As promised, Temari came by the inn the next morning, barely past sunrise, to take Shikaku to the training grounds.

"So are we sparring or what?" Temari asked, her tone much more casual than the day before. It was clear that she was more relaxed on the training field than she was as an escort. Shikaku wondered if she even noticed how much her demeanor changed as her face lit up once they got to the field.

"I'd love to after warming up," Shikaku said.

Temari nodded and headed to the middle of the field to begin. Taking the fan from her back, she began to run through katas. He had never seen someone who wielded a weapon quite like hers, and was curious about how she trained. He did some basic exercises to warm up his muscles, but mostly observed the blond Kunoichi. It was almost as though she was dancing, her fan an extension of her arm as she twisted through the motions of the kata. As she continued, he could feel her start to activate her chakra, and saw the winds pick up around her.

He began to strategize as he watched her move. If they were going to spar, he wasn't sure how he would best her in this particular arena. There were no trees or nearby buildings, leaving him nothing that cast a long enough shadow to help him. Though she was a long-range fighter by specialty, he would have to get within range for his clan's signature jutsu. Troublesome. This would not be a good match for him, but in any case he was more fascinated to see her fight first hand than he was interested in besting her.

"Ready, old man," she called, with a playful look in her eyes "I hope you're not as much of a wimp as your son."

"Ready when you are, Temari-san," he said, though really thinking about how favored she was in this match up.

Before he knew it, a massive gust of wind came his way, kicking up sand into his face as he braced himself against the attack, before pulling out two kunai and flinging them towards her.

She scoffed at this, swinging her fan to knock them off course. As soon as the gust of wind hit the kunai, they exploded. She hadn't seen the explosion tags that were attached to the kunai and cursed herself for her inattention.

The kunai were meant only as a diversion, and in the moment of distraction Shikaku had gone on the move, reaching out his shadow to try to capture the kunoichi, but not coming nearly close.

'Just like the chunin exams' she thought to herself, 'stay out of shadow range and you're in the clear' she assured herself. However, she knew that it was really more complicated than that. Shikaku was an even better strategist than Shikamaru and she was racking her brain for what strategies he might be using to back her into a corner.

Her senses on high alert, she sent a pulse of chakra infused wind at Shikaku before launching into another attack. With a massive sweep of her fan, she cut the few cacti in the field, leaving nothing left that could cast a shadow he could use to trap her, other than a few low lying rocks and the two shinobi themselves.

As her onslaught continued Shikaku was getting tired. You couldn't dodge or block wind like you could a kunai, even an indirect hit could do damage and he felt some stinging cuts on his arms.

"Your clock is ticking, Nara!" Temari shouted gleefully. Every minute that passed, the sun rose higher in the sky and his shadow shrunk, putting the shadow user at a disadvantage.

They danced on the field, dodging and attacking each other in turn. Temari more or less stood her ground, adjusting her position only to avoid the blast radius of the explosive tags and the tendrils of shadow he sent grasping out towards her. He was looking worse for wear but she was still unscathed.

"You could use some target practice, it seems your aim is off today," Temari jeered, as he released a shuriken with deadly accuracy, only to be swept away be another gust of wind.

The field was littered with kunai that had been swept away by her tessen.

"Oh really?"

Shikaku brought his hands up to form a seal. She made to launch another gust of cutting winds at her opponent, but found she was paralyzed.

"How?" She strained against the jutsu, surprised and unsure where she had misstepped. He stood a good 30 meters away from her, clearly out of range, his shadow far from touching her.

Without taking a step, his shadow stretched, reaching all the way to the kunoichi's feet. She growled through her teeth. He had been bluffing about his range the whole battle, holding back to make her underestimate him. But she still didn't understand how she'd been immobilized before he ensnared her in his shadow.

He walked towards her and picked up one of the stray kunai discarded from their battle that lay by her feet. Picking it up, she clearly saw a tag attached. She cursed herself for not being more careful. She hadn't even noticed the tag but even if she had, she wouldn't have thought anything of it—just a dupe explosive tag that failed to detonate. She had fallen into his trap the moment she cast her shadow onto the chakra-imbued tag.

"Shikamaru was a fool for revealing the full range of his technique to you in the first place," Shikaku continued to hold her in the shadow bind, "Next time, Temari-san, I wouldn't base your strategy on information gleaned years ago from your opponent's adolescent son."

They were standing just inches apart now and he reached into his weapons pouch for a kunai, slowly bringing it to her neck. She had no response to that. It's true she had gotten cocky. Instead of incapacitating him as soon as possible, she had tried to play with him a little too much. In the end it was he who had been playing games with her the whole time.

Even in the face of her loss and with a kunai to her neck, paralyzed by the shadow weilder, she held his gaze unabashedly. The deep pools of her turquoise eyes shone with intensity. Shikaku felt a shiver run down the back of his neck. He may have her under his shadows, but he felt as though her eyes hold him captive, as he was unable to look away from her.

He lowered the kunai, releasing her from his jutsu, but she did not move, rather, she continued to hold his gaze.

"You truly deserve your reputation and a strategist and as a fighter, Shikaku-san," she conceded, closing her tessen and slinging it over her shoulder.

"As do you Temari-san," he responded. They had both been holding back, he knew. What use was it to lay down all your cards in a friendly match? She barely seemed tired after their fight, her chakra level clearly still high. He wondered what she was like at full force.

"We should get back and prepare for today's meetings," she said. As they began to walk back towards town, she added, "of course, I hope that tomorrow I'll have another chance to best you."

Later that morning, they sat, as the day before, in the office of the Kazekage for another meeting.

Temari tried to focus on the discussion, but couldn't help but keep her focus from shifting back to Shikaku, who was seated across the table from Gaara. She had not expected to lose the spar that morning, and felt the need to reevaluate the assumptions about the older man.

He was physically and mentally fast, more so than his son, and she couldn't help but wonder what gears were turning in his head as they continued to discuss the future of relations between Suna and Konoha.

Unbeknownst to the kunoichi, Shikaku was far from focused on the talks. He couldn't get the blonde kunoichi from his head. He looked over to her only to find she was already staring at him intently. He held her gaze for a moment, then snapped his attention back to the treaty.

After the meeting adjourned, they were invited by Kankuro to go out for drinks to celebrate the meeting. It was clear that of the three sand siblings he was the least serious. In any case, he more than enjoyed a night out with the puppeteer and his travel companions from Konoha. Kankuro seemed committed to having them sample every sake produced in the Wind country, as well as a curious hard liquour produced from some sort of cactus plant grown in the area. By the end of the night, Shikaku had definitely drank more than he intended, but he was proud of his ability to hold his liquour—to the point that some thought he had a drinking issue, though he didn't think so—so he hadn't even thought to turn down the drinks as they were offered to him.

He stumbled back to the inn with Izumo and Kotetsu just past midnight. Izumo sniggered that Suna women were nowhere near as beautiful as those in Konoha. Shikaku raised his eyebrow at this comment, but before he could respond, Izumo sniggered "Ah, sorry Shikaku, of course I don't want to cause a diplomatic rift because of a comment on Suna women."

As he headed back to his room, he cursed himself for drinking so much. Temari had promised him another spar in the morning, and he didn't want to face her hungover. He downed as much water as he could before heading to bed.


Thanks for reading! Things will heat up soon, I promise ;)

Big ol' thanks to Shikamaru v Hidan for the idea for this match. In case it wasn't clear, I just stole the little trick Shika did with Asuma's knives in that fight to remotely engage the shadow possession.

And in case ya missed it that "curious hard liquour produced from some sort of cactus plant " is a shout out to my good old friend, Tequila. Bahaha I know I'm kind of treating Suna like a global desert mashup from Morocco to Mexico but I couldn't help myself.