His Knight in Shining Armor
Disclaimer: hoo boy, if I owned Naruto….hah! Haha! Ahem. Yes, well…I don't own Naruto. Nyah. I fart in your general direction. (kudos to those who know where that's from)
Summary: Temari is tailing a renegade shinobi in a dump of a city. Stupid Shikamaru, getting himself captured like that! (fluff stuff)
Vocabulary: ojou-san (little girl/lady) maa (calm) baka (fool)
And I'm not taking you for idiots, some die-hard Naruto fans watch the American anime version which doesn't cover words like baka. So nyah. Again.
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The air stunk.
Really bad.
No, seriously. Hadn't these people ever heard of indoor plumbing? Or maybe underground sewer systems??
Apparently not.
Temari sighed despondently as she shadowed a rebel ninja through the muck-strewn alley. What the hell was she doing here? Here in this godforsaken pit of an excuse for civilization?
Oh yeah.
Shikamaru.
He'd gone out on a mission and had somehow ended up captured. So Ino and Chouji had returned to Konoha for reinforcements, i.e. Temari and Kankurou.
Upon the new team's return to the city, the rebels had set up such clever booby traps Ino and Chouji were immediately captured and promptly beaten to within an inch of death. The Sand siblings, whom the enemy hadn't known about, rescued them. Temari had sent the others back with her brother, who'd reluctantly accepted her decision.
So here she was, following the renegades' leader to their little hidey-hole. Temari stiffened as he stopped and whirled around, hurling several shuriken at her. Dodging them easily, she cursed. She'd been careless! He was low-level, but he was still a shinobi! She'd thought he'd unwittingly lead her to their headquarters, where Shikamaru would undoubtedly be, where she could wipe out the rebels and thus finish two missions with one trip. But evidently the leader fellow was smart enough to not risk that.
She followed him swiftly as he fled. Damn. Damn, double damn, and another damn for luck. He'd never go to the hide-out now, knowing she'd be on his tail.
Lull him into a false sense of security. Let him think the threat has passed. She began appearing in the fringes of his vision, first to the left, then to the right, to make him feel trapped. He took the bait, attacking with a strong fuuton. She started a fire jutsu, so that the result was a gigantic fireball that engulfed her. She switched her body with a pole, and the pole-Temari shrieked in pain while the real one watched from the shadows.
The leader observed until she was only a pile of ashes, and then breathed a sigh of relief before continuing on his way. He would not expect more stalkers now, and she followed him with ease.
Before long, he entered a large, ramshackle building. Temari grinned. Finally.
She blew in on her fan, taking them by surprise. Before they could react, she'd laid low half their number with a powerful tornado. The rest of them attacked together, surrounding her, but Temari just widened her grin.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
A little trick she'd picked up from Naruto: each clone had a kunai at each enemy's throat, and another clone to back them up. They were outnumbered two to one. She made her way to the sad, downtrodden bundle of rags and ropes that was her husband, threw him over she shoulder and beat a retreat. When she was a respectable distance away, she released the Kage Bunshin. Temari settled Shikamaru down precariously on a ledge high above the city, and woke him up.
He groaned as he came to his senses, taking in his surroundings. When his gaze fell on the blonde, his mouth twisted into a lopsided grin.
"Always fighting women, always being rescued by women…what a pathetic lot in life. How troublesome," he complained. Temari poked his forehead, not too gently. He winced.
"Would you rather I give you back to them, and you can wait for Chouji to come save your sorry ass?" she inquired, only half joking.
"Maaaaa, ojou-san! I'm only joking. You're my Prince Charming, my knight in kinky shining armor, you know that," he said, putting his palms up, placating. She poked him again.
"What the—would you quit with the poking! Troublesome!" he groused.
She giggled a little, placing her forehead against his, going cross-eyed to look into his warm eyes.
"Baka."
He laughed, hugging her tightly. "Hey, who's the bigger baka, the baka or the baka who married the baka?"
"I'm a different type of baka," she scoffed, "I'm a baka in love. You, you're just a baka."
"I can live with that," he smiled, and kissed her.
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Araaa, such clichéd dialogue…I wrote this after re-reading that bit in the manga with the chuunin exams, where he's like 'why do I always have to fight women??' so this entire piece is pretty much for that one moment…teehee. Oh, and the fight scenes…are they well-written? I don't think I did as well as I could have. T.T