Quote Originally Posted by Abdula

@ Spaceaprion: What difference would it have made if Shikamaru was in front, best case scenario was that he captures Hidan with his shadow binding, which he did anyway the problem was they couldn't kill him. Worse case scenario is that he is the one that gets caught in Hidan's ritual and then they wouldn't have even been able to figure out how it worked.
I guess the best case scenario is he captures Hidan and no one gets injured, and they are able to wait it out until help arrives.

The whole flash back where Asuma dismisses Shika's plan just struck me as pointless and contradictory to what Asuma had thought a couple scenes before the flashback, which was. "Shikamaru can think ten steps ahead and consider 200 possible moves in a second, but his real strength is his knack for choosing the best one."

I think it would have been a better idea if in the flash back, Shika had come up with the Asuma up front plan. That way it would have given Shikamaru a better reason for feeling guilty.