I am so sorry to everyone who has been waiting for the next instalment. I just got so distracted by school and life and dancing and being in hospital that I really didn't think too much about this story BUT I am back~ Sorry it is so short~

Yay~

Enjoy Chapter 6 of Absolution and Ways to Live Without It~~

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It's a Tuesday and though she hates it very much, she knows she has to get up. It's the fire day, a day of rejuvenation and life and energy but to be honestly frank, she feels like yesterdays breakfast. Her stomach is twisting in knots, winding and winding into a intricate mess that will never come loose. She knows she's being dramatic about but dammit, how did the Hokage cope with this amount of responsibility?

She snuggles deeper into her pillow, though the faintest realisation of soft movement beneath her head and a soft lulling beat has begun in her head and opens her eyes, bleary with the absence of danger that had allowed to awaken so sharply in mornings previous. Dark, dark raven feather hair is underneath her hands, soft and it takes her several seconds to compute the situation, before a soft but dark chuckle rumbles next to her ear.

"Slept well, I assume?" Uchiha Madara's voice is soft and low and rough and it holds a note she has only ever heard in her fantasies and it shocks her to the core, and as her eyes widen, his ash grey eyes seem to notice as well. She is back in the middle in seconds, facing to the right and her heart beats a tracking pattern, something it has never done before but her brain is rushing with something a little like guilt and-

"Up we get." Naru's voice is calm and steady, betraying none of her inner turmoil, as she pokes Hashirama and jumps back as his arm instinctively swings at her, before his eyes open groggily.

"Rise and shine, hime~ We got a clan meeting with the Nara. Now get your butts out of here."

With her famously acknowledged decorum, she turns and sequesters herself in the bathroom, arms tense on the vanity as she hunches over. " What are you doing, you fool?" She whispers ever so softly to herself and sighs as she washes her face, dressing in the white and red kimono-like robes that have come to represent the leaders of the village. She emerges from the bathroom to find both men half dressed, pulling the edges of their kimono-robes tight with dark red kaku-obi and she reflects once again how these colours have brought them together. Red for blood spilt and the white of the peace they will bring.

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She has forgotten how stubborn the Kage-jutsu leaders could be, as her expression twitches into something new, hard and no longer the expression of a confident leader but something more.

"Nara-san. This is our final offer. Your land will be used, whether you like it or not. The choice we are offering you, is to let those lands be as much yours as they are ours. You have great skill in medicine, I remember from reports. Your deer are of great benefit and we would esteem you highly. Please, do not make my hand be forced any further than it has been." On both sides of her, her two co-leaders were ready to give up hours and go and just torch the entire clan to bits. But that was why diplomacy was best left to the women after all.

There is a brief consultation among the leaders of the other clan, hands raised and some countenances lightening in relief. The youngest among them is her age, the clan leader also and his face is so achingly familiar. Nara Shikai is as bold of face and witty of tongue and bright of eye as his descendants and those eyes are just as dark as the one person she trusts in tactics, far in the future and it's a strangely beautiful pain, to see his face once again. Because, in the future, Nara Shikamaru will live once more and even if she never again meets him, she will have made it possible for the future Konoha 12 to exist. And that is all she needs to feel content in her life.

Shikai rests both hands on his knees, his torso bent forward in a long bow and his hands artfully steeple in front of his face as he rises. "Hokage-dono we accept but, as you may know, the other places grow restless. The great tribes have taken upon your idea. Four great cities have begun to arise, and some are not our allies."

Naru sighs, her posture deepening as she settled down into a more comfortable pose, those sharp dark eyes watching everything. "I know, Nara-dono. It has been obvious, from the start, that this would scare the other villages into a similar tactic. If you wouldn't mind, our clan meeting is tonight after the evening meal and this is perhaps something to discuss with the entire clan council. if you will excuse us, we shall leave you to your own devices. The land you have been using for the years past borders on the third of the great clan sectors. You may take those building areas for your clan if you so wish."

She rises to her feet and bows as the other leader does as well, taking three small shuffling steps backward before turning on her heel and leaving the clansmen to intermingle and discuss any strategy they wish to. She has bigger fish to plan around.

She makes her way to the strategy room that is set up in her compound, almost frightening the worker within to death as she makes her way in quickly, aware only vaguely of the two people trailing behind her.

A large map is situated on one wall, easily a few metres by a few metres and it is just as she remembered it, though without the large denotations of the country areas, which had been introduced in her time. Drawing senbon out of their sewn pockets in her kimono, she individually aims and throws the small needles, tipped with red ribbon and she is glad that she remembers well the geography lessons that were drummed into her at the Academy. Her mind catches the thought of the Academy as it passes and shuts it in the ideas box, a good suggestion for the village's development as a whole.

"How do you know where they are?" The sudden remark is Tobirama's and Naru doesn't even hesitate to guess where Hashirama might be, just muses silently before answering. "Because I've been to all of these places. There are clans that are likely to work together, based on their allied status and the elements they wield- and thus, there are places better suited for them to defend.. Here." She points her finger up to where the mountains of Lightning Country sprawl. "Large amounts of rock and earth, which would be useful for the earth clans to the north, the doton clans and the bakuton clans especially. Here, where the lake systems meet the ocean, for the water clans. Each place would work in the favour of the clans who adjoin nearby. It's only logical that they would join together in this areas."

Madara and Tobirama just look at her for a few moments, evidently amused a little at her impromptu lecture but Tobirama looks a little impressed at the accuracy of her pinpoint throws. Sitting in a nearby desk, she plans inside her head for a few moments, stringing together thoughts and ideas in the same manner she was taught by Shikamaru a lifetime ago- or is it a lifetime to come?

"Madara, we need to organize reconnaissance on these places. We will need at least one of each clan; Hyuuga, Uchiha, Uzumaki, Senju and Nara if they can spare them. If you can give me your recommendations, Madara, we can get teams out and bringing back information by tomorrow."

Madara begins to speak up but the young voice of Tobirama cuts him off as he begins to talk. "Since my brother is not here to assist you, please allow me to help."

Sharp blue eyes assess him for a moment, thinking of the wisdom of the decision and she nods sharply. "I shall get both of you to organize a meeting amongst yourselves and the council, to get a list of shinobi and kunoichi who will be able to aid us. If you can get the list to me by tonight, we may send them off this night and get information by Thursday at the very least."

Tobirama beams at the opportunity to help and Madara just tilts one corner of his lips in an agreeable smile. Four months ago, to work together would drive those two to fight like two roosters. But times were a-changing it seemed.

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Nara Shikai has long been known as a genius, a man of intelligence unrivalled even among his clan.

But never has something brought him to a halt.

This woman is dangerous, far more dangerous the physical strength of the men who lead beside her. No, this woman has information far beyond his and it irritates him to his very core. He cannot fathom how she knows what she knows, cannot fathom the depths those blue eyes lead to. It is said the eyes are the windows to the soul.

But truly, it is not so.

No soul could be that dark, surely?