DISCLAIMER/WARNING/APOLOGY IN ADVANCE:

See chapter the 4th.

King Kakuzu slammed into the wall, barely catching the edge of the building. Not sparing a moment to lament on his pain, he hoisted himself up onto the roof and lunged at Jiraiya. Jiraiya easily dodged it, leaping to another building. Enraged with the difficulty of his quarry, Kakuzu turned to his mercenary troops. "WHAT ARE YOU ALL STANDING AROUND FOR!??!?!?! I DON'T PAY YOU ALL TO STAND AROUND AND BE COMPLETELY USELESS!!!!!"

"YOU DON'T PAY ME AT ALL!" one of the mercenaries (whose pay Kakuzu had obviously neglected) shouted back at him.

"KILL HIM!" There was a brief scream as the mercenaries turned on their comrade. "GET THAT LEPRECHAUN!"

The mercenaries let go of the band of thieves and shambled after Kakuzu. Hidan cursed distraughtly as the horde of mercenaries turned into a human river around him. His success had been so close at hand mere seconds before, but it had been all dashed to pieces because of Kakuzu's reckless greed. His precious guillotine would go back into storage, waiting for the day he finally outsmarted Shikamaru. But when would that day come? All his many months of trying and even the most brilliant of plans always resulted in Shikamaru's freedom. As he watched 2 of the mercenaries pull away the wood and metal fruit of his labor, Hidan began to wonder whether he would ever truly defeat Shikamaru. Was it possible that he was so much smarter than him, that he could never be beaten?

Shikamaru fumbled with the shackles behind his back, calmly trying to relieve himself of the metal restraints. He wasn't getting as far as one would expect. Temari, freed from the mercenaries iron grip, bent down and picked up her faithful Scrabbler. The weasel squealed with glee as he felt the familiar warmth of his mistress's embrace surround him. After he had viciously attacked the smelly men in metal to the point of driving them off, he deserved no lesser form of gratitude. Temari glanced over at Shikamaru. "You need some help getting out of that?"

"No, I'm fine." Shikamaru grunted stubbornly, fiddling with what Temari assumed to be a lockpick behind his back. "As soon as I figure out which one of these does it, it'll pop off no problem." Temari placed the weasel on her shoulder and stared sourly at him. He took note. "You got something to say?"

"Nara, you deliberately walked into a trap today. Kakuzu's men could've knifed you in the back before you made it through the castle gates."

"Preposterous. Kakuzu wanted to make an example out of me; a simple death in the back alleys would never do. Hidan wanted to execute me with that outrageous machine of his. There was never any doubt that they'd try capture me alive."

"You still deliberately walked into a trap!"

"Any plan to get you out of Kakuzu's grasp would involve some risk of capture."

"I'm sure if you weren't too LAZY to climb the tower they were keeping me in…."

"You think that would have been more romantic? Don't tell me you want me to be…."

"LESS RISKY!"

"Well, if I didn't play into Kakuzu's hands and win the tournament, how could I EVER get you to kiss me in front of my entire village?" he confessed, chuckling slightly as he did so. She rolled her eyes. "You're right; it would've been less risky. Coming to the tournament guaranteed my capture. But I knew I could use Jiraiya to get away when I got caught. If the old leprechaun wasn't around, I'd have gone with your romantic tower-scaling plan."

"Less risky, Nara." Her body relaxed as the tension was released.

Shikamaru rolled his shoulders back to better fiddle with the lock. "So, less risky means more romantic. Is that what you're telling me, troublesome woman?"

She sighed longingly. "No. Not at all."

Hidan was disgusted. In his country, he could've arrested them both for inappropriate public displays of affection. "EEEUUGH! SACRE BLEU! WHAT ARE YOU, MAR-REED?!?! GAAAGH!" he shouted, cutting between them. He turned to Temari, fumbling for something at his side. "Your boy toy….eeeuuhhhh….he all-ways ru-eens dze locks when he peecks dzem, and dzen Ka-ku-zu gets ver-ee mad at me be-cau-se Ee have to buy new locks…eeuhhhh…eet would be bet-ter eef Ee just gave you my spa-re set of keys…."

The lock clicked open loudly. "I got it." Shikamaru shook the heavy manacles from his arms as Hidan turned to him. He held in his hands the ring of keys Hidan had been looking for. "You looking for these?"

The extremity of Shikamaru's victory over Hidan had reached new boundaries. All the anger in Hidan's body was transferred to his tightly clenched jaw. "You may have won dzees ro-und, Shee-ka-ma-ru, but dze next time we meet, some-one ees go-eeng een dze GUILLOTINE!" He whipped his cape around him dramatically, disappearing among the mercenary stampede, swearing loudly in French.

Temari eyed the keys in Shikamaru's hand. "Not the brightest of sheriffs, is he?"

Shikamaru twirled the keys around his fingers before they disappeared into his pocket. "The sad part of this is that he will never think to change the locks in town. I'd pity him if he wasn't trying to kill me."

For anyone planning to read future works of mine, I feel I should warn you right now that this chapter is about as 'fluffy' as I get. Ever. The testosterone levels of my brain prevent me from getting much fluffier than 'hero defeats villain, shares thrill of victory with hot babe'. In fact, while the next few chapters may contain fluff (some Naruhina, some more of the Shikatema you've already seen, maybe just a smattering of Nejiten) that's pretty much it for the entire story. From then on, it's just characters choking on their own blood. Okay, I exaggerate. Who'd read a story if all the characters did was choke on their own blood? But I can promise that you won't be choking on the fluff.

Last chapter, I finally broke 1K hits! Huzzah!