Chapter 3
Red Carpet Treatment
"We understand that you have sent two Chunin on a mission deep undercover with no backup or support, Hokage-sama. This decision is as foolish as ever. Undercover missions require a Jonin commander! If a simple mistake escalates into war, it will be solely on your head! We have allies of the five great nations now, but Shimogakure has a defense treaty with the Cloud!"
"And if the Cloud fights us the Earth does as well! Do not ignore these connections!"
The Godaime Hokage couldn't believe she had to deal with this. Even after Danzo Shimura's death, the elders were still on her back about every little thing. Apparently the overzealous Root commander was only an instigator to the real problem. And the real problem happened to be about a combined one hundred and fifty years old and as cranky and senile as that age sounded like it would make you.
"Excuse me for not picking someone because they have the title Jonin before their name. I was under the impression that shinobi were selected because of their skill and experience." Her voice was as frosty as the namesake of the country in question. "The two chunin I sent are quite responsible and mature. I'm quite sure that Nara Shikamaru, may I remind you, the most intelligent man in fire country, understands these things and will not make 'simple mistakes.' That is precisely why I chose him."
Homura set his jaw angrily, not happy with her cheek. "And the second of your precious chunin?"
"Is my own apprentice!" Tsunade slammed her hand on the table. "And the only Konoha kunoichi capable of infiltrating Shimo and the gang's base and sending back status reports telepathically! I chose them because this mission plays perfectly to their strengths, and that will be all of your questioning my decisions today!"
She stood and stormed out of the room, brushing past Shizune as she was returning with a tray of tea and biscuits. Tsunade turned quickly pilfered a biscuit before resuming her warpath.
Her slender assistant merely looked confused, bowing apologetically to the elders before quickly pursuing Tsunade.
"Tsunade-sama!" she called out. "Wait!"
The last remaining sannin stopped suddenly, turning to the woman. "Yes, Shizune?"
"Inoichi-san reports that they are approaching the Frost border as we speak."
Tsunade absorbed this information as she fumed silently in the hallway and let her anger dissipate. The stupid elders would find out exactly what those two were made of. They had both served admirably in the fourth world war. They were so mature!
...
"And they stink too!"
"Ino, you've been complaining about these clothes since you opened the duffel."
"Not clothes, Shika-kun, rags! How am I supposed to look good in rags?" She lifted a tattered brown sleeve in example. "Look at this! Its ripped to shreds!"
Shikamaru ignored her, hoping for the millionth time she would shut up about the clothes. As soon as he stopped talking, she made a face at him, sticking out her tongue and pulling her eyelid down.
"Real mature, Ino," he shot back without looking. "Where's Choji when you need him?" I could use a good laugh right now.
Ino ignored him, but ceased making faces at least. "We should have stopped at that hot spring resort a ways back." A dreamy look came over her face and she danced into Shikamaru's view. "There was this really hot guy going in there…"
That earned her no more than an annoyed eye roll and she lapsed into silence once more.
Neither of them spoke again until the road brought them to a border checkpoint. It was a simple building with high fencing extending as far as the eye could see in either direction beside it. The trees had been cut down for a hundred yards on either side of the fence to discourage people from attempting to sneak over and the land of frost symbol adorned the fence every hundred or so meters. light snow covered the ground between them and their destination, but on th other side of the fence was a steep incline as they approached the northern mountain ranges. Everything on the slope was visible as a frosty white blob.
Shikamaru steeled his nerve and clutched his fist tightly. This is it.
"Alright Ino, remember our identities. No mistakes," he hissed, stepping out into the clearing. No sooner had he done so than four shinobi leapt down to block his progress.
"Halt! Identify yourselves!" one of them called out. He was a slightly taller man with sharp, imposing features and a harsh voice, wearing a heavy cloak and his forehead protector sewn to the right shoulder of it.
Their leader?
"I am Hohki Shikamaru and this is Gakusha Ino. We are refugees from Amegakure." No use in hiding their first names. They were fairly common names and it was only their clans that were well known.
The shinobi looked at them suspiciously. "Refugees? Has there been some sort of disaster?"
Shikamaru shook his head, keeping his face carefully neutral. "No. We left when Pain was killed, to escape whatever new regime would rise up to take control. We sought passage here because of your policy on foreign shinobi. When we stayed anywhere else, tracker-nin pursued us, but that won't happen in your country."
"Do you have papers?"
Shikamaru motioned to Ino and she handed them her identification and both of their passports. They nodded as they went over the paperwork.
"Everything seems to be in order," one of them said. "Come inside."
All six of them stepped into the one story building, two of the Shimo nin took their bags and began searching them, removing kunai, senbon, and both of their tanto. Finally, one of them picked up Shikamaru's forged hitai-ate and the distinctive trench knives.
"Captain!" he shouted, calling over the tall shinobi. "They're nin." He laid the knives out with the headband. "What should we do?"
The man looked over them and looked at Shikamaru suspiciously. He was about to reach out for the knives but he stopped short and stared hard at Ino instead. "You, girl, what are you hiding?"
Shikamaru glanced over to see her eyes wide and scared.
Shit, Ino!
"Hand it over now!"
Two of the ninja grabbed her arms and the third plucked her own hitai-ate from her hand. Shikamaru held his breath for a bare second before seeing that it wasn't her Konoha badge after all. She was acting, and well enough to fool even him, which meant he had to play along to make it look real.
"Wait!" he yelled, holding his hands up innocently. "Please, let her keep it. It means a lot to her. Its all she has left." Well that was a shot in the dark.
The man who took it from her hesitated, looking at his captain expectantly. The captain looked between the three of them then down at the scrap of metal in his hand.
"No. All identifying equipment is to be seized at the border. No exceptions. You may keep your weapons, since we don't pretend that our country is friendly to simple tourists, but no identifying equipment."
"Please!" Ino begged him, "I don't want to leave it behind!"
Shikamaru took her by the arm and led her to the corner. "We came here to start a new life, not a scene," he whispered, just loudly enough for them to hear. "If a headband is the only price we have to pay, then we're cutting off our home entirely. And that's a good price."
"But," she protested weakly, winking at him conspiratorially where they couldn't see.
"Its okay. Would you rather go back out there to the tracker-nin?"
She opened her mouth, then closed it and shook her head, then walked over to the captain and bowed her head. "Gomen nasai. I'm sorry for wasting your time."
He waved off her apologies and handed them back their identification before taking the hitai-ate. "You all may pass. Enjoy your stay in the land of Frost."
They quickly packed their bags back and marched off into the chilly weather. It was technically still summer, but they were so far north it hardly mattered. Once they were sure they were out of earshot, Ino exploded.
"You just had to bring the trench knives didn't you? Forget buying weapons while we were here, that guy almost recognized them! Shimo fought in the third war, remember? Asuma might have fought that very captain guy! He was about to bust us!"
"It was a calculated risk," Shikamaru replied. "The chance that they'd identify Konoha by a pair of knives was astronomically-"
"Stop it with your calculations, Shikamaru! The fact is, they almost did. If I weren't such a good actor-"
"Gimme a break!"
"C'mon, you saw me fool those guys! I really had 'em going!"
Shikamaru smiled at her. Or rather, he turned the corner of his lips slightly upward when he was looking roughly in her direction. "I'll admit it, you did."
He looked away too quickly to see the blush rise in her cheeks, or the silly grin that plastered itself to her face. If he had kept his eyes on her, he might have glimpsed an Ino that she kept as guarded as the Shimo border.
But in the second that he looked away it disappeared and when he looked back, the Ino he'd always known was still walking by his side.
"How much farther to the target?"
...
In the dark of night a fire raged in a small town. Quaint homes became fuel, foliage became kindling and bodies became naught but ash. It spread almost too fast, casting smoke and embers throughout the streets, moving unnaturally quickly because of its unnatural source. And near the outskirts of the village, from one of the last houses in town, a small boy fled for his very life.
It was all he could do just to save himself. He didn't have the strength or the courage to turn back the monster that was obliterating his home, slaughtering his family and destroying his village. He fled into the outlying forest, tripping on the first tree root he came across, but he was hidden now, the deep snow and deeper shadows rendering his slight form nearly invisible. With a gulp, he looked back at his village, watching the explosions launch wood and bricks and bodies through the air.
The man had come in the middle of the night, walking through the village house by house, searching for someone. A stroke of bad luck, really, that he found the outsider hiding in the boy's basement and immediately, the two began fighting.
Hibiki's father was the first casualty, getting caught in a hail of shuriken while pushing his older sister out of the way. His mother had come second, hit by some poorly aimed jutsu while she told the two of them to run away. After that, it devolved into a free for all because the jutsu that killed their mother also brought down their house. Out in the street, the fight became much more intense, and as he and his sister ran, more and more of their hometown came down in the hail of Armageddon.
His sister had fallen somewhere behind him. He didn't know if she was dead or alive. It hardly mattered, because he wouldn't find her if he went back. He would probably just get killed. So he sat at the tree line, watching and waiting.
After a few long minutes, the fighting died down and the outsiders were presumably killed. It didn't stop the fires though. No one could stop the fires. They would burn all night until all that was left of his village was himself and ash and dust.
Finally, he saw movement. Someone was limping away from a pile of debris a few dozen yards away. Their arm appeared to be broken in several places and the boy poked forward to get a better view. It was his sister!
"Nii-chan!" he yelled, dashing out of the brush. "Nii-chan you're hurt!"
The young girl smiled at him through her cloud of blonde hair, revealing the gap in her front teeth that had not yet begun to grow back. And then fainted dead away.
He reached her just as she hit the ground, gingerly lifting her head and cradling it in his lap. As her long auburn hair splayed out on his wet trousers, tears flowed hot and fast down his soot covered face, burning his eyes and nose as they fell.
"Don't die nii-chan, I need you! Wake up! Wake up! Don't die! Daddy died so you didn't have to you can't die now!"
He begged and pleaded to no avail. His precious Nii-chan did not move. She didn't wake up.
He sat there for an hour, holding her, having realized that she was still breathing, if only barely, when a shadow came over him. A tall, pale man stood where there had been only air before. He had arrived completely silently, seeming to appear out of thin air.
He raised his sword to strike down the two survivors. Blood splashed on the Hibiki's cheek when he moved the sword and a single drop fell from it at its highest point. He looked up defiantly however, putting his small body over his sisters the way he'd seen his father do not five minutes ago. Seconds later, rattling breath escaped his lungs and the world faded away, the sword piercing both of them through. The man turned to walk away, not even bothering to retrieve his weapon. They would be dead in minutes.
...
"Shikamaru, do you see that?"
The Nara roused from his slumber, rolling over to face her. A bleary-eyed ,"Wassamatter?" was all he could manage.
Ino stood up and pointed at the top of the treeline where a dim red glow could be seen backlighting the pines. Shikamaru squinted up at them before sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "A forest fire?" he surmised, pulling his blanket off of him. He leapt to his feet. There's an eastern wind here, it'll be coming this way soon, we have to move."
Ino shook her head, already grabbing her pack. "Shikamaru, isn't the village we're supposed to be going to that way?"
His eyes widened in shock. Probably mostly because of Ino correcting him on something and actually being correct herself. "You're right!"
Fully awake now, he hastily rolled up the blanket and stuffed it in his pack before slipping the trench knives onto his fingers. Her eyes met his and he asked her a silent question. Are you ready? She nodded quickly and they took off running toward the fire.
It didn't take ten minutes for them to reach the edge of a forest clearing, and they were just in time to watch a man stab two children through with his blade. Oh, Kami!
Ino clasped her hand over her mouth to keep silent, and the man turned away, walking away without even bothering to take his sword. I've got to help them!
She surged forward, but Shikamaru grabbed her arm, stopping her cold. He pointed at the man where he'd stopped not fifteen feet from the boy and girl and stabbed through a second man with another sword on his hip. He took this sword with him this time and kept moving, stabbing or slashing survivors fatally.
A few quick hand seals later, the spiky haired nin disappeared into nothingness, activating his new jutsu. Shikamaru dashed forward while the killer had his back turned, sprinting to the children's location and slowly drawing the sword out and laying it soundlessly on the ground before lifting them both and dashing back to the forest, his Mesaigakure dripping away.
He didn't stop when he brushed past Ino and she followed the floating him and ran, brushing away the trail of blood dripping from the bundle in his arms.
After about a minute of sprinting full tilt, they stopped, Shikamaru panting heavily as he laid the children down. His hair hung free around his sweaty face as he tried to catch his breath from the exertion. Combining his invisibility with the chakra required to carry two children at a full sprint had winded him. Ino fell over the charges, checking both of their pulses and used her chakra to examine their vitals.
"Shikamaru, I think I'll only be able to save one of them! They're both so weak!"
"The boy," he said instantly. He turned away so she couldn't see the emotions playing across his face as he made the choice. "Do it. Hurry."
Ino nodded, pushing her healing chakra into the child and stitching his wound closed. It took a long time to stabilize him, with a wound going directly through his body and collapsing his lung on the way.
After she finally closed his chest, she moved right to the girl, sweat already pouring down her face. "She's so weak, Shikamaru," Ino gasped. "And I'm almost out of chakra…"
Shikamaru knelt on the other side of the girl, and looked directly into Ino's eyes. "You can do this, Ino. You're the Godaime's apprentice and she's the best medic –nin in the world. If anyone can do this, it's you."
She nodded, his words of encouragement filling her up as surely as Katsuya's chakra transfer could and she focused on stitching the girl's wound as well. The cut did not extend entirely through the girl, but she had a pierced liver and most of her abdominal veins were lacerated completely. Apparently she had also suffered blunt trauma to her left side that bruised her ribs and broke her arm.
Shikamaru's words energized Ino, but they could not replace the chakra that was flowing freely into the dying child before her.
"That's great, Shikamaru, really. But I'm running out of chakra fast. There's nothing more I can do."
Ino's eyes began to water at the strain that she felt her body struggling to match. It was a heavy exertion for an experienced medic to heal a single life threatening wound on a battlefield, but to heal two consecutively was nearly impossible. Her vision blurred and darkened and she felt herself slipping into unconsciousness.
Suddenly, her lapse stopped short and the world came back into focus.
"What the…" An unfamiliar heat covered her fingers, pushing back her fatigue just enough for her brain to re-engage. Shikamaru's warm hands were placed atop her own and she met his eyes, seeing determination locked behind his gaze.
"Use my chakra then," he replied. "They're just children, they don't deserve to die."
Ino nodded sharply at her mission commander. It was a risky decision, draining more of his chakra to heal the children when the killer might be close by, but that was just more incentive to get it over with quickly.
She knew how to pull his energy through his hands to use it herself. She'd done it many a time, both in training with Tsunade and Sakura, during crises where her medical expertise was needed and doctors loaned her strength, but this wasn't any old chakra transfer. This was her childhood friend, her teammate. Someone she cared deeply about, and he definitely wasn't one to offer any sort of physical contact. Just the thought of borrowing his chakra felt foreign and taboo.
He looked away, blushing furiously at the expression she wore, and Ino focused on the task at hand instead of Shikamaru's unexpected compassion. She reached into him, tentatively probing the reservoir of energy he had at his disposal. The sheer volume of it seemed almost endless compared to Ino's own rather limited chakra supply. While it didn't compare to Naruto's almost vulgar amounts of energy (she'd had the privilege of borrowing his chakra just once), it was also a lot less menacing than the jinchuuriki's tainted life force. It seemed like she was siphoning moisture from a still bay, where Naruto's felt like a roiling ocean. It was much easier and much more pleasant, and Ino much preferred it.
Within minutes, the wound closed and both of them fell back into the soft snow, panting heavily. Ino looked up at him curiously, wondering if it was exhaustion that made him recoil so quickly or something else. She felt like she'd taken a rather insignificant portion of his chakra, but he was sweating and panting as if he'd exhausted himself. To complicate things further, he refused to look her in the eyes either.
Ignoring Shikamaru's odd behavior, she continued her work on the girl, moving to set and splint her broken arm as well. He stepped away into the shadows to set up traps for the clearing where they would be camping out. When he returned, Ino approached him, reaching out to grab his hand once more. As soon as her fingers brushed it however, he pulled away, turning to face the children.
She tried to keep her disappointment from reaching her face and failed.
"Thank you for what you did. They wouldn't have survived without you."
Ino perked up, searching for his eyes, but he kept his back to her, resting his weight on one leg and hands in his pockets. Typical Shikamaru pose.
"Why did you save them?" she asked, eyes falling to the ground once more. She noticed his weight shift subtly to his other foot, something that she had long since learned meant he was uncomfortable. But uncomfortable with his stance or her question?
His silence answered both of her questions and the answer swam into her mind unbidden, as if she'd unintentionally plucked it from his own. "They reminded you of your promise to protect the king. You couldn't bear to see them suffer."
He turned around so fast Ino flinched, but there was nothing to be afraid of. His eyes were wide, surprised. For the briefest moment she felt like she was inside the cast iron vault Shikamaru kept his deepest feelings locked tight inside of, and his eyes were the gateway to that place. They met hers and searched them as if the answer to his unspoken question would find itself written on her blue iris. How did you know? His eyes seemed to implore.
Hope swelled in Ino's chest. Of what she was hopeful for, she had no idea, but it was there all the same, only to be dashed seconds later when he turned back around just as quickly.
"Will they survive?" he asked. Quiet and practical. She was locked out again. Shikamaru was back to analyzing his and her every move and every word, playing a strategy game she didn't even know the rules to.
Ino shrugged. "I've done all I can. Its up to them now whether they have the will to pull through.
We'll need to sit for a few days, though and report. This is unexpected."
Shikamaru nodded slowly. "Alright. You get some sleep then. I'll take first watch and we'll report tomorrow."
Ino gave no sign of her acknowledgement, simply stepping past him and laying on a blanket between the children. She didn't realize how tired she was until her eyes fell shut, and the last thing she heard before the darkness claimed her was Shikamaru's voice.
"What was I thinking?"
...
Shikamaru stared at Ino's sleeping form as the morning sun crept toward her. Ino would wake up as soon as the first light touched her eye, and she'd roll toward the light wherever it touched her first. Shikamaru had watched this process too many times to count on team 10's genin missions. Ino was usually the most interesting thing to look at first thing in the morning. Well, other than clouds that is.
So when the young man saw Ino roll away from the sun, instinctively pulling her hair over her face to shield it from the light, he was understandably surprised.
He looked curiously, with half his brainpower examining what might have sparked this behavior and the other half analyzing the maximum potential opacity a sheet of her beautiful platinum blonde hair could generate and precisely how much residual energy from the sun would penetrate to her eyes and wake her up anyway. He was busy fetching ill used data from deep within his brain of exactly how many lumens the sun produced when he realized with a start, his entire brain had just been focused on Ino for more than four seconds.
There was a lot Shikamaru's brain could do in four seconds. He could plan out two hundred moves in Shogi and one hundred and sixty four in Go and select the best available strategy. He could trick an Akatsuki member into stabbing his partner through the chest by planting his blood on the dumber immortal's blade. Hell, he could probably catch an online predator or two as well. So after the four seconds he had been devoting to processing Ino's activity, his brain naturally expected the answers to present themselves. And he had nothing to show for it. Kami forbid she do something really crazy, like wake up.
As if that weren't enough stress for one morning, he could almost swear that he had referenced her hair as 'beautiful.'
Shikamaru groaned loudly, not caring what forest animals he disturbed. I can't keep looking at her. This is where Choji always saved me, and now he's nowhere near. I need a new strategy to keep my attention off her while theres just the two of us. Think Shikamaru, think!
...
Ino finally cracked one eye open, sitting up only to discover her hair in a complete mess covering her face. She sucked in a deep breath and blew at her bangs, but they just flopped right back into place, totally obscuring her vision. Finally giving in to the morning, she stretched and rolled to her feet, seeking out her travel pack where she would find a brush and hair ties to tame her mane.
Shikamaru leapt from his perch in the tree to land beside her as she dug through her things.
"We have to get moving soon," he said quickly, almost mumbling the words.
She looked up at the children still sleeping on Shikamaru's blanket. "But…"
"They'll be fine, they made it through the night didn't they?" he said, reading her thoughts. Or just her body language. When did Shikamaru start paying attention to that kind of stuff? I've always had to spell things out to him. The forest had grown quiet and they had nearly whispered the exchange.
Not one to complain about positive surprises, Ino stood, her brush held tightly in her hand like a golden nugget. She began to tame her tresses and Shikamaru turned away yet again. Ino was now noticing a definite change. It hadn't been a week since he stared at her wearing nothing but a towel while she was dripping wet and he hadn't made a squeak, but now he couldn't watch a girl brush her hair without blushing.
Testing her theory, she continued brushing and walked around to stand in front of him. He turned to his side. She stepped over again and he turned, but just his face this time. He was saved from further embarrassment by a slight moan from the young boy. Ino rushed over, putting her hand over the child's forehead to check his temperature. Behind her, Shikamaru absentmindedly picked up the brush she had been using to torture him from where she dropped it. She watched him turn it over and over from the corner of her eye, pretending to minister to the boy, who was no more in need of her assistance than the trees they were surrounded by. Then why did the boy just…
Ino realized it not a moment too soon. She clamped her hands over her ears, blocking out a sound based genjutsu that had just been activated. The boy must have heard the first few notes of it. It sounded like some sort of instrument was playing that was causing the effect and Shikamaru had gone rigid, caught in the technique. She saw a flash of movement near the treeline and made a quick decision. Stabilizing her chakra to repel the mental assault, she lifted a rock and threw it into the back of Shikamaru's head. Hard.
He toppled forward not a moment too soon as a hail of kunai hit the ground exactly where he had just been.
The thrower, an enormous, dark skinned man wearing the pale robes and purple rope of an Otogakure ninja, leapt from the trees, attacking the genius where he lay recovering. Ino leapt forward, intercepting the attack with a solid kick to his ribs.
He fell over Shikamaru, stumbling to regain his balance and Ino kept up her pursuit, flinging kick after kick at him in the hopes of driving him away from the children.
Shikamaru made two hand seals and trapped the ninja in his Kage mane as if he were catching a child and Ino quickly jumped into the Oto-nin's mind. The feeling of her consciousness leaving her body was always accompanied by a distant flinch as her body slumped to the ground. Once inside, she swatted away the man's consciousness as if it were an annoying insect and locked him in a secluded corner of his own mind. Rifling through his recent memories, she took note of his parner, jutsus, and mission before opening his (her) eyes.
"I've got him, Shikamaru." The voice was strange, a mix between a rasp and a growl, sounding eerily similar to Orochimaru's slithery speech.
No sooner had the Nara released his clan jutsu than the genjutsu user struck again, playing a much quicker melody this time. From what Ino knew about genjutsu, this would weaken its effect, but it would set in much faster. Ino didn't have time to figure out how to mold chakra in this new body, nor did she have time to return to her body and prepare a defense. Her only chance was to leave the second nin's body at the precise moment the genjutsu activated, leaving her in conscious limbo and unaffected.
She tried to listen to the melody swimming through her head and guage when to jump ship and the man laughed at her from outside his own mind. "You'll never pull that off, girlie. Tayuya's the best at disguising her attacks."
"Tayuya?" Ino said aloud, turning to Shikamaru a bit awkwardly. "Didn't she…"
The whipped around to face her, realization dawning. "Now!"
Ino didn't have time to realize that Shikamaru had not only been planning his moves and his defense against the genjutsu, he had also planned out Ino's, and come to the same conclusion she did. He had listened to the pattern, analyzed it and timed to the millisecond when to get her out of the attacker's body. When her blue eyes opened, her shoulders propped against his leg, she whispered the only word that could describe how she felt. "Amazing."
...
"Not really," Shikamaru answered, reestablishing Kagemane on the now genjutsu-ed attacker. "I had a head start. I've fought Tayuya before, but, I don't understand, she should be dead. She should have died five or six years ago."
A haunting voice spoke up and the flute's melodies ceased. "Not bad, Nara." A voice called out from the trees. It kept moving and both his and Ino's eyes darted to and fro trying to get a bead on it. Just a few more seconds and Ino will be back in this fight.
"Your skills have improved since we last met, though I didn't expect you to remember the details of that song after so long. You really are as smart as he said…"
Ino jumped up, finally in full control of her body again and Tayuya showed her face, landing on a branch directly above the children. Shikamaru's heart almost skipped a beat. It really was her, back from the grave, or as much as one could be these days. Her fire red hiar now extended past her waist and the black helmet was gone, replaced by bandages that wrapped her nearly from head to toe beneath her Oto uniform.
"How are you alive?" Shikamaru yelled, readying a kunai. "Temari killed you."
He didn't notice Ino's slight flinch at the name, nor did he give any indication that his kage mane was nearing its limit on the second sound nin.
"Kabuto is a miracle worker when it comes to healing. He found me basically dead already and transplanted me a whole new fuckin abdomen, then used some kinda jutsu to put some runt's life force into me."
The sound nin fought against the weakening kagemane, and Shikamaru realized his chakra reserves were extremely low. He'd have to lure Tayuya down to capture her, but how? She was a strictly long range type and if her summons got involved, those kids were dead meat.
He could try his new jutsu…but it was still incomplete. And slow. The probability that he would hit her with it was in the decimals. He could, however, use it on her partner, as he'd designed it for use with Kage mane as a finisher of sorts, but Kage nui was nearly as good and expended a quarter of the chakra. Taijutsu wouldn't work on either of them, it appeared. He had about sixty seconds of Kage mane left in him and she was likely to simply run away for at least that long and smash him to bits with her summons.
That left genjutsu. His gaze slid slowly over and he caught Ino's blue eye. She raised an eyebrow a fraction of an inch without taking her eyes off Tayuya. He was almost sure she was asking, 'Can you take her?' he shook his head slightly. Three degrees rotation left, six right. She shouldn't even notice something that subtle. Ino's eyes widened a tiny bit and her lips pursed tensely. Me?
He nodded just as minutely. Ino nodded and he hoped she was up to the task. If he remembered correctly, genjutsu was Tayuyua's specialty, so trapping the sound nin in one would seem difficult.
Well," Tayuya said to the immobile shinobi before her, "Lets see if you remember these guys, twerp." She raised the flute, her first two fingers motioning to summon her Doki. This would be bad. There was no way the kids would survive this with her right on top of them.
"Wait!" Shikamaru cried. Maybe a bluff would buy them the time they needed. "We surrender," Shikamaru said to Tayuya. "On the condition you don't harm the children."
The redhead stared haughtily at them. "Figures. You leaf pussies couldn't stand up to Orochimaru-sama's last loyal servants."
That's it! Use Orochimaru against her! Thirty seconds, Shikamaru, its time for endgame.
"You know he's dead right?" he asked measuredly, sweat beading on his forehead.
Her eyes flashed angrily. "Of course I do! Why do you think you've had so long to live, punk?"
Now it was his turn to be surprised. "You were coming after me specifically? Not just Konoha?"
She nodded, taking a precious second to reconstitute his massive jump in logic. "Of course. Orochimaru-sama wanted the village destroyed as a whole, but I wanted revenge. It took about three years to recover from what your bitch did to me."
A slight cough from Ino.
Tayuya looked at her curiously. "After that, I started seeking out Orochimaru-sama and that's about when he died."
At this moment, several things happened in quick succession. Shikamaru's Kage mane disconnected and he fell to his knees gasping. Tayuya started, not realizing his jutsu was disconnected for a bare second. A second was all it took for Ino to form four hand seals and launch a genjutsu before her that she was caught in the second she laid eyes on Ino,and the second Oto-nin charged at Shikamaru who was still winded from his exertion.
Ino, barely finished trapping Tayuya, leapt over and kicked the Oto-nin in the ribs again and he tripped over Shikamaru's kneeling form to faceplant in the dirt behind him.
Without waiting for a cue, Shikamaru leapt toward Tayuya, pushing chakra into his legs to propel him to her branch and stick him to the surface. He didn't have the chakra for another extended kage mane and he had to disarm and tie her before she escaped from the genjutsu. He brought a line of wire and wrapped her hands quickly before she moved. He hadn't quite finished the last knot, but she wasn't getting out of it anytime soon. Her hands were bound and that was what mattered, making her jutsu and her flute useless.
Then he saw a kunai slice into the wires as if they were butter. Her hands came free and she began blowing into the flute as if her life depended on it.
Shikamaru could only verbalize the way he felt in two syllables. "Aww, shit."
...
Ino finished the genjutsu with not a second to spare, leaping into a perfect dragon kick to save Shikamaru from being pummeled. Guy sensei would have been proud. She had been working with the eccentric man on her taijutsu of late and was eager to show it off.
"Bring it jerk," she said to the Oto-nin. "I've got your curse seal right here."
He took his eyes off Shikamaru and focused on the blonde, sizing her up before grinning broadly. He roared a primal challenge and charged at her, trying to use his mass to his advantage.
"You don't talk much do you?" she quipped. What was it Oto-san said about big guys like this? Let him chase?
She screamed in mock terror and ran, feigning the fright she might have felt at this situation a few years ago. Now, the oversized ninja was just a training dummy to her.
He roared a monosyllabic cry of rage that conveyed no sentience whatsoever. Heavy on the dummy.
She led him directly toward the largest tree she could find and slowed so he was only a few feet behind. When she was three steps from the tree, she accelerated, running up the bark until she was even with his head, completely horizontal with her arms wide for balance and her head tilted back, looking him in the eye. She winked at the brute as he tried clumsily to grab her. Twisting her body as only a ninja could, she brought her arms tight to her body and began to spin as she completed the backflip over his shoulder.
Bringing her body around, she completed the maneuver with her foot outstretched, widening her arms again and twisting all of her built up momentum into her hips.
WHAM!
Her foot hit the back of his head with the force of a cannon and his face hit the trunk of the tree with even more energy than that.
Ino landed with catlike grace and slapped dust from her ragged clothing. "That was easy."
She turned around to check on the children when she heard the slight crack of wood. Her eyebrow twitched in annoyance. There is no way he is still conscious! Who is this guy?
But he didn't seem to care what Ino thought his pain tolerance should entail. He turned around, bark falling from the new gap in his teeth and one eye lolling lazily upwards while the other focused solely on the object of his newfound rage.
Another yell and she was running for her life, seriously this time. She turned around and planted a spectacular kick to his groin. Cheap but effective. He rolled over, howling, but surely enough got back up to chase her yet again. She stood her ground, pouding him wherever she could with kicks and knees, but his return swings hurt a lot worse than she let on. She leapt to deliver a strike to a nerve cluster in his neck, slamming a roundhouse on his overly developed deltoid instead. redirecting his follow up punch with her left arm, she spun to the ground and swept his legs from underneath him. At least she tried to. The shock of the impact reverberated up her knee and his left leg slid about six inches.
What is this guy made of?
Drawing a ring of kunai, she threw two at him that he blocked easily. What he didn't notice, however, was the garrote wire she'd tied to the other two knives. Leaping back, he pursued her as she spun the kunai, her eyes searching for the perfect place to trap her enemy. There!
Ino threw the first kunai into the trunk of a tree as hard as she possibly could and was rewarded with a deep strike. He raised his fist, preparing for a hammer blow and she dodged it. She leapt over his head with a little help from her chakra and spun in a perfect pirouette upside down, the free kunai held at his neck level, effectively wrapping the garrote around his neck.
She landed, holding the other end of the kunai and his life in her hands. He was trapped and a smug grin grew across her face once more. She was Ino Yamanaka! Kunoichi supreme!
Any move he made would result in his own decapitation now, and, dumb as he was, he seemed to realize this.
Unfortunately, this only angered him more and the cursed seal on his left fist began to glow and expand.
"Aww, shit."
A/N: Whew! chapter two in the books! This was running a bit long (20 pages or so in word) so i cut it at the best cliffie just for you! xD
First thing, first, i realize that Tayuya's appearance makes this a bit AU but i figure its a plausible excuse for her to have lived. Bear with me a few chapters, shall we?
Secondly, I thought Ino's taijutsu would likely be most effective in a Tae-Kwon-Do sort of style, using her legs to her advantage with lots of kicks, so there's that and three guesses as to what Shikamaru's new jutsu is!
Finally, please please please give me omake ideas. i actually had none for this chapter.
I really appreciate all the support you guys give in the favs, alerts and reviews everybody! Keep em coming and i'll keep writing!