[The way the fire is going out, Shikamaru presumes something in the past had been influencing it. Another fire user? Or maybe water? Oh and now Aku is splitting up into multiple forms. A lot of people must've shown up to fight this guy off, if he had to divide his attention so.]

Those have been growing less and less frequent over the years as it is, when you think about it. I mean how many have come for sure directly from them in the last year... Four or five? And there were about as few in the year before that.