The Next Generation

Chapter 1

"Shigeru, it's time to go." The blond kunoichi said to the elf. His head lifted up off his arms and he sat up.

"Well, looks like it's time to go now, Shikamaru." He said to the lazy genius lying in the grass next to him. "Shikamaru?" He shook him and his eyes slowly opened.

"Ngh, already? Geez that woman wants to get home early every single time." Shigeru stood up and helped Shikamaru up off the ground and they both walked to the front gates and saw the beautiful, black-robed kunoichi leaning against the wall.

"So, I suppose you'll be going now, eh? Take care, Shigeru. . you too, Temari." Shikamaru said.

"Yea, see you later. Oh, Temari, I have to say bye to someone first, I won't be long." He disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Well, he'll catch up to me later. So, I guess until next time, right Shikamaru?" Temari said to him.

"Yea. Take care of yourself, so I don't have to come and save you again, ne?"

"Ugh, Shikamaru, you're such a pushover, maybe you should advance to jounin soon, huh? Oh well, see ya." She waved and turned around and walked out the gates.

-

Shigeru arrived at Tsunade's office. "Hokage-sama." He bowed since there were others in the room with them. They had been friends a long time, ever since she was a little girl.

"Ah, Shigeru, aren't you suppose to be leaving for Suna right now?" Tsunade asked.

"Yup, but I decided to say goodbye to you." He smiled. "So, bye." And he bowed once again. Then he disappeared. He arrived at the front gates and Temari was nowhere to be found. He looked through the gates and saw the distant female figure walking away. "Oh, well. She knew I'd catch up anyways." Then he started to run. He arrived at her side about 5 seconds later.

"Well, where'd you run off to this time?" Temari asked him as they were walking.

"Oh, I just visited Tsunade, I had to say bye to her." He smiled.

"You know, you don't really have to say bye every single time. She gets it, she's the hokage, Shigeru, she has some really important stuff to do, and she just can't stop it because you just want to say bye to her." She looked up at the sky, "Ugh, Gaara is going to kill me for being late. He always has me doing crap for him. Can't he just get Kana to do it for him?" Shigeru started intently at her. "What?"

"If you want to get there so badly, why didn't you just say so? We could've left earlier you know?" Shigeru said as a matter-of-factly.

"Well, excuse me. I- Shigeru, what are you- Hey!" He had picked her up and carried her bridal style.

"We can get there faster this way, so just be nice for right now."

"Just be nice? What kind of comment is that?" Temari stated. "I can get there on my own, thank you very much, so please put me down."

"Temari, just shut-up." He then jumped up onto the trees and started hopping from one to the other.

"Oh, wow, anyone can do this Shigeru." As soon as she said that, his speed increased immensely, the tree branches were whizzing past her head, and she could feel wind blowing on her face. She looked around and everything was a blur, she couldn't see clearly, she looked up to find Shigeru looking ahead. He noticed her staring and looked back at her.

"Don't worry, you'll be on solid ground soon." He assured her. His voice faded into nothing, and her world went dark.

-

She felt someone shaking her, and her eyes opened slowly. They were in a sand colored room, and she could see two other people in the background. One with dark red hair, and the other with this purple stuff on his face, and brown hair. A hand shook her again.

"Yea, yea, I'm awake." She snapped. The one who had shaken her, backed away. Her eyes came into focus and she could see that they were in Gaara's office, and she was lying down on a couch.

"So, looks like you're awake now, that's good." A voice beside her said. She looked at the person.

"Shigeru? What happened?"

"Oh, because we were going so fast, you weren't used to it, and you passed out. Don't worry, I used to get dizzy when I first started learning how to go that fast, but you get over it quickly. We got here, about, what would you say Kankurou, maybe 10 minutes ago. It actually took about 20 minutes to get here, that's longer than usual, but since I was carrying you, it made a difference. But it was nice, I don't really get to see you sleep like this."

"Ugh, shut-up. So it took 20 minutes to get here? It's a 3 day long journey." Temari said, somewhat amazed.

"Just be glad that you're here, Temari." Gaara suddenly said. She turned around.

"Gaara, I never said that I was ungrateful, did I? I didn't think so." She then proceeded to stand up and walk out of the room.

"Psh, women." Kankurou said aloud.

"I heard that!" Her voice echoed through the hallway. Shigeru followed after her, he kept his distance so she wouldn't notice him. He saw her go into her house, and close the door. Had he really offended her, or was she mad at Gaara for saying that to her? Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure leap into the back yard.

'Hmm, some visitors, eh?' He thought, and then hopped up and over the fence. He saw a figure clad in black scaling the walls. He was heading toward her bedroom window. Shigeru jumped onto the roof and looked down at the man. "Can I help you?"

"Ugh. . Kuso. Actually, would you mind getting out of the way? I wish to see Temari-sama."

"Right." He then picked up the guy by his collar and jumped down into the sand once more. He pushed the guy against the wall. "And why exactly were you going to "see" Temari?" He asked seriously.

"I-I-I. . Well, I." He stopped, he saw Shigeru's eyes glow yellow, and then back to their greenish color again. "I wanted to spy on her." He shut his eyes, braced for the pain to come, but it never did. He set the guy down on the ground.

"You should go. You don't want Temari on your case. If this happens again, I won't be so nice." The guy nodded and then ran off. Shigeru walked over and went inside the house. It was a nice light tan color, and it had many pictures around. His sensitive ears picked up a noise coming from upstairs, so he followed it. Temari was in her room, organizing the flower pots, and looked in the mirror to fix her hair. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a faint shadow coming up the stairs. She looked to her fan that was perfectly stationed against the walls for these types of situations. She grabbed it, and stood opposite of the door, waiting for the intruder. She faintly heard a 'pop' and braced herself. 'Heh.' Temari felt something slither around her waist, she looked down and saw a pair of hands. Someone suddenly pulled her back, and she was held against their chest. She struggled and looked up. She saw Shigeru there holding her.

"Ugh," She said and laid her head back on his shoulder, "I thought you were someone else. If you had been, you would be dead right now."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm not, eh?"

"You can let go of me now, Shigeru." He realized his position, and pulled away immediately.

"U-Uh, sorry about that. . ." He looked away as his cheeks turned slightly pink. She noticed the awkward moment and decided to break the ice.

"So, you've never shown me, this Kekkei Genkai of yours. I would very much like to see it. No one over here has Kekkei Genkai, except for you. What was it called again, Kami's Tear?" Temari said. His head popped up and his facial expression became serious.

"Temari, I can't show you, it's too dangerous. It'll be dangerous for you."

"Well, all the better to train it then. The desert is the perfect place, there are no buildings, no people, nothing, just you and. . me." Temari found it hard to say the last word.

"Fine. But only in the desert, far away from Suna, I don't want to accidentally injure citizens from our home." He said and then smiled briefly.

"Ugh, Shigeru, you're such a loser, come here. You're just like Shikamaru in that sense." She ruffled his hair. "So, I would like to try that flying thing you did earlier again, it was very unique."

"Awesome." He picked her up again and she put her arms around his neck. "Ready?"

"Yea, of course, I'm ready for anything." She said.

"Of course. Now this time, just look at me, not anywhere else, you'll faint again, you here? Talk to me or something." She nodded and looked at his face. He started running, and she could tell, out of the corner of her eye, that everything was a blur.

"How long was it until you figured out that you could travel like this?" She asked. She started feeling her stomach tightening and her vision was beginning to fade.

"Temari, look at me, come on. I was about 10 when I figured it out, Tsunade didn't like it at all. She would try to race me, but before she'd even said go, I had already finished."

She swallowed, "R-Right. . ugh, Shigeru, I can't. . I." He cut her off, his lips were pressed against hers in a second. Her eyes widened and she could see that his were closed. 'What's he. . .doing?' she thought, she was fully awake now, his kiss had startled her. 'So that's why he did it. Sneaky little elf boy.' Her body was starting to get a little warm, and there was heat in his lips like never before. She felt his grip on her tighten considerably, and she was pressed against his chest, her lips plastered to his. She felt him stop and pull away from her. All of the warmth relinquished and she felt somewhat empty.

"We're here." He said. 'What am I doing, she's Shikamaru's. That was just an instinct, it was nothing.' He thought to himself. "Are you feeling alright?"

". . .Yea, I'm doing great. Sh-Shigeru, why did you-

"I-I'm really sorry Temari. I didn't mean to do that at all." He turned the other way. "Ugh, I feel like an idiot." He said.

'He didn't mean to do it huh?' She thought. "Shigeru, I'll tell you what. If you can show me your kekkei genkai, I can give you what you want. Is that fair?" She said.

"Ugh. . .Ok." He said and agreed. Did she actually know what he wanted? She didn't know anything about him, how he felt about her, nothing. "Look, if you stand close to me, you won't get hurt, ok. So, please come here." He said and smiled. Temari went behind him and he put a hand sign up and closed his eyes. Temari looked at him and he suddenly opened his eyes and she saw that they were pitch black.

"Shigeru?" All of a sudden, it turned black and there was no sound.

"Can you feel anything?" His voice came behind her. Temari turned around and it became light again. She looked around, everything seemed normal, except that there wasn't that slight breeze that there was before they came here. "Let me show you, what I can do." He laced his hands around her waist and teleported back to Suna. Everything looked the same to her, but when they reached the gates, her eyes widened. Everything was frozen in place, even the birds.

"Did you do this?" Temari asked. She looked around and saw a guard, he was talking to this other guard, apparently, but he was not moving.

"Yes, with these eyes, I can freeze time, see what's going to happen right before it happens. As long as you're with me, you're safe. You won't freeze."

"Very nice."

"I'm going to take you back to the desert, sometimes coming out of this state can cause a bit of an impact on the user. So it's best if we go back to where we were." Shigeru said. So they went back to the desert and she stood beside him. "Ready?"

"What do you think?" She added.

"Oh, right. Alright then. Release!" Suddenly there was a big jolt in the earth and a big just of wind propelled them both back. Because she was behind him, Temari flew back first and landed on her back and Shigeru flew back and landed on top of her.

"Ugh!" He heard Temari groan as he fell on top of her.

"Temari, are you ok?" He asked, concerned.

"Yea, I'm fine." She said and looked up at him. He started to get up and off of her but she pulled on his jacket. "I believe, I have promised you something in return, for showing me your kekkei genkai."

"But, Temari- You don't know what I want." He said, his cheeks started to turn a little pink, and his mid-section was starting to get a little warm.

"Of course I do. Now, just shut-up and kiss me already." She said and pulled him down to meet her lips. Temari suddenly felt that heat in her lips the moment their lips touched, and she was intoxicated by the feeling it gave her. She felt him unintentionally grind against him and it drove her crazy. She let a soft moan come out and he pulled away from her. What was he doing? He was kissing his best friend's girl and she had coaxed him into it. "There that wasn't so hard, now was it?" She asked.

'Not in the least.' He thought quickly. "Temari, are you sure that was necessary, you didn't have to do that." Shigeru tried to say.

"Listen, a guy feels what a guy feels, you can't change that. Now stop apologizing and let's get back to the village, you wouldn't want any rumors going around now would you?" She teased.

"Rumors? I highly doubt that there aren't any rumors already." He said.

"Hmm, maybe you're right, Shigeru. Now let's go." She all of a sudden took off running and left him behind.

"Right." Then he took off after her.