Disclaimer: You should know by now that I don’t own Naruto. If you don’t, then you fail at life.

A/N: Spoilers for Chap. 328 Shroud

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It began with smoke…

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Shikamaru hated tobacco with an unbridled passion.

When he was still a toddler in the Academy, there were nights when his gruff father would come home from a bar night with his old-time companions and he would reek of it, it’s ashen stench circulating himself and the house in a shroud of suffocating mist. It made his eyes water, made him cry.

And Shikamaru hated it when he cried.

Because it gave his father more to taunt him about, offered him an open opportunity to cake even more insult and guilt on his lone son. A lazyass, a cloud-gazer, and a crybaby. That was all he was, all he is now, and all he would ever amount to. Just a lazyass, a cloud-gazer, and a crybaby.

Shikamaru hated it when he cried.

And tobacco made him cry.

So it only stood to reason that sooner or later, he would come to hate tobacco.

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Just his damned luck.

This guy was a blasted chain smoker.

It sucked enough that he had a duty to fulfill now, missions to keep him active, and this blond harpy to harass him around the clock. He was wasting precious minutes and hours and days of his life that he could contently spend cloud watching and sitting though endless tirades of Go. Chouji was around though, so he would persevere for the time being.

Or so he thought…

The pungent scent was undeniable.

Smoke. And not just any old brand of smoke.

Cigarette smoke.

Son of a whore.

Relishing in a slow, misty drag, the bearish, Goliath-like thing of a human being pinched the butt of his cigarette between his thumb and pointer finger and cleared his throat abruptly.

“Oh! Right, sorry. The name’s Sarutobi Asuma, and I’ll be heading up Team 10 starting today. I’m going to make things tough on you three, so be prepared!”

Just like his old man. It was all over him. He wore that goddamned smell like a shroud.

His eyes were welling up. Chouji was no different, and Harpy was teary-eyed as well.

Tobacco made him cry.

“Hey, you don’t need to start crying. All I said was that I was going to make things tough.”

Shikamaru hated it when he cried.

“The smoke’s making our eyes water!”

He never despised cigarettes more.

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Shit.

Nine shinobi from Sound. Nine. Nine.

Was this invasion really so freaking mandatory so as to schedule it during the exhausting final rounds of the Chuunin Exams? That morning, he was training. By noon, he was dodging some psycho wench and her needlessly enormous fan. Now it was afternoon, and…

… and he just knew he was done for.

Nine.

Against one.

Puny, twiggy, lazy, cowardly genius number one.

Smoke. Grim Reaper’s smoke. He could smell his own death, even amongst the cinders and fire that stormed his home miles behind him.

Smoke. Deathly smoke.

Wait. He knew this smoke.

Ashen. Choking. Irritatingly musky.

Cigarettes.

Zero against one.

He peered behind him and found Asuma grinning smugly, a dead Sound-nin clutched in his elbow.

Make that zero against two.

A cloud poured out from his cigarette.

Shikamaru simply stood there trembling, but he did not cry. And on that day, he never welcomed the smell more fondly.

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He was not smoking.

This couldn’t be good.

They leapt stealthily, graceful as deer, with Izumo and Kotetsu trailing close by. A report had come in not hours ago, concerning possible criminal activity taking place in the Fire Country. Missing-nin most likely, worst case scenario being that they were from Akatsuki.

Shikamaru was a walking encyclopedia. There was very little he didn’t know.

He knew Akatsuki was relentless concerning the fulfillment of their twisted ambition. He knew that their hands were layered with shed blood. He knew what they do to jinchuuriki, what they had done to the Kazekage.

He knew what they could do to Naruto.

His heart clenched when he realized one more thing.

He knew that Asuma only stopped smoking when he had a hunch that something bad was up ahead.

Had to be Akatsuki. This was going to be so troublesome.

The forest whizzed past them, and with a discreetness that only shinobi could possess, Shikamaru searched deeply for a hint, just one miniscule hint of that reassuring stink of ash and nicotine.

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Seal. Pike. Scythe. Flesh. Pain. Infliction. Blood. Blood. Blood.

Asuma.

As the Reaper-like figure groaned with half-pleasure and half-pain, he watched through wide, bewildered eyes as Asuma- sensei, captain, leader, partner, friend, father figure- dropped limply to his battered knees.

Blood. He was caked in it.

And Shikamaru just couldn’t move.

Nightmare. Just a nightmare. Just fell unconscious somewhere in between and having a nightmare.

Real.

He ran with all the strength left in his weary legs.

Crows in their midst. The reaper and his accomplice were gone.

Chouji and Ino were right next to him. Without hesitation, he pressed himself to his vest.

He heard a weak pulse of life through the fabric.

He sniffed lightly before he barked at his teammates desperately, demanding they get him to the hospital pronto.

No tobacco. No ash. No shroud of smoke.

Yet the tears were there anyway, lashing violently at the insides of his eyelids.

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He was gone.

Sarutobi Asuma, son of the late Sandaime Hokage, former member of the Twelve Guard Ninjas of Fire.

Gone.

His final drag disappeared into the rain.

The tears were no longer barred back now. And he just… he- God save him, he just couldn’t stop.

The tinder flicked. The shreds of leaf and the edge of the wrapping paper burned.

He donned the shroud, held it over the anguish that streaked down his face and under his chin.

Shikamaru hated it when he cried.

And tobacco made him cry.

So it only stood to reason that he would hate tobacco.

Almost as much as he hated every stick of it that he helplessly smoked thereafter.

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…and it ended with smoke.

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I needed to get this out of my system. So I could finally stop angsting dramatically over Chapter 328.

And you have to admit, people. Shikamaru makes one very smexy smoker.

You know the drill. Reviews, por favor!

Sayaka-sama

P.S. I noticed my oneshots are getting shorter. Uh-oh.