Back To The Past

Hallucinations..?

Shikamaru grumbled as he walked the trail to the training grounds. His entire friend group had gone earlier in the day, basically right after they had parted ways with Naruto and his friends, so Neji could get some practice in before he 'beat that pink haired girl's ass', which was Neji's, and basically everyone else's interpretation of what would happen at the fight.. but Shikamaru himself, plus Shino and Hinata, hadn't been so sure, but whereas the other two stayed quiet- like always- he voiced his opinion on what would happen- which was basically the idea that Sakura would somehow win- and nobody had liked his interpretation, what a surprise. His own doubts had caused him to get left behind by his own friends. What a drag.

And now his dumb friends confident voices ran through his head as he tried to block them out.

"Neji is sure to win! He's the strongest guy here!" Ino had said as she swooned for the Hyuga boy.. something about her fawning over him just felt wrong to everyone.. but they didn't question the girl's silly crush..

"That kuinochi is just a girl." Kiba a pointed out like an idiot, "how strong can she even be?" He asked with a snarky laugh as Akamaru barked at his owner with a slight growl.. he had been acting up ever since Naruto had pet him earlier, much to Kiba's, and everyone else's, confusion..

"She's not from any special clans." Tenten reminded for probably fifth time to them as she crossed her arms and shook her head, "Neji's a freaking Hyuga." She said, obviously exasperated, she wanted everyone else to believe just as much as she did that Neji would win the fight.

"I'm going to beat that pink haired girl's ass." Neji said confidently with a smirk as the others nodded their heads in agreement, "she's not special." He added with a laugh that just annoyed Shikamaru for some reason.. why did them all talking bad about Sakura make him feel like they were all betraying her or something..? They barely knew the girl.. plus she hadn't been overly nice to them when they first talked earlier..

Nonetheless, their words didn't change Shikamaru's mind, and he wasn't able to change theirs either.. so they had parted ways with him the first chance they got, leaving him all alone, what jerks.. just because he didn't think Neji was going to have an easy win.. or win at all.. but that was still no reading to leave him all alone..

Shikamaru sighed, it wasn't entirely awful to be left alone though, it had given him plenty of time to just sit alone and think some things over.. and also plenty of time to take headache medicine three different times.. which probably wasn't recommended to do in the span of thirty minutes now that he really thought about it.. but he just hadn't been able to handle his headache piercing through his skull anymore.. but it still hadn't gotten any better, and only seemed to get stronger each time he thought about the damn Sand Siblings or team 7..

His head once again pounded furiously as he made the mistake of thinking about them. He grumbled again as he tried to shake the thoughts about them out of his head.. but they only seemed to get stronger and stronger the longer he thought about one of them in particular.. and right now, his head was pounding as he thought about the Hokage's son.. something about him was so familiar, but Shikamaru just couldn't put his finger on it and he didn't know why..

He didn't know why all of them seemed so familiar.. why Naruto seemed like an old friend he could simply mess around with.. why he thought he could just go up to Sakura and start talking with her.. why he figured he could fight Sasuke and it'd be just like old times or something.. why it seemed like he could actually talk and joke around with even the sand siblings!

. . .

What was wrong with him?

His head just kept on pounding harder and harder.. and he now realized that he felt warm and extremely dizzy for some reason as the scenery around him practically spun in circles.. all that medicine during those last 30 minutes must've made him sick or something, talk about a fast side effect. He closed his eyes tightly to try and make the pain and immense nausea subside a little, only for them to flash open in a split second.. his breath hitched as he held his head in his hands..