A second chapter? It's a July miracle! I apologize if it feels...stagnant. I try to always move the plot along but the plot of this particular story unfortunately just wants to sit on its butt for as long as possible. I hope this story's moving into it's final third, and that I can finally give all you nice readers some payoff to the constant buildup, but then I can make no promises. With that out of the way here's the chapter. Please enjoy!

"I cannot believe I let you talk me into this," Two sets of shoes continued clacking against rust red cobblestone path sending up dust into their dry corner of the summer palace. Tenten faked a smile whilst stretching her arms by swinging them outwards. She continued walking a healthy step behind her new blonde haired acquaintance, while also keeping a trained eye on the mans sleeves.

"It's not every day that I meet a girl who knows the differences between a clumsy Prussian 8-inch detonator explosive and my own homemade art. Let alone a human being who can guess the chemical composition just by the smell." The blonde haired man's neck craned behind him giving Tenten a full view of his crazed grin as the chatter of the plazas and palace squares gradually began to reach their ears once again. The squares Tenten had just minutes earlier been running through trying to evade him. "Just what did you say your name was?"

"Theokleia." Tenten piped up quickly, borrowing a modification of one of her friends names. The now afternoon sun cast longer shadows from the ancient masons work, partially illuminating her face as the man led her back out the way she'd come. Sure the situation had been defused by their mutual obsession with all things deadly, but something in her gut told her that this man was dangerous, like a wild dog with no master.

"Greek? Oh please, if you're going to use a fake identity fine but at least make it believable. Hmm." He finished his sentence with a haughty grin, stopping cold and spinning on his heel before leaning right down towards her face, a singular sea blue eye staring out from behind a long banana blonde bang. Tenten returned his look unfazed.

"As if you're who you say you are. Deidara? Really? I may not understand a lot of Island speak but that's just the word for clay isn't it?" She said, returning his crazed glare with a smug smile of her own.

"Hmm, perceptive, you understood that? So you are from the Orient then." he finished, gaze not deviating from the mercenary girl in front of him. Tenten nearly fell backwards, feeling a cold clammy feeling wash over her. She'd stepped right into that one. This man was playing nice for now though it was hard to forget that mere minutes before he'd been ready to kill her. He appeared, all at once smug, arrogant, conceited and devilishly intelligent. Tenten bit her lip as the summer sun beat down on the pair, a steamy heat rising from the stones around them, wet droplets of sweat appearing on their skin. Yet, neither broke eye contact as their eyes continued to bore into the other, as if daring the other one to reveal their secrets.

A new voice broke the deadlock.

"We've searched the area sir, but there's no sign of the other target…" a new man said, familiar looking thick maroon sash of the palace guards tied around his waist and conical hat of the same color atop his head. He paused as he spied Tenten as he hefted his axe with a second hand. "Has she always been with you?"

Deidara's attitude spun on a dime. His disposition, posture and stance hardened, his face darkened as he turned towards the guard and began trudging forward, scowling and face twitching, not stopping until he was well into the guards personal space. The frightened man rapidly backed up, right out the golden roman archway he'd come from as Deidara chased him all the way into the plaza.

"Of course she has you stupid provincial! Or are you as blind as you are stupid? Move it! Hmm!" he yelled as the guard tripped himself up the steps of another domed marble decorated building. The guard simply nodded hastily, picked himself up and scrambled off the steps, leaving scuff marks on the polished sheen. Deidara scoffed and turned his head back towards Tenten, his looks suddenly sunny as the summer season itself. "Can you believe the hired help these days?"

"I can hardly believe anyone would work for you. Let alone why I'm choosing to." Tenten said crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow. Just her luck, another complete psycho. Though he seemed to enjoy a little banter she was still taking a risk with such a flippant attitude. Deidara raised an eyebrow of his own as he moved back in towards her before he grinned.

"I like you, you've spunk and a good aesthetic instinct, but back to the matter at hand. I promise not to hand you over to the palace guard, to get you out of the palace, to find your friends and all you have to do is help me out with one tiny little favor." He looked over her skeptical features analytically as his arms disappeared back into his massive sleeves. A crazed look appeared in his eye as his green widened, baring a set of pale porcelain teeth. "Don't worry, it's not a big favor. Me and my associates were just looking to kill the Sultan."

Tenten's eyes widened ever so slightly, her pupils dilated as if the words themselves had shot adrenaline through her system. She felt her face flush and heart beat quicken. Deidara smiled quizzically as he saw the girls tanned skin tense and shake for a split second, her gloved fingers tightening around the sleeves of her white silken shirt as her bottom lip curled ever so slightly and as her teeth clamped down on the inside of her mouth.

"Of course if you'd rather not," Deidara continued as his arms twitched inside on his cloud covered cloak, smile not faltering. "We could always resume our little spat."

Tenten clenched her arms harder, staring into the eyes of the madman. Memories flowed through her brain, images tinted and fogged by the decay of time but still vivid and painful as ever. What little she could remember of her family, friends long gone, Neji…why was he…Tenten shook it from her mind.

Slowly she uncrossed her arms and reached towards her right shoulder, carefully undoing the three red oriental styled flower buttons that held the two silken garments of her outfit together she revealed the skin right below her shoulder, a light pink patch splayed in the pattern of a four point star stared to the now very curious observer.

"I was given this by a man who tried to force himself on me. After I busted his jaw he shoved a pike through my shoulder to teach me a lesson. This man was trained for the sultans armies, allowed to run wild on the sultan's land…"

"Kircali. Outlaws." Deidara said, his smile deepening once again, looking almost manic and crazed. "Y'know, I heard that since Napoleon launched his attack on Egypt that the Sultans granted a full pardon to Osman and all the Kircali as well."

This time it was Tenten face that darkened.

"When do we start?"

Shikamaru yawned, arising from the wide yellow couch of his guest room. A group of gnarled looking old men, their fingers bent, leathery skin glazed bronze by the sun and beards bleached white by age paid him little mind as they continued their game of chess, chewing on dried dates and smoking their pipes. Shikamaru slammed the windows shut to keep the smell of the acrid Turkish tobacco out of the room before he promptly returned to his couch. He turned his eyes towards the floor, towards the magnificent Persian rug with it's endless diamond shaped patterns and golden fringe that was currently being trod on over and over and over again by a pair of dusty tan feet.

"You're pacing again," he monotoned. Temari didn't even look up from where she continued to stroll back and forth worriedly.

"Shut up."

"It's not healthy," he continued disinterestedly.

"I said, shut up," Temari returned with equal disinterest. Her fire was still just sharp enough to get under his skin, but it was clear her heart wasn't in it. Feeling like he was going to hate himself for exerting so much effort, Shikamaru forced himself to sit upright while the one of the provincial guards outside the doors cried in disgust as the second threw down a winning hand of cards.

"And I'm telling you to shape up, sit down and get something to eat. You look like you're five seconds from a psychotic break." He said, dry voice taking on a drop of compassion.

"Unlike you to be so proactive about another person," Temari almost scolded. It was a faint and distant reply, almost a mumble. Her mind was clearly in another place, most certainly mulling over the Sultan's word, her own position and so on.

It was intriguing Shikamaru thought to himself, he could breach most minds fairly easily, people were just predictable like that. Temari on the other hand, well for some reason he'd grown accustomed to never knowing just what she was going to do. It was what made her so…interesting.

"I'm full of surprises. Besides, as the prisoner if you snap then I'm the first one to go." Shikamaru said, deciding upon his own retort as he watched her feet pull the rug slightly back towards the door as she spun around once again to pace towards the other end of the room.

"Newsflash Mr. Mercenary, that was the whole idea," Temari said finally stopping and throwing her hands up in the air. She turned, exasperated to look over at Shikamaru who simply gave her his dullest and most incredulous look. Temari sighed and placed her hands on her hips. "Ok fine, so I don't really want your head on a pike. Big deal."

"And I'm so relieved." Shikamaru replied laying back down, satisfied that he'd provoked at least some show of emotion from her.

"Don't make me regret those words." Temari grumbled finally dropping down into a very large and plush European style chair. She frowned as she sank into the cushion, squirming while attempting to discover how to get comfortable in the unfamiliar piece of furniture that only seemed to suck her further in.

"Hey, I understand you're worked up, anyone would be. Are you going to take his offer?" Shikamaru asked, staring up at the ceiling.

"What? Of course not! Why does everyone insist on probing my loyalty to my own state? Even my own damn Sultan...may heaven's blessing be upon him." Temari finished almost sarcastically as she gave up squirming and allowed the chair to pull back in.

"Look I've been to a lot of empires, a lot of kingdoms and let me tell you, you can be…intense." Shikamaru said finally looking back over at Temari. He blinked once at the sight of the very clear unhappy soldier slouched and surrounded by a sea of white cushions. She shot him a dangerous look causing him to continue quickly. "Not that it's a bad thing…but you just seem to have your whole identity wrapped up in it. It's just…things never seem to end well for people like you."

"I come from a family of soldiers." Temari said suddenly sitting up and leaning forward. Her eyes settled on a white and blue tea set in front of her. The tea Shikamaru had poured for himself and then never drank still sending up little wisps of steam into the air. "All my relatives, served in some capacity. Then my dad, a soldier famous during the wars against the Tsar followed some trumped up Mamluk general on a race for independence, in doing so he brought the wrath of the imperial army down on our family and left me to pick up the pieces. Daughter of Rasa, that's what they call me. It's not a compliment, it's not an honorific title, it's a mark of shame for my family. A reminder of what we did and what happened to us. So yeah, I'm "intense". As long as I live I'm going to see to it that no one has to suffer like I did."

"You just told me something about yourself."

"And?"

"We've never told each other anything about ourselves, that's why our relationship works." Shikamaru finished coyly. Temari looked exasperated as she allowed her cushions to absorb her once again.

"Oh shove it. Just forget about it I don't know why I even told you." She shot back with a snide tone. She looked back down at the tea, watching the wisps of steam dance and bend into different shapes. Finally she threw herself out of the chair and picked up her enormous steel cudgel, hefting it several times and swinging it outwards carefully.

It was like sitting still would make her break out in hives Shikamaru thought to himself. The world was always turning around her, always on some mission, always with a purpose. It should have been a pain for someone who's existence could be summed up with the word: drifting…and yet…

"What am I to you?" the sudden question surprised even him. Temari looked over at him with a raised eyebrow.

"What kind of question is that?"

A stupid question, a really stupid one, Shikamaru thought.

"I'm your prisoner, a man stripped from his own world and dropped into yours. That's all I've been to you. Now, well now I don't really know what we are."

It was odd…

"Geez, you sound like a woman."

So very odd, and so very troublesome…

"Look, we haven't know each other for very long, and I know next to nothing about you; but what I do know is that…I like spending time with you…so I'm not leaving you to fight this war by yourself."

"Are you sure?" Temari kicked herself mentally. Are you sure? Here he was, the laziest, most frustrating, infuriating man she'd ever known, performing the equivalent of pouring out his heart in front of her, practically pledging himself to her and that's all she could ask? She nearly dropped her weapon onto the ground right then and there. He'd caught her completely off guard. She felt like squirming, doing, something, everything, anything in her power to avoid eye contact. Oh damn it all, when had conversing with this slacker clown become this flustering?

"Absolutely." Shikamaru said sitting up and smiling, looking nervous for the first time since he'd met her. Their eyes met and the gaze held as they both felt blood rushing to their cheeks. Shikamaru suddenly decided to change the subject. "I mean it's not like I'm tied down anywhere else. Knowing Neji and Kiba they're probably partying it up in some palace in Persia by now."

"…I'm very grateful." She said finally, returning his smile, hoping and praying she looked gracious, and that her smile, a toothy, cheeky grin of her own had changed since the last time Kankuro had made fun of it. She couldn't help it though. She felt…happy.

"Sir!" a voice interrupted the two. The provincial guard had busted in without knocking, his eyes wide. He glanced from Temari and then towards Shikamaru. "I mean…uh, Mr…Shikamaru? Sir? That servant boy you told me to pay for information has news about the factions at court!"

"…You squirrelly little runt." The smile didn't disappear, but rather the look of irate, mind bending frustration returned to Temari's face. He'd actually paid off HER guards to get him information. "You knew exactly how this would play out."

"And I also know that you've got a plan. Let's hear it." Shikamaru said hopefully, looking up with his drowsy but pleased doe like eyes. Temari gave him a sideways look before her exasperated smile returned.

"You're impossible. Ok, all of you listen up!"

"He came this way, he must have," a familiar looking palace guard, sweat drenched forehead as red as his conical hat insisted trying to barge his way into the mans residence. Two imposing European looking guards, dressed in republican white and blue military gear, black boots and sporting stout shako's that cast shadows over their eyes quickly clashed their rifles across his path, the sound of their steel bayonets ringing throughout the house.

"And I'm telling you, you odious baboon that I have absolutely no idea what you're on about," Neji's new guardian replied sitting in the mans full view in one of his cream colored couch chairs, built atop a sturdy and finely polished mahogany frame, one leg crossed across his lap.

"If we find out your are behind this in anyway Yilan…" the guard fumed as two other palace guard placed hands on his shoulders and tried to convince him to back up. The man was unfazed and simply gave an arrogant snarl to the intruder.

"You'll do what? Shoot me? Behead me execution style? Tie my body up in the milion square as a warning to all the other foreign dignitaries as a symbol of your precious empires might? Oh I'm sure you're beloved Sultan would love to hear the explanation for that." He evidently enjoyed the fuming of the guard, fuly displaying his disdain and disregard for the man on his threshold. He grabbed a fine wine glass on the table beside him and hoisted it in the air. "Now, get off my doorstep."

The European guards stepped back and with military precision slammed the door in the guards face. They turned away and marched towards their boss' side without another word of expression.

"Well, well, mind telling me just what I have gotten myself into?" the man said looking over his shoulder as Neji emerged from his hiding place, a exquisite looking wardrobe carved in France and shoved up against the far wall. The Hyuga glanced carefully out at the window beside the wardrobe, trying to calculate some kind of escape plan just in case.

"I'm just a wanderer here to find a friend and nothing more. Come tomorrow I doubt you'll hear from me again, and should anyone ask you if I made any material difference here you can tell them that I came and went like the Bosphorus breeze." He said simply, milky white eyes taking in the details of the room. Two spacious western style couches, some chairs, an enormous writing desk and all the frivolities and luxuries that evidently accompanied the well to do guests of the Sultan.

"Well I'll admit it, I'm intrigued by your presence." The man said twirling his wine glass after taking a sip. He rose from his seat not looking back as his guards quickly turned his chair around. He returned to his sitting posture, eyes now looking Neji over curiously. "As the head of the French foreign embassy to the Ottoman Empire I must extend to you an invitation to stay awhile."

He snapped his fingers and the guard quickly hoisted their rifles.

"I should've known this was too easy." Neji said stoically, he clasped his arms behind his back and he prepared to inch towards the window.

"Of course my dear boy, nothing is truly free in this world," the mustachioed Frenchman smiled. "You made me curious and not just a little suspicious…who do you work for?"

It hit him suddenly, like a light flickering on inside his head.

"I'm not a member of the court, I never was." Neji insisted. The man did move, his hands were folded below his pale chin, wistful smile on his face as the stern unyielding guards continued to level their rifles directly at him.

"You heard what he called me didn't you? The guard?" the diplomat asked, his head nodding back towards the door.

"Yilan?"

"It's Turkish for snake. The palace guards are all allied with either the Janissaries or the Royalist factions. They'd like nothing better than to see my head, the head of the boastful Frenchman, symbol of Napoleon on a pike. Now, I step outside just in time to find you running for dear life from those thugs, and on this of all evenings…how curious."

Outside the trooping of the palace guards continued, military boots clamored over the stone streets, officers barked orders and soldiers yelled obscenities at anyone in their way as they blazed through the courtyards, the sounds of their steel pikes dragging against the stones echoing across the grounds. Neji glanced ever so slightly towards the source of the sounds outside the windows, and as he did the diplomats grin deepened ever so slightly.