Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or the movie Speed. All plot and characters are copyright their respective owners.

Summary: "Pop quiz. Airport, gunman with one hostage. He's using her for cover; he's almost to the plane. You're a hundred feet away. Shikamaru?" Shikamaru glanced up at him. "Shoot the hostage."

Author's Note: This plot has been bugging me for awhile so I decided to get it out there and see if there is any interest in it being continued. I have really been wanting to write a Shikamaru-centric fic for some time. This will be ShikaXTem but Temari will not appear until the third or forth chapter. The rest of the Naruto cast will be used but their characters will be minor and their relationships varied meaning they will not all know one another. Some of their POV's will be included but it is just to offer a seperate perspective on what is happening. As I stated it will be ShikaTem. The character of Shikamaru is based off of post time-skip. Another thing I wanted to mention that in this story Hidan will be slightly out of character. For the purpose of this story he will be playing a fairly intelligent individual where in the anime/magna he is not portrayed as overly bright. I think that is all I wanted to clear up. Enjoy!

OVERDRIVE

Chapter One- Nothing Personal

He was debating whether or not he would try to head over to his girlfriend's house once this day was over. He was stuck in this building until 7 when he and the other security guards on duty would be replaced by the night guard. Some days he wondered if he could have a more boring job, other days it wasn't so bad. Either way he was certain it wasn't something he wanted to do with the rest of his life. It was a temporary thing until he had a better idea of what he wanted to do.

Without much of a thought he pushed open one of the restricted doors. He poked his head through for a moment before pulling it back out and going to close the door behind him. He froze with his hand on the door knob, his mind processing the fact that he had seen what appeared to be a bag on the ground. He frowned and pushed his head back into the room only to see the shadow of a figure.

With his walkie-talkie in hand, he stepped into the room, the sound of a tool being used catching his ear. He walked towards the other person cautiously before he spotted the uniformed man working on some sort of wiring. He frowned.

"Excuse me sir, you can't be here. This area is restricted," he explained.

"I know but they called me down here to fix this wiring," the man muttered, his head still buried in his work.

"No one called it down to me. I'm going to have to see a work order," he explained to the man.

"Yeah hold on one second," mumbled the man as he reached down and grabbed the piece of paper that lay in his bag. "Here you go."

He leaned forward to look at the paper. It didn't look much like a form to him. He saw a flash of movement from the other side of the paper and his eyes only had time to widen as the cold metal of a screwdriver was slammed violently into the side of his head. His mouth fell open, the shock numbing the pain of the deadly injury.

"Nothing personal," the uniformed man said with a sadistic smirk before a toe-curling laugh escaped his lips. The laugh of a madman, he recognized it, and the laugh mirrored the man's expression. It was the last thing he'd ever see. He was gone before he hit the ground.

Ino stood up from her chair and stretched her slender arms over her head. One day down and four more to go before the weekend got here. She brushed a stray strand of her hair behind her ear and lifted her jacket off of the back of the chair. She glanced at her computer screen, making sure it had fully shut itself down before letting a pleasant smile grace her features. Humming lightly to herself she slid her jacket over her arms and walked around her desk. She opened the door and stepped out of her office after flicking the light off. She locked the door and looked up to see Sai walking towards her, a grin plastered on his pale features. She lifted her slender hand and offered a slight wave as the dark-haired young man walked over to her.

"How was your day beautiful," he asked, the nickname one he had given her the first day she had met him.

"Long," she confessed. "How was yours?"

"Oh it was fine," he said as she fell into step beside him and the two headed for the elevator.

They walked down the hallway, exchanging pleasantries and discussing work. It was a typical day for Ino. Sai would walk her to her car and then she would go home for the evening to the small townhouse on the east side that she shared with her fiancé. She looked away from Sai and towards the elevators where she spotted Shino just about to step inside of one.

"Shino hold the elevator please," she called out as she trotted down the hallway with Sai behind her.

They stepped into the elevator and were followed by several of their other co-workers, a young woman named Moegi and two younger men, Konohamaru and Udon. Yamato and Shizune joined them in the elevator as well and Ino found herself moving in between Sai and Shino to make room for the others. She watched as Udon pushed the button for the ground floor despite the fact that the light was already on.

"Thanks for pushing that, Udon. The light's on but you never know, it really might be broken," Konohamaru said as he leaned back against the wall.

"Shut up," Moegi said rolling her eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest.

The elevator doors dinged and began to close and Ino fiddled with the cuff of her jacket as elevator music filled the silence. Her pale blue eyes drifted upwards towards the display screen over the door as the red numbers indicating the floor they were only, slowly drifted by.

43…42…41.

There was a loud noise, like a firework going off just above her head. The elevator shuddered and then another loud bang rang through her ears. The light flickered out and the music died as the elevator plummeted. She screamed but she wasn't the only one. Her own cry was just a part of the collected outburst from the passengers in the elevator. It was like the floor dropped out from beneath her and the breath came out of her lungs with a 'whoosh'. Her blue eyes watched as the red number flashed by at an alarming rate. They were all going to die.

The sound of screeching filled the air and the elevator seemed to lurch as the emergency brake was activated. The elevator seemed to almost travel upwards for a brief moment before it continued its downward decent, slowing quickly until it finally squealed its way to a stop. For a moment there was complete silence inside the metal box.

Ino held her breath out of fear that he elevator would start its downward decent once again, but it remained where it was, and after a moment, she let out the breath she had been holding. Everyone else in the elevator seemed to do the same thing as they peered at one another's startled faces.

"Jesus. Udon, which button did you push," Konohamaru asked.

No one laughed and Ino found her pale blue eyes traveling to the red number that was displayed right above the door. 29. 29 stories to plummet. She found herself holding her breath again.

Shikamaru was sitting on the roof of his apartment building, the door propped open somewhere behind him so he didn't end up locking himself up here. He was seated with his back again the wall, his arms back behind his head as he looked up at the sky. It was a nice day to sit outside and watch the clouds. The whether was cool, but the sun made it comfortable for a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. The sky was pleasant blue color today, not the dreary gray skies that hinted at either rain or a muggy day. The clouds were white and wispy, not a thundercloud in sight.

Still the best part of the day, and he could say this for certain, was that he had the day off. He'd been able to catch up on some sleep that he hadn't been getting, and for the first time in far too long, as far as he was concerned at least, he'd been able to come up to the roof and watch the clouds. His mother hadn't even called him today to bother him about coming over for dinner or give him crap about something she didn't like about his current lifestyle. He sighed out loud and relaxed further, letting his muscles turn languid as he sat there.

He closed his eyes, letting the sun warm his face as he listened to the sound of traffic moving on the street below him. He had tomorrow off too and he wondered if the day would be just as nice as this one. He never bothered listening to the weather, he found that more often than not he had a better chance of calling what it would do than the meteorologists and all of their equipment. Maybe tomorrow he would go see his parents, then again staying right here definitely had an undeniable appeal.

The muffled sound of his cell phone ringing drowned out the sound of the traffic below him. He was hit with a brief sense of foreboding that told him answering this call was definitely going to ruin the rest of his day. He was half-tempted to ignore the ringing because chances were that it was his mother. Still he knew that he should at least look at who was calling. With a bit of a groan he dug his hand into his pocket, pulling out the phone and glancing at the screen through squinted eyes. Asuma. Shikamaru flipped open the phone.

"Hello."

"Get your shit together Shikamaru. We got a situation and the captain's calling everyone in. I'll be outside your apartment in five," Asuma said.

"It's my day off," Shikamaru explained, his voice sounding bored despite the fact that he was already on his feet and heading towards the door.

"Quit your complaining and get your ass off the roof. You've got four minutes now," Asuma barked into the phone.

"You sound like my mother. How'd you know I was on the roof anyway," Shikamaru asked as he kicked his door stop out of the way and let the door to the roof swing shut behind him as he descended a narrow set of stairs.

"The sun's out," Asuma said. Shikamaru swore he heard his low chuckle as he disconnected the call.

Shikamaru didn't give it much more thought as he shoved his phone back into his pocket and hurried down the stairs, wondering for what might be the millionth time why he had signed up for this. He hit the bottom of the stairs and jogged down the hall, pausing briefly to change into his dark blue uniform and lock up his apartment before he was on the move again. He jogged out to the sidewalk just as Asuma's car turned onto his road, the blue light the only indication that he meant business. Shikamaru didn't hesitate to hop in the car as it pulled up in front of him.

"Six minutes. You're getting old and slow," he commented as Asuma hit the gas.

"And your getting to be a smart ass for someone who hasn't been doing this very long," Asuma fired back though there was a grin on his face.

"I've always been smart. I'm just perfecting the ass part these days," Shikamaru said his expression completely devoid of emotion other than the slight hint of amusement in his eyes.

The breaks squealed as Asuma brought the car to stop in front of a multistory office building. Shikamaru jumped out of the car, and walked around to the back of the trunk, Asuma doing the same. He lifted the trunk open and grabbed out Asuma's vest, handing it to him before grabbing his own. He quickly shrugged into the vest, securing it before reaching into the trunk and pulling out a semi-automatic. Hardly standard equipment but today wasn't meeting any sort of standards. Asuma shut the trunk and the two headed into the building.

He found it ironic that he was walking into a building that everyone else was running out of. He was supposed to be the smart one. Yet if he was smart something told him he would be joining those people and heading away from the trouble, not towards it. Yet his feet kept moving on ahead. He had a job to do and that was something that he took seriously. Not only that but he had people depending on him. He wouldn't let them down.

He checked his gun and adjusted the straps on his vest all the while making his way through a crowd of people going the other way that seemed to part for him and Asuma. It was the uniform, and the gun. Without those he'd had been run over given the panicked looks on most of the people's faces. He noticed a few security guards directing the people, trying to keep control. It was a good thing, control that was. The quicker they got everyone evacuated the less chance their was of someone getting hurt. He focused his attention back in front of him and fell into step beside Asuma and several other uniformed officers. They cut away from the crowd of people and entered a room. He could hear Captain Hatake talking with who he assumed was someone that worked in the building.

"I want you to make sure all these other elevators remained locked down and empty"

"Yes sir," the man replied with a nod to his head.

"Now there is no other way. No other way in or out, no other doors except access panels. That's correct," Kakashi questioned.

"Yes sir." Kakashi nodded and walked over to stand in front of where Shikamaru and Asuma had come to stand with the rest of the men.

"Alright here's what we got. We have ten passengers on an express elevator below floor 30. The bomb has already taken out cables. The bomber wants three million dollars or he blows the emergency brakes," Kakashi explained, his mood strictly business now.

"What's our clock," Asuma asked.

"He gave us one hour. That gives us twenty three minutes exactly," Iruka said from beside Asuma, glancing at his watch.

"Anything else going to keep this elevator from falling," asked another officer to Shikamaru's right.

"Yeah the basement," Shikamaru supplied, earning a look from Asuma.

"The city would like to avoid that Officer Nara," Kakashi said, also un-amused.

"We can't just unload the passengers," Asuma asked, drawing Kakashi's attention away from Shikamaru.

"This is an express elevator. The only way in or out is through access panels. The bombers also wired the hatch to trigger the bomb, which puts him in the crazy but not stupid section," Kakashi explained. "Shikamaru, Asuma you too take a look at the device."

"The nearest access panel is on the 32nd floor in the lobby," the building employee supplied.

"I want reports only, run a holding pattern. Izumo, Kotetsu I want you two to secure the base area. No one in or out. Everyone else confirm building evac. Move!"

"Looks like we're walking," Shikmaru mumbled under his breath.