So…..hey there again! It's been a while….like a year or something like that. To be perfectly honest, I had kind of given up on this story. I'd hit a major writers block and that was that. Out of nowhere though, I started thinking about it again and then this happened! That being said, here's a new chapter, longer than most as a sort of apology! I'm not sure if anyone reads these authors notes or cares enough about this story to be mad at me, but if you are I'm sorry, please don't kill me. Anyways, I have no idea how long this random inspiration will last, but for the moment at least I've got the ball rolling again and with any luck I can keep it going for a while at least. That being said, I'm looking for a beta reader to help me along if anyone reading this is interested, shoot me a message and we'll talk Well, that seems to be enough preamble so without further ado, happy reading!

It's Time

Slowly coming out of her unconscious stupor, Audrey tried to make sense of her surroundings. Everything was hazy. The fact that the scenery seemed to refuse to stay still didn't help either. As her sight slowly cleared she realised she was upside down. The world bounced around her as if it were skipping. No, the world wasn't skipping, she was. Or rather the person carrying her slung over his back was skipping. Who was it? Her eyesight might have cleared, but her head was still fuzzy. How had she come to be here, slung over some man's back bouncing through the forest?

Briefly she wondered if it was Shikamaru carrying her, but that didn't seem quite right. She felt scared. Why, she had no idea, but she doubted she would feel this uncomfortable with the shadow user. Letting her head swivel to the other side, she was met with the form of a small girl, slung over the other shoulder of the mystery man. Suddenly, as if trying to rip her apart, her memory cleared and with sickening dread she realised who was carrying her.

Hunter.

This was bad. Her limbs still refused to move as commanded and even thinking took an alarming amount of effort. He was no doubt taking her to the waterfall camp and she was helpless to stop him. Hunter, seemingly unaware of her semi-consciousness hoisted her into a better position over his shoulder and ran faster, humming a tuneless song to himself. He was no doubt thrilled with the outcome of his little hunting outing.

The repetitive bouncing was quickly stealing what little consciousness Audrey had left. Before falling back into that deep, calming pit of drug induced blackness, a single thought managed to cross her beleaguered mind.

'Shikamaru…..please!'

Then the blackness took her.

Tazzin was watching. She had positioned her troupes at the city walls and promptly left them to the directions of her lieutenant as she sat in the foliage of a nearby tree. As she had expected, the leaf knew they were coming. The walls had been well prepared and proved to be nearly impenetrable. Time and time again, their attacks were pushed back; nothing was working, not battering rams, or full on attacks or Justus. The leaf village was ready, ready for anything…except her. After nearly three hours of watching silently, Tazzin finally stood up.

Rolling her neck and shoulders, she grimaced as they cracked and popped. Next she carefully cracked each finger and shook out her limbs. She knew she looked like an idiot as she loosened up. Someone had once described the view as 'watching a gorilla get ready to swim.' She had very kindly showed them what a worm begging for its life looked like. After finishing with her preparations, she checked to make sure all 48 of her knifes were sharp and ready. They were.

Sighing at the annoyance of actually having to fight she hopped down from her tree branch to her lieutenant's side. A smart and observant man who thought a great deal more than he spoke, he did not start at her arrival. Nor did he fill her in on the battle's progress. He knew she had been watching. Instead he immediately signalled a retreat.

Tazzin's own merc forces immediately drew back at the order. The other ninja's filtered back with them, unsure as to what their own orders were. Tazzin waited until they were all back behind the treeline before she revealed herself. Hands in pockets, eyes half closed she strolled out of the cover of the trees. Three kunai whizzed past her head and imbedded themselves in the ground behind her. She did not flinch, but continued on towards the wall, as if she didn't have a care in the world. Then a voice drifted over the wall.

"Stop where you are or you'll get to see a Konoha kunai up close" it was a deep voice: masculine and brimming with authority. Tazzin stopped.

"So," she said as if the threat was a totally new concept for her, "you're saying that if I take another step you'll kill me?" She looked up in mock confusion at the defenders on the wall. There was silence. Innoichi, now in charge of defence on the wall had never expected the threat to work, let alone this attacker to question it.

"Well," he waved down some more healers to help the men lying wounded on the wall while he stalled, "I'm impressed: I didn't think people like you were capable of understanding these things."

Again, the merc on the other side surprised him. She laughed. Loud and long she laughed, as if he'd just told the funniest joke. "That's probably because you don't understand these things yourself!" she jeered, still laughing, "You see, there's a small fault in your logic." Suddenly she stopped laughing, and looked up with something akin to murder in her eyes. Innoichi signalled for his fellow ninja to ready themselves. The next attack was coming. "You're assuming" the girl continued, "that you'd actually be able to hit me."

Suddenly she was gone, and before he could look to find her, the man next to him fell, a knife in his shoulder. She was on the wall!

Innoichi barely had time to yell in warning before she was on him. It was all he could do to keep her whirling knives away from him. He didn't have time to do a jutsu; all he could do was dodge. Left, right, side, down, right. The strikes seemed to come from everywhere, and yet the strange dark haired girl looked disinterested in the whole battle. Indeed, she seemed to dispense almost no effort while she simultaneously attacked him and avoided the attacks of the other ninja.

Then, Innoichi made a mistake. Falling for one of her bluffs, he rolled right instead of left. A knife bit deep into his forearm like a snake's fang. The girl smirked sadly, and brought her other knife up for the kill. Suddenly, the entire wall shook as if struck by an avalanche.

The Waterfall ninja had finally set up their flame thrower and were bombarding the walls. The black mercenary just groaned.

"Geeeeeeeeeeeeeez" she complained, "just when I was getting somewhere!" She had already sheathed her knife in a holder at her back. Offering a hand to Innoichi, she pulled him up by his good arm. "Some people just have no sense of timing, you know?" she spoke as if they had been friends for life, as if they were on the same side, as if she had not just tried to kill him. With a final exasperated sigh, she grimaced at him and then was gone. Innoichi stood frozen in shock as he stared at the now vacant place where she once stood.

Then the gate caught fire.

Shikamaru arrived just as the gates burst into flames. He appraised the situation calmly. They weren't in trouble yet. Yet being the key word. As long as the gates held, the defenses would hold, but the gates were wooden and already consumed in flame. He would have to act. Fast. Taking command of the defenders left on the wall without hesitation, he yelled for any water users to deal with the flames. Then, calling for every other ninja still able to fight, he jumped over the wall and landed gracefully on the hard, packed dirt on the other side.

The gates must not fall. He had to make sure the other ninja had time to save them before the waterfall mercenaries could mount another attack. He didn't have to win this battle he told himself, he just had to make it last. Still, that wouldn't be an easy feat. Sparing a quick glance behind him, he counted only 16 ninja ready to fight with him. Four of them were jounin, Innoichi among them, but all of them were wounded, none of them at their best. Regardless they were experienced and well versed in this kind of battle. They could do this.

Calling out orders he arranged them in a defensive formation as the waterfall army readied an attack. They were outnumbered by far, but the Konoha Nin had something to protect. And that made them powerful. A tingling in his spine alerted him that Innoichi was asking permission to talk to him through a mind link, no doubt looking for silent orders to pass to the other defenders so that the enemy wouldn't know their plan.

'Spread out, engage in quick attacks and then back out. The goal is to spread confusion, not to kill. Buy as much time as possible, but don't do anything heroic. Konoha needs every fighter. We can't afford any unnecessary losses.' Shikamaru told Innoichi through the mind link.

'Understood,' Innoichi replied, 'I'll pass it on to the others….oh and Shikamaru…' he paused, a bit uncertain, 'watch out for a girl merc with black hair.' An image of Tazzin popped into Shikamaru's mind, courtesy of Innoichi. It was hazy, as most memories are, but clear enough for recognition. 'She's good, a match for any of us.'

Without waiting for an answer, Innoichi severed the mind link and the battle began.

Racing through the forest on Akkemaru's back wasn't as easy as Kiba made it look. While he road easily, pushing himself up and down with the dog's stride with clear, simple confidence, Yuki was doing all she could to hold on. She didn't like the idea of touching this man she barely knew, yet she had no choice but to throw her arms around his waist and hold on for dear life. Once or twice her legs lost their grip on the dog's sleek fur and her whole body jerked up, floating on the air until she crashed down again.

They were going so fast. Yuki didn't like the feeling of not being in control at that kind of speed. Gritting her teeth, she squeezed both her grip on Kiba's waist and her eyes shut. In front of her, Kiba was slowly turning blue as his breath was squeezed out of him. He debated asking the girl to loosen her hold, but a thought from Akkemaru silenced him. Whoever, whatever she was, she was scared.

Akkemaru informed him that she was gripping his back with her ankles instead of her knees: a rookie mistake. Although holding on with the ankles made one feel more secure, it was actually one of the weakest holds possible. Squeezing with the knees allowed you leverage to ride up and down, to move with the dog instead of against him. The ankle grip was painful for Akkemaru too. It seemed she had rather bony ankles which were digging into his kidneys as he ran. Sighing, Kiba wondered if he should have left her behind, but remembering the fierce look in her colour changing eyes, he doubted she would have stayed, regardless.

Signalling for Akkemaru to stop, Kiba disentangled himself from her arms and shook her until she opened her eyes again. God she was pale. Jaw clenched and white lipped she cautiously opened her eyes once she realised they had stopped.

"Are we there?" she inquired breathlessly, "Where's Audrey?"

"No, we're not there," Kiba replied keeping his tone even and light, "but if we keep going like this you're going to kill us both with that grip of yours."

Her ashen complexion was quickly chased away by a deep blush as she tried to relax her limbs, which only resulted in her seizing up in a different position. Sighing again, Kiba dismounted, swinging his legs easily over his dog's back. He reached for her then, but a fearful look stopped him.

"May I?" he asked, holding his hands up to show he was unarmed.

He received a curt nod, but the look did not fade. Ignoring it, he lifted her from under her arms and slid her up Akkemaru's back so that she was nestled in the dip of the dog's back right behind his shoulder blades. It should have been harder than it was. Akkemaru was still standing so Kiba was lifting her above his head. If she weighed anything at all it should have taken at least a little effort. But she was small, and underfed. Kiba didn't know why that bothered him, but it did. Probably because it reminded him of Audrey and how hard it had been to get her to eat the first few days. He hoped she was alright. If she wasn't….. Someone would have hell to pay. If there was one thing the entire rookie nine had in common, it was that they always, always protected their friends.

Swinging himself back up on Akkemaru's back behind Yuki this time, Kiba gripped the dog's fur so that his arms made rails of sorts that prevented her from falling off. As Akkemaru started to run again, he gave her small bits of advice on posture.

"Relax your ankles, he won't let you fall. There, that's it! Grip with your knees. Woah! Not that hard! Better. Now, let your body bounce with his strides, like me. Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down. You won't fall, trust me."

Slowly, Yuki started to get the hang of riding. The speed still terrified her, but it exhilarated her as well. Somehow with that warm, strong presence at her back, it wasn't nearly as terrible as it had been before. As she caught the rhythm of the dog's strides, her gaze fell to the bow, held tightly in her left hand. It was still strung, but the chakra thread was unstable, wavering and weakening. They didn't have much time.

"Please Audrey," she whispered, "be alright!"

The plea was too quiet for Kiba to hear, but unbeknownst to both of them; they were silently praying that prayer together.

Shikamaru was slipping into that trance like zone in which the outside world faded away. There was only him now, him and the men he was fighting. From the corner of his eye he could see his fellow ninja's fighting alongside him, but he barely registered them. They didn't matter anymore. Strategy didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was staying alive.

That would be challenge enough. The Konoha Nin were outnumbered in a bad way. Though he doubted any of their opponents would be a match for them in single combat, the waterfall had the advantage. There would be no single combat here.

The old stories Shikamaru's father had told him as a child recounted the deeds of heroes who singlehandedly fought off hundreds of men. Shikamaru knew enough to call bullshit. Real life heroes would be hard pressed to fight off 5 men alone. Even if you managed to get your back against something solid it would be a challenge….and those were the kinds of odds they were facing now. Quick attacks and retreats were there only chance for success, and Shikamaru planned on succeeding. If he failed now there was no one to come clean up after him. This was it.

The waterfall ninja and mercenaries were advancing now, trying to cut the Konoha fighters off from each other. Shikamaru stood his ground and let them come. A circle of 7 men formed around him, weapons at the ready, twitching with eagerness. Shikamaru didn't allow himself to smile, but he smirked inwardly. He could do this.

With a roar all 7 of his attackers charged at once. With a single leap Shikamaru cleared the circle and leapt to the trees. With no enemy now in the middle of the circle, the waterfall men found themselves striking each other instead of him, skidding and slipping as they tried not to kill their teamates. Leaving them to sort out their mess, he jumped down into the ranks of mercenaries standing at the ready. Slashing and spinning he went through them like a whirlwind, not looking at those he felled, not caring if they were dead or not. He moved without thinking, reacted without seeing.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he registered he was bleeding in several places, but he pushed that aside as he had been taught and continued on. He just needed to hold out for a little while longer. When the hoard of mercenaries became too overwhelming for him to handle alone, he retreated back to the tree line to see what had become of the rest of his men. The tree he chose for surveillance unfortunately had also been chosen by several mercenaries.

Damn it.

There were three as far as he could tell, but they made the idiotic mistake of coming one at a time. He dropped the first one with a kunai to the stomach which he ripped up and out. A fatal strike he was sure. He caught the blade of the second on his metal arm protector and then swung his other arm around to slash at his attacker's face. He fell from the branch screaming. The last one had been smart enough to get behind him while he dealt with the other two and landed a stinging blow across the shadow user's back. Shikamaru only grunted and made the hand signals for his jutsu. The man died with a shadow blade protruding from his chest: a clean kill.

As Shikamaru ended the jutsu, he turned to survey the battle. Only one of his men was dead. Unfortunate, but better than was expected. The rest were darting in and out of skirmishes, as he had instructed, moving fast and not staying in one spot long enough to get killed. All of them were injured. Most worrisome was Inoichi who was constantly wiping blood from his eyes that flowed from a long gash on his brow and whose left arm was dangling uselessly by his side. They were doing well, but they couldn't last much longer.

"Alright," Shikamaru whispered to himself, "Time to get back in there."

"Aww, that's no fun!" A chilling voice protested behind him as a blade was pressed against his neck, "Why don't you stay and play a while?" It seemed his initial count had been wrong. There was another mercenary!

With a quick twist, Shikamaru went to slash his attacker's throat before they could slash his….only he didn't. His body, it wouldn't move! What was this? For the first time in his life Shikamaru understood what his opponents felt when he put them under shadow bind. It was terrifying. The thought of imminent death was bad enough. Knowing there was absolutely nothing you could do about it was far, far worse.

"Interesting jutsu you pulled there," a girl said as she walked around him, kunai still pressed to his neck, "I'd say you're a shadow master, aren't you?"

She smiled, tossing her black hair out of her eyes. Shikamaru felt a cold sliver of fear in his gut as he recognised her. This was the girl Inoichi had warned him of!

Smiling easily, Tazzin tilted her head to the side. "Why don't we have a talk?"

"Crap!" Kiba swore under his breath at the sight before them. Audrey's scent had led them to the enemy camp. It wasn't the main camp thank the gods, but it was a sizeable one none the less. A quick count gave 5 tents and at least 20 shinobi. It seemed this was a scouting squad, no doubt looking for another way into the city. Kiba prayed they hadn't found it. Things were bad enough already. He didn't see Audrey anywhere and he risked being seen if he got any closer.

Carefully moving so as to not rustle any leaves or branches, he crawled on hands and knees back to where he'd left Akkemaru waiting with Yuki. He didn't know her story, or why she was here, but for the moment, it seemed they were allies. And if either of them wanted to get Audrey out alive, they needed all the allies they could get.

"What's the deal?" she asked wide eyed when he returned, offering him a handful of nuts she had found.

Sniffing them briefly, he determined they were good to eat and set about doing so. He was hungry.

"Not good," he answered once he'd swallowed, "There's at least 20 men down there, a full squadron. I didn't see her anywhere so she must be in one of the tents."

"That's good at least," Yuki said with a furrowed brow, "if they've kept her alive this long, they probably mean to do so until they take her back to the main camp."

Kiba nodded in agreement. "I think we should wait it out a while then," he said slowly, gauging her reaction, "Ino, the blonde healer, went to get one of my friends. He's a strategist. Konoha's best really. If there's a way to get her out alive, he'll be able to figure it out."

"And…" the girl stopped, looked at him briefly with a worried frown and continued, "and if we can get her out alive….what then?" Her eyes held his now with intensity that made him wonder again how she had killed that mercenary. "She's your enemy, isn't she? Why are you even doing this in the first place?" Her eyes were narrowing suspiciously as her hands inched to the scythes strapped to her back.

"Relax, we're not going to kill her," Kiba reassured her, "And I'm not going to kill you either if I can help it. She was the one who warned us you were coming. As far as I'm concerned that makes her one of us, not one of you. And you're a friend trying to save her. Here in Konoha, friends of friends are friends also."

Beside him, Yuki's shoulder's had slumped. "I was afraid of that," she whispered, drawing her knees to her chest. "From the minute I heard she had left, I was afraid of that. She's right of course, this whole war is insanity. It makes no sense. What do we even have to gain here? But…" Her voice was wavering now, muffled as she buried her face in her knees, "we were a team! She was the closest thing I've ever had to family. She, she and Summon made me feel …whole. She should have told us!" At this her head snapped up revealing the angry tears trickling down her cheeks. "We would have come! I would have followed her in a heartbeat. Even if she wanted to march through the gates of hell I would have gone! We could have gone together." She lowered her head down to her knees again, staring miserably off into the distance. "She should have told us." Yuki repeated in a whisper. "She should have told us."

Kiba stayed silent through the whole tirade, watching the girl huddled beside him. He had never had much experience comforting anyone, especially girls, especially girls he'd met a matter of minutes ago. Shuffling closer to her, he put an awkward arm about her shoulders, drawing her close to his side.

"I'm sure she just didn't want to be a trouble to you," he comforted, looking to Akkemaru for help, "She knew she was going down and didn't want to drag you with her." The dog whined in agreement and rested his big head on the girl's feet, staring up at her with big, sorrowful eyes.

"But that's what a team is all about," Yuki protested, lifting her head, but not pulling away from Kiba or his dog, "The whole point of a team is that you stick together. One member's problem is everyone's to fix. That's what makes a team so strong!"

"True," Kiba agreed with a nod, "but sometimes people forget that. They try not to bother the people they love and end up hurting them instead." Yuki was wiping away her tears now, her eyes puffy and red. "I have no doubt she loves you, "Kiba assured her with a smile, "When she first got here she-"

A thought from Akkemaru made Kiba stop mid-sentence. Noises were drifting through the trees from the scouting camp. Tents were being packed up and orders were shouted out. Kiba and Yuki stared at each other in horror, the last startled tears falling from Yuki's eyes. The waterfall Nin were moving, taking Audrey back to the main camp. If they wanted to save her, it had to be now.

Wiping her eyes, Yuki nodded at Kiba, a hard determined look taking over a face. Together, they made their way silently to the quickly disappearing camp site, weapons at the ready. It was now, or never.

They chose now!

"It's pretty rare to find a shadow master you know," Tazzin was circling Shikamaru now, her blade never leaving his neck, "In all my years fighting all over the world, I've only ever met one. And," she chuckled to herself, "I guess you could say they were pretty good!" Shikamaru wondered if she'd killed this other shadow user. Based on how she had frozen his body he bet she could. He himself was considered a shadow master and she had him at her mercy. Whoever that other shadow user was, Shikamaru was willing to bet if he'd crossed blades with this merc, he was dead. He briefly wondered who he was; Shikamaru had thought there were no other shadow users outside his family. It was something to look into when this was all over, he thought before the cool feel of metal against his neck reminded him he wouldn't be around when this was over.

The mercenary stopped in front of him and leaned in so that their noses were touching. Even his eyes were frozen in place. Shikamaru had no choice but to stare into her eyes, deep pools of endless black.

"Who are you?" she asked, whether the question was directed at him or purely rhetorical Shikamaru didn't know. Either way, he had no way of answering. She looked genuinely puzzled though, graceful eyebrows dipping down in confusion, making her forehead a mass of lines and wrinkles. Suddenly, her features brightened and a smirk crept onto her face. "Well, well, well," She whispered into his ear, "Looks like someone's here to join the fun!"

Out of nowhere a kunai zipped through the air, aimed perfectly at her head. She just smiled and flipped off the branch to the ground, still smirking. As his eyes followed her descent, Shikamaru realised he could move again! Quickly scanning the trees where the kunai had come from, he glimpsed a flash of bright gold hair.

Ino!

His suspicions were confirmed as she leapt to join him on the branch. The black mercenary stayed crouched where she had landed on the ground, no doubt caught in one of Ino's mind traps.

"Ino what are-"Ino cut him off before he could form a sentence.

"It's Audrey," she exclaimed breathlessly. "I don't know what's going on, but Kiba says she's in trouble! He and Akkemaru and this other girl went to help her." Ino was clearly winded; the words came out in wheezy gasps.

"Where?" was all Shikamaru asked as he steadied her on the branch.

"They ran of north-east along the wall, Kiba said he'd leave markers for you to follow."

Shikamaru nodded and looked down to check on the merc on the ground. She wasn't there! Spinning, he thrust Ino behind him and stood between his team mate and the black haired girl casually sitting on the branch, her back against the trunk of the tree.

"What are you looking at me for?" she asked yawning, "Looks like you have another party to go to." Shikamaru didn't drop his guard, brandishing his kunai before him. This smelled like a trap. "Shoo shoo," the merc said, waving her hands at him, "I'll play with you later." The devilish smirk returned to her lips. Shikamaru didn't get why she was letting them go, but he knew a chance when he saw one. Besides, Audrey was in danger! He didn't have time for this. He grabbed Ino and flashed away with one last look at the strange black haired mercenary.

Once they were a safe distance away Shikamaru stopped and set Ino down on the ground. By now she had caught her breath and had hold of her second wind. "Go back to the gates," he ordered her, "Tell your father to sound the retreat, we've bought enough time. There will be wounded, tend to them and then tell Tsunade what's going on here. I'll be back once I find Audrey." Without waiting for a reply, he was off, racing headlong through the trees, praying he could make it there in time.

"Audrey," he whispered to no one, "I'm coming."

Tazzin slipped off her branch once the two Konoha ninja left. Audrey huh? This was getting interesting. Turning her attention back to the battle she was supposed to be leading, she saw the last fire ninja slip over the safety of the gate. This attack had failed. Not that it really mattered to her. If anything, this was perfect timing! Ordering her own forces back to the main camp to regroup she went on ahead of them, wandering through the waterfall ninja tents until she found the man she was looking for.

Summon was dozing restlessly when she kicked him awake. "Get up!" she ordered, kicking his leg again, "you'll want to hear this."

So ya, that's that! My style might have changed slightly over the break, but to be honest I can't even tell anymore. If you have the time and the desire, please review! It's always nice to know someone out there is reading. Hopefully I'll see you all next week with a new chapter!