hana might be interested in a girl.
"Uh huh." At least Shikako didn't seem to be personally offended, simply exasperated by the boneheaded antics of a friend. It was another data point Shino added against the hypothesis that Shikako introduced gay marriage to Konoha for her own future use. Shino considered the most likely hypothesis that she did so just to make her clanmate happy. That was followed closely by her stated reason that it made the paperwork easier.
If it had been him, it definitely would have been the paperwork. Then again, if it had been him, he wouldn't have done it because he would have expected more backlash. He wondered if Konoha was really that much more accepting than he believed or if people were just that scared of Shikako's revenge.
Shino furrowed his brow. "Does Hana not have an obligation to have children?"
"She's a medic and female. I can think of at least three, no, four ways to get around that problem."
Shino decided that he didn't want to know.
"Are you okay?"
The question made sense from the standpoint of what Kiba would call Shikako's pack mentality, but "I am unclear why that question makes sense in this context."
Shikako brought her palm to her face. "I guess Kiba's theory that you had a crush on his sister is false then."
Shino sighed. At this point he felt comfortable enough with Shikako to admit that "It was one of those social situations where it seemed appropriate to compliment family members. It seems that I miscalculated the correct degree of effusiveness."
"Say no more. I've had the same problem around babies." She crossed her arms and hunched her shoulders. "For the record, 'I don't see the resemblance' is not the right thing to say."
They shared a silent moment of solidarity in the face of irrational social expectations.
"Anyway, I hope you don't mind that we didn't get a choice for the therapist. They only wanted one for information security. Eri-nee is nice enough, though."
"Eri-nee? Is this a clan member?"
"Sort of? Eri's a Yamanaka, but she married Nara Sousuke, who I think is my third cousin once removed. She used to be a Nara, but they had two kids. Haruka has no talent for the Nara clan arts and Akiko has no skill for the Yamanaka jutsus. So on paper they divorced and Eri and Haruka went to the Yamanaka clan and Sousuke and Akiko stayed Naras."
Right, because you can't teach clan jutsus to people not in the clan. This wasn't really an issue Shino had much experience with. People tended not to marry into his clan.
"Nice kids, if a bit disturbing."
"...Disturbing?" Shino wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know.
"Imagine me and Ino when we were in the Academy. Now swap our outfits and personalities. That's Haruka and Akiko."
"Chiyako's classmates? Yes. Disturbing." Now he was very glad he didn't try interacting with that class.
"Why would you think that? Oh, right, Shiba-sensei's class joined Iruka's for the outing. No, they're a year behind Chiyako. I don't think Iruka is used to them yet."
"That would explain some of the looks he was giving them."
Yamanaka Eri wasn't familiar to Shino, but he had little interaction with T&I or the Yamanaka clan as a whole. She had a very no nonsense demeanor, which Shino could appreciate. It made it easy to concentrate on the here and now, though she did twitch somewhat when he mentioned that one of the things that had disturbed him most about the experience was seeing her children.
According to Eri, the resemblance between her children and Ino and Shikako was deliberate. After hearing about the Grass Chunin exams, Akiko had decided that strangling a man with a braid was the coolest thing ever, while Haruka idolised some event that Shino hadn't heard about where Ino broke a man with just three words. It helped that the two reportedly considered themselves sisters.
Now Shikako was Shino's friend, and he'd been around Kiba long enough that anyone who disagreed with that fact could fight him, but Shino took comfort in the fact that Shikako was one of a kind. Another motivated Nara who deliberately patterned herself after Shikako was a bit scary. As was the fact that there was a girl who looked like Shikako who was learning to purposefully inflict mental trauma. Shikako was bad enough just doing it in passing. Hopefully Haruka wouldn't end up looking too much like Shikako without Yoshino's genetic contributions.
Fortunately, Eri was from a clan that thought that inflicting mental trauma was a valuable skill and wasn't offended at all by his apprehension about her children.
"Aside from that, I have to admit that you two are in a lot better mental shape than I would expect."
"Shikako was very firm about taking mental health days. In retrospect I believe she also manipulated me into varying my activities to lessen the shock of reintegration." For example getting him involved with Chiyako. Perhaps manipulated was putting it harshly. Why? This was Shikako. Very few things she did had only one goal... or perhaps that was the definition of manipulation.
"It wouldn't surprise me. The Nara are second only to my clan for their understanding of the human mind. I'd clear you for D ranks right now if I thought that was actually doing you a favor. I hear the Hokage wants you on Tora duty for the foreseeable future."
Shino didn't manage to suppress a flinch at that.
"As it is, make an appointment for a week from now and we'll see how you're doing then. Any questions?"
Shino frowned. "I'm concerned that my level of paranoia is insufficient. Or perhaps that Shikako's is excessive."
"Actually, they're both at the levels we would expect for your ranks. As a chunin you're expected to be able to prepare for any common and somewhat uncommon situations. As a jounin, Shikako-chan is expected to be ready to take charge in truly rare situations."
"I seem to be further from promotion that I had previously believed."
"Surviving this kind of situation puts you a step closer."
No wonder most jounin seemed insane. It did address a question that Shino had about how effective the notion of a jounin project was for determining promotion. It seemed much more reasonable if you looked at it as a sign that you were considering potential problems and were being proactive about fixing them. Given that metric, Shikako was ready to be kage.
"Did I do something to upset your brother? Why? It seemed that he wished I would spontaneously combust."
Shikako didn't look up from the boiling soup as she put meat and tofu in. "I think he thinks this-" She made a vague motion that encompassed the whole of the hot pot restaurant. "-is a date. I told him it wasn't. Just two friends celebrating getting put back on the duty roster."
Shino sighed. He owed Shikako a lot of meals. It was the least he could do to repay her friendship, not to mention the one sided nature of the training they did in the last subjective year. That meant that even if Shikamaru could be convinced that this particular event was platonic, future dining events may not pass muster. Life was going to be unpleasant for him in the future, wasn't it?
"Or maybe I should say having a last hurrah before doing nothing but catching Tora for a month. Shika should be able to understand that, right?"
Very unpleasant. He really needed to think of something to do for Shikako to thank her for not bringing up the fact that he dragged her into this mess, something better than hot pot. There's friendship and then there's the kind of loyalty that led to not holding the fact that he got them stuck with Tora duty over his head.