UID: 326570778868428

Server: S1953

Name: Kazue

Region: HK

Shino returns with a flurry of iridescent wings and segmented legs. He slips in quietly into the Konohan population, kikaichu a true confirmation to his identity. He doesn’t go to the Aburame Clan, he gets himself an apartment near the Academy and he waits. Naruto had assured him he would be placed here with enough time to change everything, that even if it would be disorienting that there would be a chance. Naruto drained his chakra for this. A last ditch effort against a rabbit goddess with no mercy.

Shino finds himself in a place where Tsunade is already hokage and Sasuke is half way across the elemental continent burning through small towns with a seal on his shoulder. He’s reminded now, of how hard his graduating class had pushed, had run themselves into the ground because of this boy. He abandons his apartment.

The Land of Fire is forgiving to those who have grown up in her lands. He follows her trees through to the Land of Sound, so recent in its making that the settlements are half formed and in construction. He tears them apart in swarms with chakra droughts. There are rumours, now, of an Aburame missing-nin with no pride to any country. Simply labelled ‘Shinobi’.

Sasuke at this age is headstrong, stubborn, and so arrogant. He’s full of openings, his insecurity is palpable. Shino traps him easily, separating him from the other of Orochimaru’s experiments. He doesn’t say a word to the traitor, can’t bear to think of the things that he had done. Sasuke is drained of his chakra. Kikaichu eating at his coils.

He leaves the body in the middle of the rocky city of Oto.

He doesn’t return to Konoha, instead he tracks down the Akatsuki. The remaining Uchiha, and wasn’t that rich, a clan of traitors. He takes them cleanly to their deaths. Chakra banished in all of them, disfigured as Shino becomes a plague of insects. He takes and takes and takes as much as he possibly can. It is repayment, collection. He fixes and fixes and fixes.

But.

Tailed Beasts are missing. The Jubi hasn’t resurfaced but he can feel its power drumming against his skin. Can feel the insects under his skin jitter nervously when he gets too close to where the statue resides. He uses this. He uses this and he finds it deep in a hideout where he had killed Pein. The chakra too potent it burns through his Kikaichu. He takes a sharp rock and a blunt one and sixty days. He chips the Demonic Statue into tiny pieces and grinds them to dust.

He can’t return to Konoha. He can’t go anywhere with his bloodthirsty Kikaichu. He has changed things now. Though, nothing has changed. He is just as alone as before. Kiba and Hinata don’t know him, or rather, they know of a different Shino Aburame. One that has a leaf symbol on his forehead. He wanders the elemental nations with no home to settle.

He dies of carelessness in the end. Two years after his accomplishment. He dies because the problems now are trivial. He knows that the fight with this particular familiar Hyuuga, beautiful and competent, is one that he can win.

He doesn’t, though, content to fall at the hand of a friend.