Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If I did I would start a Naruto cult and have many fearless ninja want to be followers, but I don't.

Summary: Yamanaka Ino and Nara Shikamaru are on a misson together as ANBU members. But why does Ino choke at the worst possible moment of the mission? Ino/Shikamaru

KageMane no Justsu means shadow imitation technique (Shikamaru's technique)
Shintenshin no Jutsu means body-switching technique (Ino's technique)
Jutsu means technique

Yin and Yang

Chapter 1

Frozen

-----( aller )-----

"Be quiet, let me look first."

Ino carefully moved her head past Shikamaru and around the corner. Shikamaru took a kunai out of his pack and set it in his hand where it lay ready to be released at any moment if needed. There were guards, two of them standing about 4 feet apart facing in her general direction. She smiled slightly to herself and thought, this is going to be fun.

As Ino was leaning over him she placed a hand on Shikamaru's chest, always the dominate one, he thought to himself. As Ino was looking out for any guards, He involuntarily caught a whiff of her hair and decided she smelled like jasmine, which suited him just fine.

Ino raised her head back to look at Shikamaru and realized that she had her hand holding onto his ANBU uniform. She didn't make a scene and jerk it away embarrassed. Instead, she just calmly moved it as if she were removing her hand from the wall.

"There's two guards. This will be child's play."

How troublesome… Shikamaru thought to himself. Not only were there guards, which he supposed he should have guessed there would be since this was a mission with murderous intent, but Ino was underestimating the danger yet again. They were ANBU now, not young children who could rely on their teachers or elders anymore. She had to learn to take the missions more seriously.

"So what's the plan?" Ino questioned. She knew better than to expect an answer immediately. If nothing else, being placed on the same team as Shikamaru when they were genin taught her that Shikamaru took his sweet time thinking up possible ploys. She had to admit though, he was getting quicker at it and he hardly had to use that weird thinking pose anymore. He could be thinking up a brilliant plan and no one would be able to tell. In fact, he didn't even look like his mind was working behind his pretty brown eyes, but she knew better. After what was quite a considerably short amount of time, at least for Shikamaru, he spoke up.

"Take this kunai and go onto the roof. Throw it at them as a distraction and I will use my KageMane no jutsu on them while they are distracted by you."

She nodded her head in agreement and gave him a small smile and a wink, her customary way to wish him good luck. She vaulted up onto the roof quietly then and crouched down as she crept to the center of the rooftop, right before the roof's pointed top she stopped, keeping herself out of view. She planned out in her head that after she threw the kunai she would give Shikamaru as much time as possible by moving towards the guards rather than away so that they wouldn't come up on the roof after her and make it harder for Shikamaru to reach them with his KageMane no Justsu. She poised the kunai Shikamaru had given her in her hand and aimed it slightly to the left of the farthest guard. No reason to injure those who can be spared, she thought to herself.

Shikamaru and her had this silent pact that they would try not to kill or overly injury anyone whom it wasn't their mission to kill. That was part of the reason she liked having missions with Shikamaru, among other things. She also thought that they complimented each other well- she had the energy and motivation to get a mission done and he had the careful thinking part down perfectly. They were like yin and yang- opposites that balanced each other out perfectly. She threw the kunai towards its final destination, which happened to be the mail box.

Perhaps that was why we seem to be assigned missions together rather frequently now, she mused.

Immediately after releasing the kunai Ino slid her ANBU mask from the top of her head to rest on her face and jumped up while grabbing a second kunai out of her pack. She charged both guards quickly and reflected two kunai that were thrown in her direction. One reflected off badly and snagged her shorts. She was prepared to reflect any other kunai that would predictably come her way when she realized the guards were not moving any longer. She looked down and saw the shadow that started at their feet and followed it with her eyes till she was looking at Shikamaru.

"Your getting faster at this, been practicing?" She inquired as she walked up to the confused, frozen guards and knocked them each out with a strong blow to the head.

"Hn, it's usual for my KageMane no jutsu's speed to increase as I get older. My old man can cover the same amount of space ..." He cut himself off, "Are you okay?" His gaze shifted to her left thigh where her pants had a small cut. Ino sighed, she should have known. Shikamaru always had this strange habit of scanning her body for wounds after every encounter with an enemy. She was surprised it even took him this long to notice.

"I'm fine. I just was careless and reflected off one of the kunai badly. It didn't even cut the skin, see?" She lifted her rolled up shorts to prove her statement, "But now I have to get a whole new uniform!"

Shikamaru seemed satisfied with that. He ignored Ino's fashion crisis and looked towards the house where the mob boss, Saito, resided. He motioned for her to go first. She knew he wasn't being a rude man to make the woman go first but that his logic lay in the fact that she was lighter and therefore quieter than him when sneaking around. She also knew that he was close behind her, to the point when she could feel his breath on her neck sometimes, with a kunai poised in his hand ready to protect her if necessary. She led the way through some trees, careful to keep a sharp eye out for more guards.

Neji or Hinata's byakugan would be helpful right about now, she thought. Then, she immediately shuddered at the thought. She hadn't been on any two person teams with Neji and hadn't worked with him often; but that man's cold emotionless attitude completely ruined her usual sunshine attitude. And as for Hinata- she never quite felt safe when paired with that nervous girl. I guess I like working with Shikamaru in a team the best, she decided. They were up against the west wall of the house now and their shadows were on the wall of the house as well. It was a two story house and the front of it was facing north.

"Front door?" Ino questioned, Shikamaru nodded, front it is, she thought.

When they got to the corner of the house, Shikamaru got as close to the corner as possible and rested against the wall, facing her, as he armed himself with a kunai. It was a little tactic they always used incase she were to look around the corner and catch the enemy's attention immediately- in that case Shikamaru would be armed and ready to protect her. She carefully moved past Shikamaru, careful not to rest her hand on him again because once was enough, and looked around the corner and saw a single guard sitting down almost dozing off during his shift. She moved back and inclined her head to the left to indicate that it was safe for Shikamaru to look. After he did he turned back to her and made a signal with his hands that meant he was going to borrow her shadow to make the long reach to the guard. She nodded and looked down to make sure her shadow was overlaying Shikamaru's. She didn't mind lending him her shadow even if that did leave her bound to imitate his every movement. It was such a vulnerable feeling, but she trusted Shikamaru and didn't mind letting him use her shadow. It was just the same as leaving her body to Shikamaru's care when using her Shintenshin no justsu to take over the body of an enemy- well almost.

She felt her body moving on it's own towards the front door and after a few steps Shikamaru released his hold on her shadow because he didn't need it to reach the guard any longer. She walked up and knocked the guard out harder than usually.

Losing control of her muscles for awhile always made her want to exert them more afterwards. Shikamaru winced, damn that looks painful. Ino looked at him and then at the doorway and moved. He moved wordlessly behind her, kunai in hand.

Ino crept slowly down the hallway and saw no more guards. She noticed stairs leading down to a cellar and decided to follow them down. Once they got downstairs and turned right once, they got to another corner and did their basic corner stance yet again. Ino spotted a room with one guard and the man whose life they were after sitting at a low table signing paperwork it seemed. Mr. Saito was one of the growing successful mob bosses in the land of the grass and he was responsible for many deaths- including those of ninjas from Konoha. Ino held nothing but disgust for the man.

She moved back to face Shikamaru and gestured that it was her turn to put her jutsu to use. Shikamaru nodded and leaned his right side against the wall and took one step to back away from the corner and held his arms out with ninety degree angles at his elbows. He was use to this procedure. Ino stepped carefully and silently in front of him and peered around the corner again and made a hand gesture and used her Shintenshin no jutsu. In less than four seconds Ino was looking out from someone else's eyes, the guard's eyes. Her body had quietly been caught by Shikamaru and he dragged it back a few steps and laid it on the ground without a sound. The new body she was in didn't stumble at all- she was definitely getting better at her jutsu. It use to be the person's body of whomever she took over would practically faint before she gained control of it. And this one isn't a great mental fighter either, she thought.

"Um, sir I need to use the restroom." She said. The voice sounded weird to her since it was coming out of her mouth, but things like that she was use to. Since she had joined ANBU, she'd used this jutsu to bring down many guards- all with different voices.

"What does it take to get good service today?!" Mr. Saito said angrily. She took this as permission to leave and stepped around the corner to where Shikamaru was. She got close to him and made a gesture immediately before she slipped out of the guard's body. Shikamaru promptly knocked out the guard as they had silently planned.

Ino opened her eyes and was disoriented by the fact that she was lying on the ground. She got up and helped Shikamaru lay the unconscious guard onto the floor. When Shikamaru made a questioning gesture she replied with a pointed finger in the direction of Mr. Saito and then a sign that represented Shikamaru's KageMane no jutsu was implying that they should just walk in there and have Shikamaru use his KageMane no jutsu on him. Shikamaru nodded and walked into the room, this time in front of Ino.

"ANBU! You…" Mr. Saito was cut off when Shikamaru used his KageMane no jutsu on him. Now, this mission would have been very easy and simple if not for the fact that Mr. Saito had just tripped an alarm to notify his guards that he was in danger. The alarm wasn't the silent kind and it sounded off very loud throughout the house. Ino knew they didn't have a lot of time. She could do this- she had to this time. She brought out a kunai from her pact and walked up behind a very frightened, but frozen, Mr. Saito and pulled up the kunai to his neck.

I can do this, I can do this, I can do this! He's an awful man- hell he has responsible for the death of Konoha ninjas! Ino thought. She looked over at Shikamaru who had a look of empathy on his face, she can't do it, he thought. She dropped the kunai from her shaking hand and Shikamaru took one out of his pack quickly, all while Mr. Saito was mirroring his moves, and quickly threw it at Mr. Saito's neck. Ino stepped away from the falling body. I couldn't do it again! Why am I even an ANBU? I am such a coward!, she though angrily as she looked at Mr. Saito's body. The alarm wasn't registering in her head at the moment and it wasn't until Shikamaru grabbed her by the arm gently that she roused from her thoughts. Oh, right. Run now, think later.

Ino and Shikamaru managed to get up the stairs, while they placed their ANBU masks on their faces, before they ran into any guards. In the hallway they ran into three. Ino took out the one on the left with a high kick and the middle one with a blow from her elbow simultaneously. Shikamaru took out the out the other one with by distracting him with a thrown kunai while he used his KageMane no jutsu and then knocked him out. As they fled the estate, staying side by side, they didn't encounter anymore guards- but that didn't mean there weren't anymore so they took cover in the forest as they traveled towards Konoha.

-----( arrêt )-----

Author's Notes: Well this is the first fic I have uploaded on for a very, very long time. The whole thing was inspired by a fanart. If you want to see the amazing fanart there is a link in my bio. I'm sorry to say but I don't intend on this being an epic fic, it'll probably only have one more chapter. Review if you like it and if you don't that begs the question: why did you read the whole first chapter?