thank you!! god I love their friendship. it’s so good?? I’m ssslowly working on a Sasuke POV because I think they’re sorely lacking but like. here’s some feels.
Shikako makes Sasuke think and… he likes that.
- Like: During the Bell Test, she tries just asking for the bells. then she tries to negotiate. it doesn’t work, but she tries it. he never would have. he assumed automatically that they would have to fight.
- Like: He went with her plan because even this early he knows that Nara in general are smart and Shikako in particular is brilliant, but she lists five concise, solid reasons for attacking rather than evading. She thought of them before they even started — maybe while negotiating — and Sasuke… didn’t. And she still didn’t think that that was good enough
(Sasuke thought attacking was a good plan because how else do you get stronger, if not by attacking? How could he eventually kill Itachi if he can’t even attack his would-be jounin-sensei? But she had better reasons. Less emotion, more logic.)- Like: She was suspicious of Tazuna. And then she took the time to gather all kinds of information from him that he hadn’t really cared to know when their mission was just to protect Tazuna for a short time. Why should he care about the economic situation in a country that isn’t his? But it had mattered. It had all mattered.
Shikako makes everything matter so much.
- Like: Maybe before that fight with Zabuza, Sasuke was still under some kind of illusion that he didn’t need a team, but they stick together. They get Kakashi free, even though he tells them to run. In the fight against the water clone, afterwards, Shikako keeps back because that’s what Nara do but she saves his ass with an earth wall, gives him a moment to breathe, and Sasuke knows he does need a team, they won’t get in the way.
- Like: She tells Kakashi not to give them stupid orders and it pretty much seems like he listens.
- Like: She could barely audibly speak to their team at introductions but less than two months later she’s growling at Orochimaru, yelling at Sasuke to move, pulling him around, and he thinks she’s dead when she goes down and maybe so is Naruto and he’s lost everyone again.
Shikako makes everything terrifying feel surmountable.
- Like: She kills three sound genin by herself when he and Naruto are out, forgives him for attacking her, and rallies their yearmates into helping to keep the seal on his shoulder from poisoning him before they can get real help with it after the exam ends.
- Like: She looks at what Gaara did to Rock Lee — what Gaara will try to do to Sasuke in just a month — and starts to plan. She hands him a storage scroll that she made into a weapon to use against Sand’s jinchuuriki, and she doesn’t make just one. Kakashi puts her in charge and she gets them all through alive with plans she must have made the very moment she saw Gaara’s sand go after Lee.
- Like: He thought it was probably kind of stupid, although morally satisfying, to just let Gaara and his siblings go. But then months later Sasuke breaks out of that barrel and knows Shikako and Kiba at the very least would be dead without the Sand nin.
A year and a half after they get put on a team together, Sasuke tells the Three Tails that they can be friends. It’s insane and it shouldn’t work, but why not?
- Sure, they’ve got three Kage on the field — one of whom has already killed this biiju once — but they won’t solve the problem and people will get hurt.
- If Isobu is scared and hurt and misses his previous jinchuuriki, Mist can solve all those problems for him much better than being killed again will.
- You can’t solve a problem you’re afraid of .
- You can’t find the best solution if you stick to your preconceived notions.
- No one deserves to be alone.