A blast of wind knocked Temari backwards and sliced at her body, drawing long gashes along her arms and stomach, slicing at her clothes and skin alike, drawing blood. Such was the power of Kayuha. Compared to her, Temari was a simple novice again with a paper fan trying to blow out a candle.

"You all betrayed me," said Kayuha, snapping and unsnapping her fans as she advanced, savoring the moment. "All of you."

"You're the traitor to Hidden Sand," Temari replied.

"Hidden Sand betrayed me long before I betrayed them," replied Kayuha, unleashing another blast of air that knocked Temari's legs out from underneath her and sent her rolling onto the sandy ground. She smirked, however, not pressing her attack, and instead moved as if to brush lint from the bottom of her kimono. "I was all too aware of your little 'council' daughter dearest."

"Council? What council?"

Kayuha wagged a finger at her, making a 'tsk-tsk' sound with her lips. "Not nice to lie, daughter dearest... I repeat, I knew of your Council... I saw it. I heard what you plotted to do... oust me out of power and make Gaara the Fifth Kazekage."

"Gaara?" frowned Temari, more confused than angered by that statement. Gaara was barely thirteen, and he was hated by the village. Or feared, which amounted to the same thing. He would never be the Kazekage, even given his recent change in behavior. And there had never been such a council meeting to decide on any of this.

"You're just lying to throw me off-guard!" shouted Temari, swinging up her fan and letting loose a blast of wind. Kayuha blocked it, countering easily.

"Me lying?! Kuro'kiri showed me the council's secret meeting! She showed me everything! We left that very night."

"There wasn't any council! I was out on a mission that night…!"

In that instant, it all made perfect sense.

Lady Kayuha hadn't betrayed Hidden Sand, and they hadn't betrayed her. Kuro'kiri had cast some sort of genjutsu over her, given her a false memory of a meeting that never took place, whispered lie after lie into her ear until she believed them and rebelled against people she thought hated her. Kuro'kiri was the real mastermind behind all of this, with Touhi and Jougo either willing accomplices or more genjutsu-controlled slaves. And she was using Lady Kayuha's prominent charisma and political connections to weaken Hidden Sand.

"Mom, wait...!"

"Shut up! No more lies, you little brat!" shouted Kayuha, topping it off with a "Ryuuha no Mai!" A small hurricane came barreling down the path towards Temari, who quickly changed tactics and used her own fan on the ground, creating a backlash wave that knocked herself out of the way. It still hurt but it helped her avoid any serious injuries from her mother's attack.

"There's no reasoning with her..." Temari realized. Kuro'kiri's genjutsu was too strong.

"No... but we can still beat her," came a new voice by her ear. "Kagemane no Jutsu."

A shadowy tendril raced across the sandy desert towards Lady Kayuha, but she was amply prepared, having seen (and heard) of the shadow bind technique before, and was quick to leap backwards and out of his range. Much as her daughter had during the chuunin exam, she recognized his limits and saw he only had limited range with his ability.

She panted softly for breath, having been startled by the sudden attack, but shouted across the distance to them both. "Nice try!" she shouted, raising up both fans and doing an intricate spin, standing in place. "Now I'll finish off both of you!"

"Souryuu Boufuu!!" she cried, her voice echoing throughout the landscape.

A storm picked up. The clouds darkened, lightning flashed high up in the sky and thunder boomed high overhead. A long cone of raging wind formed, snaking down from on high, and formed into the visible image of a great, snarling dragon, then split into two such dragons, snaking around one another as they rushed down towards Shikamaru and Temari.

Temari threw herself up in front of Shikamaru, biting into her thumb. If this didn't work, they were both screwed. Quickly she unfurled her fan and drew her blood along it. "Kuchiyoise... dai Kamaitachi! Kirikirimai!" she cried.

This was her most powerful attack.

If this failed…

… it wouldn't fail.

Wind was a tricky element to master, and a very powerful one in many respects. Wind was everywhere, could be anywhere a first-rate user was. Water was a harder thing to conjure and control by comparison, and most water-users needed a source nearby to work their jutsus. Not so wind, for the air was everywhere. It was virtually impossible to block, to counter, or to protect oneself against. Usually the most feasible way to save yourself from attack was to dodge it.

There was one counter. More wind.

Temari's summon, a white weasel wielding a scythe, popped into being as her gust of wind went soaring up into the air to counter the might of the dragons above. With inhuman speed and precision, the scythe cut through the air in a multiple of places, slicing through the wind itself, reducing the dragons to nothing. By the time they came down to hit Temari and Shikamaru, it was more a pleasant autumn breeze than a raging hurricane.

But Kayuha wasn't done yet, and Temari was nearly completely out of chakra. Her weasel summon vanished when the attack ended. And she realized she was beat… she collapsed onto her knees.

Shikamaru stood there. Battered, bruised, but able to fight. He offered her a hand up, which she accepted. "Sorry about this," he said, releasing her hand as she stood to form a familiar seal.

She instantly felt her body freeze.

" Nara...! What... the hell?!?! I'm not your enemy, you stupid...!!"

"I know," he replied calmly. "Ninpou... Konbi Kagemane no Jutsu!"

Standing so close together, Shikamaru and Temari's shadows were virtually the same. And together, they made for a much wider space that Shikamaru could now use to send a long black tendril shooting out across the ground towards Lady Kayuha. Though she miscalculated slightly and had to roll to one side to get further away before the shadowy tendril came to a halt a few feet away from her sandaled feet as her body slammed up lightly against a nearby boulder. She couldn't move any further back, but thankfully the shadow couldn't reach her, so it didn't matter.

"... you'll never defeat me," said Kayuha, though she was breathing more heavily than before, and was clearly starting to strain herself. She was still a dangerous threat though.

Shikamaru calmly shifted position, and beside him, Temari mirrored his actions. Shikamaru lifted up his hands as if holding something between them. Temari, beside him, held up her closed fan, which lengthened their shadow in the sky. It stretched even further, and Kayuha pressed back against the rocks. But again, it still fell short of actually touching her feet by a few inches. She released a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding, and was about to taunt them once more, when Shikamaru moved one final time.

His hand came up… Temari's mirrored it…

… he lightly tapped something not held in his hands…

… she tapped the end of her fan, and it unfolded open slowly, spreading wide…

… and making their shadow grow larger.

Kayuha's eyes snapped open and she tried to look for an escape, but there was none, and seconds later, she felt her entire body go rigid.

"Kagemane a success," stated Shikamaru. Sighing heavily to relax a little, the battle essentially over, he took small, deliberate steps forward. By his side and before him respectively, Temari and Kayuha stepped in mirror-like motions to match him, closing the gap between the two teams. As they got within a few yards, Shikamaru released Temari from the shadowbind and held Kayuha himself.

"She's all yours," he said, ready to release the jutsu the instant Temari made her attack.

Temari hesitated.

"Go on then," spat Kayuha. "Finish it."

Temari's fist lashed out and caught her mother full across the jaw seconds after Shikamaru cut the attack, sending the older blonde reeling to crash against the ground. Temari winced, clutching her fist, the knuckles of which were bruised from the sheer force she'd used.

Shikamaru idly glanced down at their fallen opponent. Still their enemy, in fact. And despite relations, Temari had stated that her orders were to kill her.

"… are you going to kill her?" he asked.

"No," she replied. "This isn't her fault… we'll take her back home and undo the mess that's been done to her mind… and maybe then we'll see what to do with her."

He nodded. "Thanks for delivering the final blow. I couldn't come up with a proper idea that didn't involve in killing her outright."

"No?"

"Not really. I don't like fighting women," he remarked quietly, hands in his pockets. "Seems to be my fate though... Kin, Tayuya, that Kamina psycho who was after the Gelel stone, even you. Now your mom."

"Should I be jealous?" she quipped, smirking. "You fighting other women beside me?"

He glanced at her and rolled his eyes.

"How troublesome."

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Unaware her subordinates and puppets had all been totally thrashed by the Sand and Leaf shinobi, Kuro'kiri tumbled down the canyon way towards her ultimate goal.

Kuro'kiri's tale was one of ambition and power. She had stumbled across a great secret, and now intended to use it to destroy Hidden Sand and rebuild it in her image. Recruiting Lady Kayuha had been a stroke of genius on her part, for the divorced wife of the Kazekage had remained popular in the village after his death, and she'd been useful in rallying other missing-nin and the like from all over, which saved Kuro'kiri a lot of trouble. It was easier to control one individual rather than fifty. But now she had no more need of the bandits, Jougo, Touhi, Kayuha… any of them.

Not anymore.

She slid down to the next level of the canyon and skidded down the side of the wall, deftly landing beside the cave complex she'd discovered here a short while after she'd fled from Hidden Sand and become a renegade. During the Great Shinobi War, this is another place where dangerous tools had been hidden, and as she lit a torch hanging from a nearby wall, she beheld one of the most dangerous of them all.

The Black Sand Golem.

Standing fully three meters high, it's great head brushed would brush against the cave's ceiling were it standing upright. It resembled a great armored man in black iron armor, and on it's chestplate it bore the symbol of the Hidden Sand village. Soon to be Kuro'kiri's village. It was an impressive monstrosity, moreso because unlike a puppet, she had no need to use chakra strings to control it. It functioned on it's own, obeying her will. And her will was to conquer.

The Hidden Sand, weak-gutted fools that they were, had felt it too dangerous a weapon, and it had been stored away here, with the activation key and the control gauntlet being buried in separate locations around the Wind Country to ensure they would never be brought together. A gauntlet that now rested on Kuro'kiri's right arm. And a key which she drew out and let dangle from her hand like the gemstone necklace it resembled.

The bandits had served her purpose, and paved the way to ultimate power.

"Hey!"

Kuro'kiri's head snapped up, and she glanced at the entrance to the cave, her bright eyes opening wide with shock. All of her enemies stood before her, ready to do battle. She silently cursed her subordinates for failing to stop them… failing to even slow them down much, it looked like. Still, perhaps they'd been weakened enough for her to stop them now.

Her hands quickly formed seals. "Magen - Jigoku Gouka no Jutsu!!"

Fire poured from her burning eyes and washed over them in an instant, sending Gaara, Temari, and Naruto crashing to the ground, thrashing about in pain. Shikamaru grimly held his ground, snapping his hands together.

"Kai!"

Shikamaru alone broke free, panting heavily for breath. Her genjutsu was powerful. Even now, the others writhed on the ground behind him, and he was alone against Kuro'kiri. And she knew it.

"Shadows are useless to you in the dark, aren't they, little Leaf?" she asked, deliberately standing in the shadows out of his reach.

He winced, but nodded. "Correct."

She held up the key, leaping onto the machine's leg and preparing to insert it into the Black Sand Golem's side to activate it from century-long sleep. "Then you… are powerless! And now, with the key and the control gauntlet… I win!"

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a little brown dog leapt up and latched onto her hand. Fully half a second later, the impact set in, and she gave an undignified screech, waving her arm about to dislodge the annoying little furball.

"AAHHH! Get it off! Get it off!" she shouted, ultimately grabbing the scruff of the dog's coat and hurling him back towards the entrance to the cave, whereupon she spotted her true opponents.

A silver-haired, one-eyed man in a black face-mask and Konoha ninja garb, crouched on the bottom of the steps. And standing a few steps back, a powerful Sand ninja wearing a half-veil and bearing two red slashes on his right cheek.

Kakashi and Baki.

The Copy Ninja raised his hand in greeting and gave a friendly 'yo.'

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Author's Notes:

Souryuu Boufuu, should be, I hope, Twin Dragon Whirlwind. Konbi Kagemane no Jutsu, is the Combination Shadowbind Technique. Not entirely sure if it's something Shikamaru can pull off but it seems likely, considering how he can use other shadows around to extend his own.