Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto...

Chapter 2

Temari's Worst Oppenent

"Hmm…" stared Temari, a smug smile forming across her face, "it looks like she isn't going to show."

Temari's inquiring eye turned to Genma, who was overseeing the matches. Genma looked down at his watch, confirming that Temari's opponent was at the moment, eight minutes late. The crowd seemed somewhat restless, obviously annoyed of the fact that the match is being delayed. Genma looked up to Tsunade who was sitting up at the Kage section of the stands.

Tsunade, in turn, looked over at the Kazakage, Gaara, who had traveled to watch the matches. This was not surprising considering that two of his siblings where involved. Gaara didn't look back, but just looked down at the arena. Tsunade had been hoping it wouldn't come to this; 'everyone had been waiting for this last match. No one knew the identity of this contestant, thought they would have to be strong to be able to impress the judges enough to let them in. Though now it is unavoidable,' she told herself as she motioned Genma to make the announcement.

Genma nodded that started speaking, "Due to the absence of one of the contestants the winner of this match is…"

"Yet to be determined," stated a voice.

Naruto, who had been sitting in the stands between Shikamaru and Neji, jumped as he heard the voice. The entire crowd, that had been stirring for the past several minutes then started groaning when they heard Genma speaking because they knew what he would say, also jumped at the voice. Naruto looked down to see a figure standing opposite of Temari. The person had been wrapped in a hooded cloak, which was brown and looked weathered. Their face was covered in the shadow of the hood and completely undecernable.

"When did he show up?" asked Naruto hoping for some sort of answer.

"I didn't see it," said Neji with a bit of concern in his voice, "with speed like that, Temari will probably have a hard time."

"Why is that?" Naruto again.

"Speed implies that he is better with close combat," said Shikamaru, looking down in to the area, "and Temari isn't good at close combat."

"Name and Village?" asked Genma.

"None of your damned business," said the person.

"Geez… " said Genma taking a few steps back, "begin the match then."

Temari grabbed her fan and pulled it out of the holster on her back. She whipped it over her head and brought one end down to the ground with a crash. 'That'll be a pain to polish out later, but all in the hopes of scaring him' she thought looking up at the cloaked figure who had shifted a bit after hearing the crash of the fan on the ground.

"Give up," the cloaked figure stated.

"Hmm… and why should I do that?" asked Temari.

"It would be such a shame to have to break," the figure started protruding a hand and grabbing a handful of the cloak, "you're pretty face," he ripped the cloak off letting it dance in the air before falling onto the ground.

In the stands Naruto almost had a heart attack, "HIM!"

"You know him?" asked Neji turning toward Naruto.

"Yeah," began Naruto trying to get his breath back, "I met him the other night at the Ramen shop. He seemed very nice and even paid for my dinner," stated Naruto.

"Well that guy doesn't seem very nice from this angle," said Neji looking back down in the arena, "but then again, battles do bring out the worst in people..."

Temari observed him for several moments, 'his eyes are unpleasant, but' "No weapons? Are you one of those typical taijustu morons are you?"

"No."

"You don't use taijustu?"

"Uhh… Yes, I do on occasion, but I also have something of a weapon," the figure stated reaching into a pocket in his funeral garb.

Temari's expression suddenly became very serious as the person fished around in his pocket. 'What type of weapon could it be?' she thought, 'it cannot be sharp or it would just cut through his pocket… though it could be in a holster, but then why wouldn't he wear it…' after a second she realized that she was lost in her thoughts and looked up to see that the figure had already produced and had started reading the latest book of the Ichi, Ichi series.

In the stands, Naruto, Neji and Shikamaru all had the same troubled expression.

"He's just like that…" started Neji.

"Kakashi-sensei." Finished Naruto.

"This isn't good," said Shikamaru, the other two turned to him, "In the world of people not to underestimate… well… to openly underestimate Temari is like… wishing for a maelstrom."

The three of them looked back down at the arena almost able to feel the heat of Temari's rage. This wasn't helped whenever the figure actually closed his eyes a chuckled a little bit over one of the jokes in the book while standing just feet away from Temari.

A vein appeared on Temari's forehead as her rage was reaching a peak. 'Why that son of a…' she opened up her fan in preparation of an attack, "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"

"Uhh… sure, whatever you say Legs," replied the figure now fully immersed in his book.

She swung her fan over to one side in preparation to tear him to pieces when she noticed… the figure had disappeared. She eyes gazed from left to right, the above to try to find him. A chill ran down her whenever she felt a body leaning against her back.

"You managed to run all the way behind me in a blink of an eye?" asked Temari, frustrated, but not moving.

"Huh?" asked the figure as if nothing had happened, "oh yeah, well uhh… that's not the only thing I did, just couldn't pass up the chance you see…"

Her face became very confused. 'What else could he have done' she asked herself, 'he probably wouldn't set a trap if he decided to end up so…' that thought cut off as she felt something slide down her arm. Her gaze fell on her right arm, which was still slightly outstretched holding onto her fan, and watched as her sleeve slide off from the rest of her ensemble and traveled down her arm until it came to a stop as it crumpled up at her elbow.

"What? How? When?" She spouted out in short furious fragments.

"Hmm… Uhh… you don't sound that mad," the figure stated, Temari felt his head start pressing against hers… 'he is looking up' she told herself, "well I guess if that is the case, you didn't notice what else I did…"

In the stands, Naruto and Neji slowly looked over at a distressed Shikamaru.

"Are you just going to let that stand?" Asked Naruto.

"What?" seemed to come out of Shikamaru's mouth.

"Well, you just cannot let some weird guy go around groping your girlfriend," stated Naruto with a snicker.

"Naruto! For the last time, she is not my girlfriend!" Shikamaru shouted, gaining some sense of himself, though, that didn't last.

Shikamaru looked around to see that pretty much everyone in the stands turned toward him when he shouted at Naruto. His gaze moved from his stands over to the Kage stands, and both of the Kage's there were indeed staring in his direction. He couldn't make out Gaara's expression from this distance, not that he'd want to. 'If they could hear me that means…' thought Shikamaru with a high notion of distress as his gaze then slowly moved toward the arena.

The two down in the arena were indeed within earshot of Shikamaru, as he saw the white-haired combatant looking up at his with a puzzled expression. Temari, however, was staring at the ground, so he couldn't see her response to his outburst. Shikamaru felt the temperature drop… in fact he thought he felt as if he was freezing. The next thing said didn't help this atmosphere at all.

"HA!" the figure said with a smile, "I knew you were single…"

Shikamaru, could swear that Temari was completely on fire after the last comment that person made. 'Maybe she'll forget about it during the fight,' he vainly tried to assure himself, 'though after that she would probably try to end this as fast a possible, in order to kill me sooner… that is unless Gaara gets to me first.'

'I'M GOING TO KILL HIM' Temari thought to herself then remembered the person leaning against her, 'but first I'll have deal with him.' Temari gathered every spare bit of her chakra and concentrated it in her legs, jumping up with as much force as possible, as fast as possible. She turned so that she was facing the ground seeing Genma, who had grasped the atmosphere, fleeing from the arena.

"I'll make sure you have nowhere to run this time!" shouted Temari.

The figure just looked up at her with a smile.

"That's it!" she shouted, determining that smile was an insult, "Ninpo: DAI KAMAITACHI!"

A wave of chakra-imbedded wind fell upon the arena slashing at anything that came within its path. A dust cloud rose up from the disturbed ground, completely engulfing the interior of the arena. A smile of victory came across Temari's face as she floated in above the arena for a moment, and then gracefully fell back into the dust storm below.

After several seconds the dust around the edges of the arena had settled and Genma jumped back down in the arena from the edge of the walls. A few more seconds of quiet passed without anything happening when a shrill sheik pierced the air. Several objects shot out of the dust cloud embedding themselves within the arena wall.

"Those are parts of Temari's fan," stated Neji.

Right after Neji made this statement and larger object shot out of the dust cloud hitting the wall below the Kage section of the stands. Tsunade and Gaara both ran over to the edge and looked down to observed Temari impaled onto the wall through her right shoulder with one of her fan's ribs (A/N: I do not know the anatomy of a fan). Temari looked like a rag doll with her head bowed down and her arms lying at her sides. Blood began to drip off the fan rib as it trickled out of her shoulder. They then looked back toward the dust cloud as childish laughter suddenly erupted out of it.

The dust settled to show the figure sitting with his legs crossed in the middle of the arena, still reading his book. He turned the page and observed it for a moment before breaking out into laughter again. He looked up and saw Temari as if he had no idea what just happened then turned to Genma as he stood up.

"I think I'm about done here," he stated putting away his book and looking around, probably for his cloak.

"No," came a weak and half-hearted voice.

The figure, along with everyone else in the stadium, looked over to the wall of the arena. Temari, was still, in fact conscience, though not moving, and obviously in no condition to do anything else.

"Uhh… don't you know when to give up," the figure stated.

"…"

"You cannot fight anymore."

"…"

"What do you hope to accomplish by continuing?"

"…"

"Well, uhh… I guess I cannot argue against that."

The figure looked around for a moment, then walked over and pulled up one of the ribs of the fan that ended up in the ground. The figure turned and walked over to the section of wall that Temari was impaled to surveying her for a moment. He lifted the rib he was holding up to her head and pressed it against her forehead protector lifting her head up a bit. Her eyes were nearly closed but her mouth was still moving, seemingly still protesting her losing this match.

"What a waste…"

"…"

The figure let her head fall back down and held the sharp end of the rib up to her neck. He held it there a moment, then a little longer, then a few seconds more, signs of frustration appeared on his face.

The figure's eyes moved onto the ground and traced a darkened patch of earth to a boy wearing satin clothing and a green flak jacket. His hair was tied in a ponytail at the back of his head giving him the appearance of a pineapple.

In the stands Naruto just noticed that Shikamaru was in the arena. In disbelief he looked over to where Shikamaru just was to see that he was not there. 'When did he…' he thought looking back and forth.

"Shi-ka-ma-ru," the figure said slowly, studying Shikamaru, who opened his hand, forcing the figure to drop the rib.

"Eh, how did you know…" Started a confused looking Shikamaru.

"Winner by default," interrupted Genma, making his presence known again, and looked at the figure, "is you…"

"Wonderful," said the figure, "now if you don't mind…"

Shikamaru noticed that he was still binding the figure and suddenly released it. His eyes then moved to Temari who was still pinned up to the wall of the arena, who was now unconscious. He turned back to the figure standing before him.

"That was quite impressive," Shikamaru noted.

"Huh?" asked the figure looking back at Shikamaru.

"You're strategy," said Shikamaru almost matter of factly.

"Strategy?"

"Yes, you entered this arena at the last moment in order to make your opponent angry with you to begin with."

"…"

"You then, noting that your opponent was a Kunoichi decided to vocally underestimate her for being a woman, which Kunoichi usually take offense to."

"…"

"After noting that that made her angry you decided to show that you had the upper hand in terms of speed and insult her farther by cutting off her sleeve and implying you did more than that. This would cause her to completely lose her temper and do a huge coup-de-grace style move. Then you took advantage of the fact that she had thought she won by destroying her weapon and attacking her with the pieces."

"…"

"Can I assume from your silence that this is correct?" asked Shikamaru.

"I won't tell you if you are correct Pineapple, but I will uhh… tell you two things," the figure said crossing his arms.

"Hmm?"

"One: I would have had no problem killing her from the get go, and Two: I didn't cause her to do that huge wind jutsu… you did."

Shikamaru looked a little irritated.

"Uhh… well I guess I can let Pigtails down now," the figure said as he grabbed the fan rib, yanking it out, promptly letting Temari fall down and after staring down at her for a few moments, he turned back toward Shikamaru, "Leaf…" down at Temari, "Sand…" back at Shikamaru, "Hey, is that even legal?"

"Is what even legal?" Shikamaru asked, annoyed.

"Inter-village relationships…" stated the figure.

"Just what are you implying?" asked Shikamaru, crossing his arms.

"Uhh… I guess what they say is true," the figure started walking away, looking almost… 'hurt?' "It takes two hearts to make a relationship." The figure reached down, pulling his cloak out of the dust, wrapped it around him, turned toward Shikamaru one last time, "It's probably for the best that she wasn't awake to hear you. She would have cried her eyes out of whatever tears she had left."

Shikamaru watched the figure leave the arena before turning back to see Temari being loaded onto a stretcher by medical-nins. He walked up to the stretcher and looked down at the unconscious Temari looking from her shoulder wound to her face. 'Tears?' he asked himself. As long as he knew Temari, he's never seen her cry. 'Getting impaled through they shoulder must hurt to hell and back, but Temari can still suppress tears from physical injuries.' He turned toward the empty entrance then to the middle of the arena.

"What happened in that dust cloud?" he asked himself, though only two people knew that, and it appeared that neither will answer that in the near future.

A/N: Kinda a cliff-hanger... though I wrote most of this one before the last... I thought it would be more interesting if the stranger was introduced before the match. If any of you are pissed at how easily he beat Temari, I assure you that he won't be very happy after his next fight.