War doesn't determine who wins, only who survived. 

A quiet battlefield was never a good sign, it was only a stalled cease-fire until both sides had recuperated and began launching silent ambushes on the several camps dotted around each other's villages. One such camp was harboring a four-man squad tasked with planting bombs along the border the Leaf and Cloud shared. It should take a month if the cease-fire held off that long otherwise they would be blown to bits. 

One of the teens was bandaging his arm and pulled the bandage between his teeth to hold stop the bleeding from a gash he had gotten in an earlier scuffle with the Cloud. Just a few stragglers were heading back out of their territory to Kumo. He scowled as he remembered one bastard that wielded a katana. If he could he would find that one neck and slit his throat. The male plotting another murder was Shikamaru Nara. A war-hardened teen who had learned from an early age to see a weapon in everything. Down to the very bandages he was using now. 

His other teammates were building and fitting the bombs together. One a kunoichi with a bitter look on her face as she gritted her teeth at the one part that won't fit with the other. Shikamaru wasn't inclined to point her in the right direction at the moment. Another was a plump male with red swirls on their cheeks. He was quick and efficient as he placed the bombs together with relative ease with a neutral expression on his face. The last member was their once sensei now turned partner. He was looked utterly exhausted as he nursed a cigarette as placed the bombs together slowly. 

Shikamaru knew why the man was exhausted, he had lost his wife and child to Kumo spies who had managed to infiltrate the Leaf during a storm. They murdered a baby and raped, beaten, and choked his wife. Well that was what the autopsy confirmed when she was brought in. He would miss Kurenai and he wondered how Team 8 survived during that time. He wasn't able to meet them after the news got out because he was placed in intelligence to torture said Kumo nins but they were smart, knew our tactics, and had multiple suicide pills embedded in their teeth. 

It was oddly jarring to see war happening before him. His innocence was stolen at the tender age of 11 when it all started and now at 16, he had become jaded to his surroundings. He was used to never seeing the sunshine, he was used to almost desolate streets on the off chances he got to walk among the village, he was used to going days on end without even shifting in facial expressions. He was just used to everything that was going on now. He grunted a bit as he finally finished wrapping his wounds and got around to helping the others with the bonds. 

It was quiet for two reasons. One, there was nothing to talk about, they were all caught up on the latest information regarding Kumo's whereabouts. Second, they needed to keep silent as they were toeing the line on the border of the two villages. Tomorrow they were going to a nearby village that was in the neutral zone. Neutral villages were likely to house either side of the war whether they liked it or not. Sometimes they were held hostage for days on end. The Leaf however didn't do this, at least as far as Shikamaru knew. But this particular neutral village was on the radar since Kumo ninjas were spotted camping around the area. They planned to scout the area and see if any survivors wanted to be led back to the Leaf to survive. 

Shikamaru sighed as he ran through the possibility of finding anyone there that was alive. It was low but not low enough to rule it out. He snapped from his thoughts as Ino nudged him a bit before gesturing to her incomplete bomb. He tilted his head and reached over to help her. 

*************

The village was blood-stained and corpses laid strewn about shredded like bits of meat that went through a grinder. It was deathly still until a cry broke out at the other end of the small village. They tensed and drew weapons automatically as they now quelled their chakra. "Might be a trap, approach swiftly and end the target," Asuma said in a low tone as they approached the home that had the hysterical crying. 

"Mommy! Daddy! I'm sorry, sorry I couldn't protect you," The male inside cried as scuffling could be heard. "I shouldn't have survived, I should've died along with you," The words tapered off into babbling as the male grieved. 

"Deer," Ino called and gestured to his position. Shikamaru was the closest to the door so in one swift motion he pulled the door open and they all flooded the room since I was only one chakra source they were sensing. 

Inside was blood-filled horror. An elderly couple was dead and judging from what they could see it was only a day ago. The male who was crying didn't even turn to them but he wasn't in any better shape. His back was littered in deep whip marks and his hair was drowned in blood, his arms were littered with wounds as well, and from the knees down they were burned marks, and at his ankles were deep circular cuts which signified that he was chained for several days. But the killer for the four-man squad was the soulmate mark the male had on the back of his neck. 

A soulmate mark is formed when your soulmate is given their name from birth. No one knows how this weird cycle was formed but it was proven that if you didn't have a soulmate mark that meant your soulmate hasn't been born yet. Shikamaru knew his soulmate's name, Naruto Uzumaki, it was in the kanji form of writing as are all soulmate marks and it was branded within the Uzumaki swirl. The male had Shikamaru Nara in kanji branded in the Nara symbol. It was such a shock to the system that Shikamaru didn't acknowledge when Naruto turned to them with a deathly glare. 

"What more do you want?!" He yelled as his tears spilled out down his dirt-stained cheeks. "Kumo? Leaf? I don't give a damn, leave me alone and let me die in fucking peace!" His cries got louder and Choji acted before Shikamaru could protest and used a knock-out concoction that had been coated on a senbon needle to allow Naruto passage to the land of dreams and nightmares. 

They all stared at the injured, traumatized male in silence before Shikamaru got down beside him and turned him over so that his neck was facing him. He took out a cloth and scrubbed at the mark harshly but it wasn't a fake mark. It was real, this was his Naruto Uzumaki. 

"We have to get out of here, he's going to die of those infected injuries," Asuma said as he felt mounting stress on him. "Ino, Choji look for identification papers we'll need it. Shikamaru, try and find some clothes for him and in an hour we're moving out."

"Yes Sensei," They said in unison as they made their way around Naruto's parents. Shikamaru had found Naruto's room and the bloody mess in there was horrifying. His mattress and makeshift chains attached to the end of it. 

'This was where they,' Shikamaru didn't finish the thought as he walked around the mess of bloody sheets and clothing to his mate's closet and pulled down several outfits, and stuffed them in a sack he found in the back of the small closet. On the dresser, he had found a small album containing pictures of all three of them which solidified that Naruto wasn't a spy but an actual civilian that had been robbed because of this war. 

No matter how brief it had been he could now hear Naruto's cries echoing in his head and the pained desperate look he had when he faced them. He was obviously torn. He stuffed other little personal effects he had into the sack and met back up with the others who were going over his identification papers and sure enough, he was a citizen of this small neutral village. Shikamaru picked up his soulmate and was stunned by their difference in size. Naruto was clearly more muscled and taller than he was but only time would tell when he healed up and could talk more then.