Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ The Game ❯ The Game::Thinking on the Fly ( Chapter 1 )

For the seventh time that night, the Anbu silently curses the enameled mask occluding his face from sight. It bothers him, restricts his view slightly, but he understands its necessity. His hood is up, concealing the spiky hair that has long been his trademark, an oddity in a team of professional assassins for whom anonymity is key.

 

The pitch black of the new moon's night enfolds him, caresses him, hides him where he perches squatting on an impossibly slender bough. In spite of this, he knows precisely where the other two members of his team are waiting, hidden. He knows, because he told them where they should be, and he's been working with them far too long to think that they could be anywhere else.

 

He knows, for example, that his first teammate is already in position. His stealth master should be prone, face down on the hillock behind the shed with a corrugated metal roof just under twenty metres forward of the Anbu leader's position. He doesn't look like he's breathing. He almost doesn't have to.

 

Just off to his left, huddled at the base of a slender elm, his second cloaked companion is still, as much as she can be. He can feel her slight aura, but only because he knows where she is. She's doing her best to mask the usually profound signature her technique is giving off. Then, it disappears. She's been using it in bursts, to avoid detection. They all know their target might yet be good enough to pick up even a concealed chakra. Still no takers for their little trap.

 

For all intents and purposes, he'd rather not be here, but the stars are kind of nice, after all. Hours pass, crawling by inexorably, and he spends the time staring up at the stars, tracking their slow rotation around the sky's invisible pole. After a while, the Anbu leader is pretty sure he's pinpointed it. This far out from the city, the stars are brighter, more populous, a lively mosaic of lighted pinpricks, scattered like sand over the dome of the night. He wouldn't mind being out so late if all he had to do was sit here in this tree and stare upwards.

 

Movement catches his eye. His senses are focused now, his mind launched to its fullest alert by this miniscule visual trigger, but his body remains loose, balanced, unperturbed. A breeze whispers carelessly past him as he slowly, silently adjusts his footing on the branch, and he can feel his companion's aura again, as she flicks on her technique again. Inside the dimly-lit hut, a match flashes to life, then dims and dies and it transfers its light to a single, waxy candle. Acrid gray smoke rises smoothly from the charred wick, and the candle suddenly projects through the open window like a dim searchlight. Or, it might as well be, the way it fills the clearing with awkwardly dancing shadows on an orange stage. The candle's flame flits about for a few seconds more, then goes out, extinguished by a puff of breath from an equally invisible occupant of the shed. That must be their target's signal.

 

So alerted, he can hear them now. They are arrogant in their secrecy, sure that they haven't been detected, that their meeting place hasn't been betrayed. In the night air, he hears his spotter emulate the sound of a small local owl, the signal for three approaching on foot. The two in the shed haven't moved or done much since their arrival hours ago, except debate the relative merits of the deal they're about to be making.

 

Under his mask, he half-grimaces, half-smiles, the corner of his mouth unintentionally soaking up the dew left behind by his breath. Five on three, a pain in the ass under any circumstances. They weren't expecting any more than one new arrival -- apparently the visitor is a little more paranoid than they thought.

 

He doesn't have to notify his teammates; it's a contingency they planned for earlier that afternoon before heading out, but not one they were expecting. Worse, he doesn't have any information on the two men tagging along. He breathes deeply once, his grimace folding into a wry smile. Time to think on the fly.

 

Because this is when shit starts happening.

 

OoOoOoO

 

She waits for him.

 

He'll be back, soon, she knows. The Anbu have a lot of duties, certes, and the debriefing he's off doing now has a lot to do with it. Idly, she leans back on her arms, palms down against the tiled roof of his apartment, watching the road below. It bustles, full, packed with people and impromptu market stands. Polychromatic banners hang from the high walls of this avenue, clashing with the neon brilliance that fills the night air. She can't see the stars, washed out from the glare of this twisting river of light that winds though Konoha.

 

Still, she's not sure whether she prefers the stars to the crowd below. It's so different, she supposes, and that's what fascinates her about this place. She always wondered why someone so quiet would choose to live in such a noisy place. She's never fully understood him, doubts she ever will, but maybe that was the point.

 

There's something subtly exiting about being here, in this city. For one thing, she's here illegally, without a visa, without the papers that would make this visit legitimate. She knows she's good enough to get in and out without being seen, but to risk so much for something so petty, something so utterly crucial...it sends tingles up her spine.

 

She knows she can't get into his place. Well, technically, she can. She is a fully trained ninja, after all. Perhaps it would be better to say she shouldn't go into his place. Not that that's ever stopped her before, although she decides against it for now. Suddenly, inexplicably curious, she drops onto the balcony outside his room, peering inside.

 

The room is dark, but backlit with the pink glow of a billboard for a restaurant across the street. Stark shadows fill the room, her own, the flagpole bearing an advertisement, the frame of the window itself. Smaller shadows from objects inside the room ripple across the floor, like the patterns of light on the bottom of a river on a clear day. It's vaguely aesthetic, and she finds herself silently approving.

 

His things are remarkably well ordered, for him, she thinks, framing her eyes with cupped hands to block out the glare from all the lights out in the street. The oddly superfluous streetlamp directly above her isn't helping any, so she plays with her fingers, trying to block out as much as possible. His bed is the furthest thing from immaculate, all tangled blankets and twisted sheets. A pillow sits on the floor, bent awkwardly and nowhere near the low futon. She tries to imagine the smell of the sheets, tries to imagine how he smells and it comes to her, slowly. He smells earthy, grassy...virile.

 

His clothes are strewn over the floor, simple shirts, simple pants, simple shorts, none of which he wears without conjugating them with his regular ninja gear. There's a pile of them against the one wall, and another pile barely contained within a bulging laundry bag. A third pile of clothing lies neatly folded in a duffle bag by the bed, and she idly wonders who got so threatening that he gave in and actually folded his laundry. His mother, probably. Her lips quirk in the slightest twinge of a smile at the thought.

 

There is a stack of books on the floor by the bed, next to a small desk lamp. None of them have bookmarks in them that she can see, but she imagines that they've been read in chronological order from the bottom to the top of the pile. She realizes she's having fun trying to get into his head.

 

A low table sits in the middle of the room, with a turning platform on it, and she wonders why he would have that until it hits her.

 

Of course.

 

OoOoOoO

 

The three men have almost reached the house when the sound of glass shattering distracts them. One of the windows on the east side of the house disintegrates into sparkling shards, flashing inwards, tumbling through the air uncontrolled in the wake of a single iron spike, thrown with near-perfect accuracy through the centre of the frame. Inside, it hits the table, sticking at an acute angle, invisible in the darkness. That is, before the enchanted slip of paper tied to its end begins to burn.

 

A soft light pounces through the clearing, catching the attention of the newly arrived. Stillness reigns for an instant, usurped by chaos as the hut's two occupants dive screaming out of the north and west windows, flirting with the glass shards as they fall, pursued by a shockwave of fire and violence that sunders the rotten wooden walls of the structure. Splinters flit outwards, spiraling, pirouetting, as the beams holding the room crack, but hold.

 

For an instant, time stops completely, and the three men are frozen, hands on whatever weapons they have, or dropping back into fighting stances.

 

"There!" shouts one of the body guards, pointing the in direction the exploding kunai had come from, pointing directly at the hiding place of the Anbu spotter. But too late; five, six more of the hammered iron spikes sing in the darkness, unerring in their razor-straight course, directly towards the arrivals.

 

The pointing guard ducks, drawing his sword with his opposite hand, and swings to deflect. He hits nothing, because none of them were intended for him. Instead, all six are headed directly towards the cloaked man in the centre, the man whose head is completely wrapped in dark bandages, flashing a deep ochre in the bright glow of the burning house. The bandages are stained, splotchy, glistening with a sheen of what could be blood.

 

The leprous mummy snorts derisively. "Anbu."

 

Suddenly his cloak shreds apart in a roiling flurry of blue light, as he is surrounded by a hissing, perfect sphere of his own chakra. The kunai strike home, strike true, but they cannot penetrate the Hyuuga house's perfect defensive technique. One of them is even launched directly back at the markswoman who threw them, whistling back into the darkness. There is a barely audible thud as it strikes a tree. Certainly, she is too smart to stay in one place after even one throw, let alone two.

 

The guards have their swords out now, and are standing back to back, facing away from the house, away from the fire. There is no sign of the occupants of the house, however, who have somehow vanished into the glare.

 

There is no point hiding now; the missing Hyuuga is here, along with his would-be co-conspirators. Time to end this. The Anbu captain drops softly into the grass, glistening with dew, and beckons to the bandaged man. This is going to hurt, he thinks, to himself. A lot. But it wouldn't do to have this opponent go running after his companions before they'd mopped up everyone else. None of them really stood a chance fighting this criminal directly, and he wasn't going to let one of them take the brunt of it for him. A pair of kunai drop into his fingers from his sleeves.

 

"Impossible," one of them exclaims, breathless as adrenaline surges into his system, "we were promised this place was secure!"

 

"No matter," grates their maimed leader in some feculent approximation of laughter, "there are only three. We kill them, like we did the others." And then, impossibly, the mummy points directly at the captain, though blindfolded by his wrappings. "This one is mine. You two, take the one in the trees."

 

A whisper promises to find the last one.

 

With that, the lead Anbu ninja falls into his most reliable fighting stance, but keeps his hands under his cloak. He hates getting hit; more so by a Hyuuga. This is going to suck. At least he's got some armour on. It'll slow him down, but maybe it'll prevent the bastard from wrecking too much of his body.

 

OoOoOoO

 

Through an arch at the back of his sleeping quarters, she can see his kitchen, a vast contrast to his actual living area. If not for the open shelving unit filled with instant noodles and freeze dried dinners, the kitchen might have never been used from the day he moved in. The microwave door is open, though, and the light from the solitary bulb inside that metallic cabinet glows like a static candle from where it is hidden by the bulk of the fridge. She's almost sure the fridge is mostly empty, maybe with the exception of some canned drinks.

 

The turntable in his room makes so much sense now, she thinks, spotting the well-ordered book case. For the most part, the shelves are filled with books whose titles she cannot read, shrouded in the darkness as they are, but on the one shelf at waist height, she finds the boards he adores so much. Shogi, chess, go. Another one she doesn't recognize. Antique boards, immaculately polished and well-cared for. They gleam in the virulent pink light of the neon billboard.

 

She's always been faintly surprised at how well he takes care of those things, but knows she shouldn't be. Otherwise nothing material has any significance for him.

 

The pieces rest on top, organized for play already. The go tokens sit in their round wooden bowls, looking for all the world like little candies in the pink light. Kings, queens, generals, knights, lances, rooks, bishops, and pawns stand in orderly rows on the other boards...the world on a table top. A perfect world of black and white where everybody follows the rules. For a moment, she's awed at how well he does in her world, where nobody follows the rules, because following the rules gets you killed.

 

She knows she'll never ask him. He wouldn't say a thing anyway.

 

She pushes back from the glass, snorting in amusement at the cone of vapor her breath has left on the glass and idly reaches up to run a hand through her long blonde hair. Then, idly, she runs her hand back down the side of her face and leans into the railing of the balcony. Her neck is sore from bending in peer through the sliding glass door, so she cranes her head backwards, eyes closed, listening to the murmuring crowd below. The stretch feels good, and it's nice to feel like herself again.

 

OoOoOoO

 

The spotter in the trees is on the move, skirting the engagement zone. She moves quickly, her quick, staccato steps silent in the grass as she bounds lightly over gnarled roots and dry, fallen branches. Quietly, she pauses, pulling another handful of flying weaponry out of her pouch. The swordsmen are definitely pursuing her now. But she's not remarkably worried about them, she thinks, as she unleashes a handful of shuriken in their direction. Behind them, silhouetted against the flames, she can see her captain and their bandaged target watching each other, staring each other down, looking for weaknesses in each other's ability.

 

Her pursuers are good, she'll give them that, as they swing their swords, deflecting the inbound stars, catching them by the dusky glint of the fire. Undoubtedly, they're following her chakra now, it's too hard to keep up the technique she needs to be using and concealing herself at the same time.

 

The conflagration consuming the house flares, and she spots the scratched out Mist insignia on their headbands. All she has to do is lead the chase for now, lead them on, lead them away. Her captain has more than enough to deal with for the moment.

 

Besides which, they're not the ones she's worried about at the moment. At least, she won't be. Not in a few seconds. Not if her compatriot is where he's supposed to be.

 

He is. But he isn't what brings the man in the back down.

 

The rear-most ninja is flattened by an invisible force, an unseen hand that suddenly blasts him over sideways and drops him to the ground. His sword spirals off into the darkness, carried away by a blast of wind entirely out of proportion for this clear, stormless night. He flails his arms impotently as he falls and rolls. He's good, she thinks, as he ends up on his feet and seems to steady himself.

 

It's not enough. The spotter's masked companion materializes into existence out of nowhere, too fast for his victim to see, and slams him into a tree with an open left hand. The bole of the tree shatters, and it creaks in the wind. The last of the swordsman's energy ceases to flow through his body, the surest symptom of a stopped heart. He never even saw it coming.

 

The other swordsman turns, shouts a challenge. Her companion stands still, arms down, impassive. Now she can deal with the one that disappeared after jumping through the window. The other one, well, she's not worried about in the slightest.

 

Time to get that bastard out from his hiding place under ground.

 

OoOoOoO

 

"I'll stop here," he says, his voice filtering up from below her, dark and sinuous, like the shadows he calls home when he's not here. She keeps her eyes closed, pretending she can't hear him. She can feel the kiss of lights shining on her eyelids, taste the smoke and the spices wafting up from the street below on her barely parted lips.

 

She's still waiting for him. Waiting for him to say goodbye to his friends, his teammates. She knows they're with him, she can hear the familiar voices bubbling around his still, imperturbable presence. He's like a rock in a stream, immovable as everything rushes around him. Maybe that's why she likes him so much.

 

"Gonna call it a night, Chouji," he says, and she can hear the smirk on his face as he does. That sloppy, lazy smirk that only she would call a smile, because that's as much of a smile as he will ever make. A smile that can, in the space of a few seconds, go from vaguely smug to incredibly dangerous, when he knows he's got you cornered and you know he's got you cornered, and the only thing you can't figure out is how you got cornered in the first place.

 

"You're sure? It's a new place, just opened up down by Shino's. They're having a grand opening, it's bound to be cheap and plentiful." Chouji stresses the word plentiful like he's reading scripture. An evangelist of gourmandise, and his best friend. A part of her wishes they could tell at least this man why he still hadn't shacked up with any Konoha girls after all these years.

 

A commotion tumbles through the street below, rippling through the crowd as people stumble into each other, shoving, dropping bags, spilling bowls. Someone's being derided for being an incredible dolt, and a clumsy one at that.

 

"Hey, Naruto," says a woman's voice that has to be Ten Ten's, embarrassed and amused simultaneously.

 

She can't help but laugh out loud, a pleasant, alto chuckle that has a barely hidden razor of mockery. Most of the time, that razor comes right out of the sheath, but for now, she is genuinely amused. Some things never change, even years later.

 

"Aw, c'mon," the voice that must be Naruto grumbles, "Hinata was supposed to be coming tonight, too. And Lee! Don't tell me this lazy bum is gonna go to sleep already?"

 

She can hear him sigh, frustrated, irked. Annoyed, but in a more amiable way. Clearly, Naruto missed some earlier discussion.

 

"I'd love to hang out with you guys, some other time. Sorry to hear Hinata and Lee bailed already." He's giving that smirk now, and they've all known him long enough to know why he's lying. They don't mind, they see what's underneath, and what's underneath that. For all of them, lying is tantamount to telling the truth.

 

"Alright," accedes another voice, higher, clearer, feminine. "Take care of yourself, Shika. Get some rest."

 

Fat chance, she thinks, smiling to herself, listening to the chaotic chiming of his keys as he fiddles for the lock.

 

"Thanks, Ino. You too."

 

"Yeah, you look terrible. You sure you don't need a checkup?"

 

"I'll be fine, Sakura. Say hi to Neji for me, guys, if he decides to show."

 

Of course, if he wanted, he could be up here in a second. But he isn't going to. She can imagine him stretching, rubbing the kinks out of his neck. She knows he knows she's there, but he's taking his time. Dragging it out, for no reason other than that is who he is.

 

She hates waiting, and he knows it. Damn him.

 

OoOoOoO

 

Behind his turtle mask, the Anbu forward scout feels miles away, detached, unfeeling. It's strange, how effective the mask is at hiding who he truly is. As soon as it comes down, the rules of social niceties are disengaged, and the silence of the technique consumes everything. The technique is perfect, he made it perfect, hammering it into his body like a sword-smith hammers rare earth into a molten blade, honing and strengthening it until it is unbreakable and balanced like no other.

 

He falls into the moment, grey cloak resting loosely on his shoulders, breeze on his outstretched fingers. The heat from the fire warms him, and a bead of sweat rolls down from his elbow, disappearing somewhere en route.

 

The man who stands before him is armed, and well. He won't go down as easily as his opponent, even if that wind does assist him this time. For one thing, he recognizes the wind from somewhere long ago, but he can't place it right now. The scout doesn't care, focusing on his opponent. This one is smarter, certainly, than his fellow, and older. More experienced. Maybe even more than the scout himself. He wonders, idly, if his fighting technique will match.

 

There are no nice guys here. Not now, not for these men. They don't understand honor, chivalry...they wouldn't understand. Maybe when he's done his duty, when he starts teaching. When the mask comes off, he will be a nice guy again.

 

And then they truly meet, as warriors, for the first time. He steps into the swing of the blade, noting the unsurprised stretch of his opponent's eyebrow as he interrupts its deadly path by blocking the man's wrist with his upraised arm, a clang echoing from the metal plate beneath his cloak. His other fist is already inbound towards the man, but it connects with a chunk of wood teleported in from elsewhere as the missing Mist ninja vanishes.

 

He decides now would be a good time to vanish himself. And so, he jumps into the air, concealing his landing in the tall grass with a cat's grace and unerring skill. He is a master of the basics, needs no jutsu to do what everyone else can. He is truly a ninja. And now he begins his search. Seeking, hunting, searching, with his ears and his eyes, as only a ninja knows how.

 

And then he finds his captain. Losing.

 

The bandaged Hyuuga is fast, too fast, too sudden, too accurate with his open-palmed chakra killing technique. Too sure and too quick. Still, the captain is no slouch, his arms and legs flying in at seemingly awkward moments, blocking the charkra-charged palms with the cold iron in his hands, slashing at the pointed finger strikes, forcing the Hyuuga to pause, to start again. He's chewing through his own chakra at an unbelievable rate to counter his opponent's precision, to buy time. But if their spotter doesn't make it there on time to finish it, things are going to fall apart. He can feel their captain getting tired.

 

He wants to step in. Wants desperately to go for the rescue. But he trusts the plan. He trusts the contingencies. He trusts the guy getting the shit kicked out of him.

 

And then he spots her, the spotter, in her cat mask, whiskers painted on in thin red lines, flickering in the light of the fire as she races past. Suddenly everything is okay again, and it's just him and the man with the sword, circling each other on the far side of the clearing. Technique on technique.

 

At least until the missing inhabitant of the house bursts out of the ground in front of the petite cat-masked Anbu, blocking her path with fists of stone. As the sword rushes past his face, nicking the white enamel of the turtle's beak, he realizes he can't afford to be distracted. She can handle it, he thinks.

 

Hopefully fast enough for the captain to extricate himself.

 

OoOoOoO

 

She stays still, on the balcony. Forcing herself to stay still. He's coming, and he's taking his sweet time. She knows he's enjoying this weird game of cat and mouse. His brain, his glorious brain is probably trying to figure out why she's waiting up here, why she's waiting at all. It's so uncharacteristically unlike her, but he figures she has a reason.

 

He's wrong, if he thinks she knows what it is.

 

Below her, amidst the riot of swirling colour and never-ending movement of people caught in the endless parade of flash and noise, a single man exits the throng, exits the world. The door below closes, clicks, and she realizes she can't hear his footsteps on the stairs, because now he's inside.

 

That's why she's up here. Enough of the world. Enough of the stage that is the world, and screw all the players that dance on that stage. Time to sit back in the audience. Time to settle into a comfortable chair and watch the world unfold with her lover as the curtains rise.

 

Don't think about life. Don't think about the death that is so wound up, so caught up in her way of life. Don't think about the way it could all end tomorrow. All it would take is one word, one stupid, idiotic word, from the mouth of some jackass somewhere that doesn't even know she exists or know why she is important to make her life a living hell.

 

Don't think about that. Don't think about the corpses, piled high by the gravedigger's shovel that is the fan she hauls around with her everywhere. Don't think about the friends, compatriots, ninjas...don't think about the warriors who stood beside her and don't any more. Don't think about the flow, the zone, the uncaring technique that consumes her when the shit starts happening.

 

Don't think about the kages, the jounin, the chuunin, the genin, all sacrificed to the glories of nations that all deny they exist and quietly turn their tools against each other. Don't think about the smarmy politicians and the suckups who could ruin everything that she is. Don't think about how they already have. Don't think when you don't have to.

 

Because he doesn't.

 

Don't worry.

 

Damn him and his lazy, dangerous, beautiful smile.

 

OoOoOoO

 

Pain, incredible, searing, agonizing pain lances through his leg as one of the self-exiled Hyuuga's strikes hit home. He tumbles once, wheeling through the wet grass. If it weren't for that damn byakugan, he'd have had a shadow clone do the fighting for him, while he sat back in a tree and played his game like he preferred, from behind the board.

 

Hell, if it weren't for that byakugan, he'd have shadow-copied the bastard already, freezing him in his tracks. Not the lethal, strangling version of the same, this offender was too strong for that. He doubted he could hold someone this strong for any more than a handful of seconds...but he'd have grabbed him long enough for his companions to land a death blow. But the missing Hyuuga would see it coming a mile away, with his omniscient byakugan. Too bad his companions were scattered, his forward scout dealing with an extra, unanticipated threat, and his spotter being blocked by the brute that had suddenly rushed up out of his hiding place in the ground. He needs more time.

 

He steadies himself, rolling onto his back as he realizes there is definitely something wrong with his leg. He knows he could still stand on it, but he's weaker. Much weaker. No way he can do anything too useful with it. Looking up through the eye slits just under the bifurcated horns on his deer-faced mask, he watches as the shrouded man descends on him, palm down. In that frozen moment of time, he can sense the pulse of exiting chakra from those fingers, that menacing point heading straight for locus of the mythical third eye in his forehead. There's no escaping that death blow.

 

One more second, he thinks, grinning with premeditated malice behind his mask.

 

The Hyuuga's hand slams into his head, pulverizing the stone that suddenly replaces it.

 

"Ha!" gargles that twisted, cruel voice, "there is no running from the all seeing eye!"

 

It's true, he thinks, from his new position behind a tree at the edge of the forest, but you're still fixated on me. There's a difference between seeing and paying attention.

 

An explosion rips through the clearing, on par with the one that nearly leveled the meeting house...only this time the epicentre is an explosive, chakra-activated enchantment that had been stuck to the rock the Anbu captain had swapped for himself. He allows himself a single chuckle as the bloodied fugitive is knocked flat by the blast, then spins out from behind a tree, his kunai already leaving his fingers. He is rewarded by a growl, as at least one of them finds its target, injuring his opponent. Tit for tat.

 

Damn his stupid leg. He can't run nearly as fast as he'd like right now. And where the hell is his backup? He needs time to think, but he hasn't got any. Gotta think. Gotta think on the run. Gotta think on the fly.

 

Gotta think like Temari now.

 

OoOoOoO

 

Her mind is jolted back to reality by the muffled sound of a key turning in a lock. She was listening to music coming from up the street, a band of some sort, an impromptu concert put on by musical hopefuls looking to expand their fan base. She saw them on the way in, cases open, all smiles, all cheer, the expectation of charitable reward lighting their faces.

 

Where she comes from, it's not like this. Not all the time, no. There is a quiet dignity, an enlightened solitude that pervades everything with the wisdom that the strong survive, and the weak die. She comes from a place where the wind will bury you in sand if you don't claw your way free every day. If you don't dig your way out.

 

A place where Darwinism in the purest sense pushed her to be good, better, best, at what she did. She'd never rival Gaara's insensate power, or Kankouro's cruel mastery, but she had more brains than either of them, and she knew it. Good thing she knew how to put them to use, too, or she would have been buried under that metaphorical sand dune long, long ago.

 

And then she met this son of a bitch. This weakling, who could barely hold his admittedly impressive technique for more than a couple of minutes at a time. Who somehow, somehow managed to outthink and outdo her. He had a patience and a depth of calculation that clearly outclassed hers.

 

She'd still needed to rescue his sorry ass, later. She wasn't sure if that made them even, because it didn't mean she was any smarter than he was.

 

She lifts her head, as the door inside swings slowly open. She watches him as he peruses, indolently, through the mail scattered on the floor. Steady fingers picking through the envelopes, checking addresses and names. His fingers quicken slightly, moving with a precision born of thousands of matches played with small wooden pieces, gathering the two or three letters he might actually bother to read later, the ones which aren't bills or reminders from his mother to do his laundry again. These he tosses across the room with uncanny accuracy to land on his low table. She wonders if one of them is hers.

 

He kicks off his sandals, leaving them by the door, then shrugs out of the green vest all the Konoha ninjas wear, letting it sag heavily to the floor with a crash and a tinkle that spoke of all the weapons and tools hidden in its myriad pockets.

 

He's still pretending not to notice her, she thinks, grinning. She knows one of them will give in sooner or later, but she isn't going to give in this time. He will soon, but not yet. She'd make him come to her.

 

He shambles into the kitchen, opening the fridge door not more than enough to withdraw a can -- two cans of beer. After letting the fridge close on its own, he transfers one can to his free hand, and cracks them both open simultaneously as he walks to the window. Her curving silhouette carves an unmistakable line against the neon, with her four aggressive, willowy blond pony-tails, and a fan large enough to cool hell with. It'd take a bitch like her to do it, too, he thinks, sniggering to himself, admiring the out-thrust hip said fan was resting on.

 

There was that damn smile again, she thinks. He must know what it does to her, because it deepens.

 

"Hey, you lazy bum," she says through the glass, leaning against her folded fan, staring at him. When did he get that scar?

 

"Hey, you troublesome bitch," he says back at her, trying not to drop into those glowing green cat's eyes and failing miserably. "Enjoying yourself?"

 

"Somewhat. You gonna let me in?"

 

"Hands are full," he retorts, smirking irascibly. "It's unlocked, besides. Want one?"

 

Damn him. He's winning again, with that dangerous smile of his.

 

OoOoOoO

 

The spotter is already in motion the instant she sees the hulking monstrosity burrow out of the ground in front of her. Her hands flash through an intricate series of poses, seals that would unlock the latent genjutsu she'd been whispering on her approach. She'd seen the bastard even before he leapt out of the soil, covered in his gravelly armour of sand and stone.

 

From his point of view, he is suddenly entangled, a tree sprouting out of the ground underneath him faster than he knew was possible, faster than almost anything he'd ever encountered before. He is stuck, bound fast, bound firm by this impossible vegetation that coils around his massive legs and clings to him with thorns.

 

He is no stranger to tricks like this, though, and he tries dispelling it, focusing his consciousness on the internal flow of chakra to his brain. Too late. Her tiny, slender form shoots out from within the tree, and with a style far too similar to the exiled Hyuuga's, she stabs at his neck, his arms, his torso with fingers and palms.

 

For her, it is an exercise in frustration. She'd bound him, if only long enough to get close, inside of his reach, only to find the chakra-bound armour he'd built up during his sojourn underground was too thick for her strikes to penetrate. She isn't strong enough to break it, not on her own, and the advance scout is clearly occupied.

 

In the distance, she sees him shoot away from an undeniably powerful sword technique that nicks his arm before darting in again and punishing his opponent with a solid knee to the jaw.

 

But fast as he is, he doesn't have the time to finish his own opponent and break this man's protection. Not before she was either killed or delayed long enough to ensure that their leader was. To put some emphasis on that point, the earthen brute slams his impossibly fast fist down into her face mask, shattering the enamel, turning it to shrapnel even as she swaps herself for a small log. His big, stony mouth creases in a mockery of a smile, and he motions to his own friend to join him in destroying this little girl playing at dress-up in her kitty Anbu mask. The smile fades when he realizes she is wearing her Konoha head protector over her eyes. She should be blind. Hyuuga Hinata, on the other hand, doesn't need to worry about that. No Hyuuga did, and she habitually wears the metal plate over her eyes, under the mask, to hide that she is one of them too.

 

And...she still has one ace in the hole. The second inhabitant of the house wasn't a missing sand ninja, but an actual sand ninja, revealed to her by her own omniscient byakugan. A really good one, hiding in an illusion that made her a clone of the the ally her opponent can't seem to find.

 

Just then, the brute sees Temari, too, standing on the wreckage of the house, back to the flames, her fan wide open, a translucent screen against the flickering fire. Hinata dances backwards, and then the typhoon hits. Hurricane-force winds slam into her assailant mid-step, shoving him off balance, and tearing away a good half of his armour. Pebbles and sand howl off into the blackened sky, adding stars to an already full panorama.

 

"Mine," Hinata whispers, softly, dashing in to deliver her feather-touch deathblow. In the background, the forward scout grabs the swordsman by the face, and plows his head into the ground with enough force to send a cone of dirt clods skyward. For them, it is over.

 

Temari is winding up for another massive blow, this time against the bandage-wrapped Hyuuga traitor.

 

OoOoOoO

 

Rolling her eyes, Temari slides the glass panel open. He takes a step back, letting her into his shadowy lair. She wonders if he ever turns the lights on in here, except for that lamp he uses to read. After all, Shikamaru is the inheritor of the shadow, and one of its creatures. She kicks off her sandals, too, and shrugs off her massive, unconventional weapon, closing the door behind her.

 

She exits the world.

 

In exchange, he offers her the untouched can, which she grudgingly accepts. Trust him to use something so ridiculously simple to win. The beer is...not her favorite; he wasn't expecting her this week. She wants something darker, richer, bitterer, but it'll do for now. She's in a kind of celebratory mood anyway.

 

"So," he says, his smirk pretty undeniably smug, "what brings you here?"

 

She shrugs. "Captured his buddy a couple weeks back. Kankouro tortured it out of him that they were going to buy the secret of the byakugan off of some guy. So, we notified your village. And I went out to do some snooping."

 

"Simple as that?" It had to be Temari, of course. Everything was under control this time, almost. Not like the last time she walked in on one of his fights. But he was younger then, weaker. He would have had to retreat, if not for her.

 

Enough, he wasn't going to dwell on it.

 

"Simple as that. 'Course, I did even the odds for you, and you were getting your ass righteously kicked." Temari snickers, that enchanting, mocking laugh that scares and excites him at the same time. He raises a smooth, thin eyebrow at her comment. In the meantime, the open, low-cut shoulder of her tunic is starting to slip, exposing more and more of the dark mesh sleeves she wears under it.

 

He knows she knows it's slipping, knows she knows he can see the cloth bindings around her chest. This is the game they play. It slides further, as she leans back, taking a longer drag on her beer.

 

"Should I be thanking you?"

 

"Well, I did punch him in the face," she laughs. "You know, it's been a while since I was here. Care to explain that to me?" she asks, falsely curious, pointing her one index finger at the rotating platform mounted on his low desk, all while keeping her beer firmly in the same hand.

 

"You already know," he says, taking his turn to roll his eyes. Her tunic slips further down her arm as they both lean back against the cool glass. It's most of the way to her elbow now, and she catches him looking just as he glances away.

 

"Because you're too damn lazy to walk around to the other side of the board so you had to get a turntable," she laughs, swinging at him with her mockery. She loves it.

 

"You're such a pain in the ass, you know that?"

 

"And you love it," she says. She knows he does, because he's the one who finally comes to her, putting down his beer and gently brushing his lips against hers. He drapes an arm over her shoulder, running his hand through a gauntlet of untidy ponytails as he does so. On the opposite side, he gently pushes down the loose sleeve of her tunic, freeing her arm. Freeing her shoulder, exposing her slowly, meticulously. She bends slightly, dropping her can to the floor. It was nearly done, anyway.

 

As soon as her arm is free, she reaches up with both hands to grab his shirt and she attacks him with her incorrigible lips as she slams him up against the glass with her entire body in the pink light of the neon sign across the street.

 

"You impatient woman," he murmurs into the kiss, as she grabs a handful of his black hair. But he misses her, so it scarcely means anything.

 

OoOoOoO

 

Temari's storm takes off like a rocket preparing for launch. A low growl, a rumble, and then a shockwave of pure force lunges out at the supposedly unsuspecting Hyuuga exile. The Hyuuga says something, but his gravelly voice is lost in the storm as he executes his kaiten for the second time that night.

 

He does something Temari has never seen before. He's cutting through her blast, a whirlwind within a whirlwind. He's using her blast to accelerate his spin, to perfect his defense even further...and he's coming towards her.

 

In an instant, she's folded her fan into a long, hard bar, and she swings it into a defensive posture. Too late, though, as the Hyuuga reaches out, over the top of folded fan, and she feels light touches against the sides of her neck.

 

Her world spontaneously goes cold, and her balance is all wrong. Where's the ground? She has no idea. Her feet are...not attached to her brain any more, somehow. Her hands, she needs to use her hands to stop her fall, she needs her hands to do something, anything, she can't find her hands, shit, shit, shit, shit.

 

Pain stabs through her neck, rushing from the base of her spine all the way up into her brainstem and it's all she can do to stay awake and conscious. She's vaguely aware of the Hyuuga standing over her, gloating. The bandages are splotchier now, bloodier, and wetter. He's exerting himself, but that doesn't matter since she's going to be dead in about two seconds as he brings his arm back, cocking it, to finish her.

 

And then there's a flash, and she's upright and her fist is buried in that bloodied, bandaged mass her enemy once called his face...

 

The deer-masked Anbu captain is standing, with his fist outstretched. Behind him, a kunai with a flare enchantment is embedded in a tree. And his shadow, his impossibly long, blessed shadow had somehow rushed right past the Hyuuga at the speed of dark to her feet. They are joined. His fist is hers. And her fist is in the monster's face, quivering with his exertion as the traitor begins to fall backwards from the blow.

 

A second later, the Anbu's shadow has switched to the disoriented Hyuuga, trapping him, when Hinata comes sprinting up the rubble, singing something about sixty four palms in a high soprano. According to his plan.

 

And when she stops, the exile is lying on his back, unmoving, as the turtle-masked Anbu catches up to them, panting. Hinata kneels down next to their target, and gingerly unwraps the bandages around his face and head. Disgusting is not a sufficient word, as unhealed meat peels away with the bandages, macerated beyond compare. He's breathing shallowly, his white-irised eyes staring blankly up at them from a face that no longer has eyelids. He'd fought his cursed seal, and if it couldn't have his brain, then it would take his flesh instead.

 

As she exposes him, Shikamaru lifts the deer mask from his face, and Rock Lee follows suit with his own scratched turtle mask.

 

Hinata's delicate brows scrunch together above the headband covering her eyes in a fury Shikamaru had never seen in the once-timid girl.

 

"It's him," she mutters, her tone morbidly sad. "He's the one."

 

Shikamaru and Rock Lee nod once to each other, then finish their victim with the kunai that would destroy his entire body and his belongings. This man, this ex-Hyuuga, had, against all odds, assassinated Hyuuga Hiashi and taken his eyes for sale to the highest bidder. Hinata might never know the reason why, but it didn't matter any more. She'd already forgiven her father, forgiven everyone who didn't have the patience to watch her become a woman.

 

Before they leave, she reverses the damage Shikamaru and Temari had taken with her intimate knowledge of how it had happened, and helps Lee bandage his own wounds. And then they quietly incinerate the clearing and all the corpses, before heading off into the night.

 

OoOoOoO

 

Afterwards, they lie there, wallowing in that blend of shadows and the never-ending pink light, listening to the hum of people beyond the glass door and quietly enjoying the mutual vulnerability of their nakedness. The game was over.

 

"You'll be back, eh?" he asks, absently, the stockpiled desire set aside -- they lust for each other's minds now, the verbal sparring that invariably colours their every encounter.

 

"Yeah," she grins, showing the predator smile that had scared him so much, before they'd really fallen for each other. She scores the first point for the next match.

 

Somehow, neither knew anymore who'd won. It didn't matter, and they'd lost track of the score somewhere between the kisses and caresses, the sweat and the sex. The score always got lost, somewhere between them when they were pressed together, and neither of them really cares who wins anyway.

 

Because every time she pushed him off balance and he had to start thinking all over again, and every time he pushed her off her rhythm and she had to stop thinking at all, they secretly scored points.

 

It just happens far too often for it to matter any more.

 

Doesn't mean the game isn't fun to play, though, she thinks, staring into his black eyes as she slides closer to kiss him more gently than she has all evening.

 

OoOoOoO

 

Author's Notes:

 

So I read a lot of Naruto ff this weekend, for no reason other than being bored. It put some dumb ideas in my head, ideas what needed fixing. This is the end result. Not sure why I like the idea of Temari and Shikamaru having some kind of forbidden romance, but I do. This is how it works in my mind, and I think it works pretty well. Shikamaru is apathetic, yes, but I doubt he'd let himself get pushed around where it counted. Temari is strong-willed, conversely, but I think she wants to break free sometimes, too.

 

Hinata, I think, gets the short end of the stick from everyone (admittedly, I've only ever read the manga). To me, she is struggling with confidence issues and expectations that are patently unrealistic for a child her age, much like Sasuke. Sure, Neji's a genius with his skill, but that also makes him vulnerable to overspecialization. For this, I assumed that Hinata would discover a talent for genjutsu as well, and pick up from Yuuhi Kurenai some of the genjutsu I have her use here. Furthermore, I think Hinata's subtle, quiet revenge works well here -- she's a powerful ninja now, and I think that alone might have been enough to force her father to recognize her in some way before I killed him off.

 

As for Lee, I think he is incredibly optimistic for someone whose job it is to kill people, or whose job it will be to kill people. As of yet, he hasn't had to, but I think it would be like this. Maito Gai strikes me as over-compensating for some kind of sadness or remorse over things he has had to do, but you'll notice he hasn't hesitated to kill anyone when necessary. Lee, I think, will follow him there.

 

I didn't name anyone so long as they were wearing their Anbu masks, because that's what the masks do, they anonymize. I think, in a way, the masks help the Anbu do their jobs, too, by distancing them like it does for Lee.

 

No, that isn't Neji, although it could have been if I didn't think he had the ability to rise above his arrogant hatred. Dude's too cool.