Chapter 1.
It was a normal sunny day in Konoha when the Hokage called on Shikamaru to come to her office for an urgent request.
'What a drag, I hope this isn't another one of her silly little missions she thinks is a big deal because she's such a troublesome woman...' Shikamaru thought to himself as he walked down the main road to the Hokage office.
When he arrived he was greeted by a stapler thrown at his head but because he's been training hard with Asuma the past few weeks his reflexes have improved quite a bit and managed to dodge the stapler while he was sort of trying to block out the sounds of the Hokage yelling at him for taking to long.
"Getting to business Shikamaru, the Sand Village are require our assistance in what they have predicted is an attack on the Kazekage again from one of the small neighbouring towns as they disapproved of his leadership and think he is to much of a threat to their safety." She explained. "You have the people on this list to pull together a team of 4 (including himself) to make sure he is safe and unharmed."
She handed him the clipboard of ninja not on missions..
"Based on that I'm supposed to come up with a good squad?" Shikamaru protested trying to get more information out of her convinced she knew something else.
"Yup, now on you go. You have half an hour to be out this village and on the way!"
"Okay I guess I'll go get my team." He said with a smirk and left her office with the clipboard back on the table from when she handed it to him.
It was time to leave and Shikamaru was standing at the Konoha gates with Chouji, Shino, Neji and was waiting on Ino.
"Sorry I'm late I had to see Lady Tsunade" Screeched Ino while she approached the guys at the gate
" What was it about? Get any more information on the mission?" Asked Shikamaru hoping she would be silly enough to trust him and tell him anything she found out but realized she wasn't that stupid when she yelled back at him
"NO! And even if I did I wouldn't tell you! I know what you're like when we have to go see the Sand village under Temari's call for help!" Ino snapped back not realizing that Shikamaru wasn't supposed to know Temari was the one asking for help.
" So it was Temari was it?" Shikamaru asked casually even thought inside he was really worried about anything happening to her...
" It's most likely nothing, it's Temari she suspects things all the time Shikamaru no need to worry." Chouji said between the handfuls of crisps he was shoving in his mouth.
" Chouji is right Shikamaru but if he's wrong we should get heading..." Neji said in a calmer manner trying not to alert Shikamaru that something could go seriously wrong if they were there for much longer.
"Well then let's stop chatting and let's get going..." Shino said trying to get everyone going before he dyed of boredom of them all talking about leaving but not actually getting anywhere.
They all headed of at top speed but Shikamaru knew they wouldn't be able to keep the speed up because it's a three day journey to the sand village even when you're chounin it still takes a couple of days, two at the least. So when the sun sets Shikamaru gets Neji to check with his Byakugan there is no one there to attack them while they set up camp.
Shikamaru was staring at the clouds for about an hour and a half before he drifted off to sleep thinking of how happy he was to be seeing Temari again after so long...