Asuma had always said that teamwork, done well, was all about the moments in-between the action.
Having drilled this since childhood, Shikamaru automatically shouted to the others to join Neji before responding to the trio of kunoichis. They followed his lead.
As soon as they landed, Neji's spoke, "they went from being miles away to at the top of the cliff in a matter of seconds."
Shikamaru didn't need to spend much time wondering how they achieved that little feat, as if on cue, the three very bothersome women disappeared from the cliff and re-appeared in front of their group. Clad in blue, red, and green.
Shikamaru didn't feel like a fight, but it didn't seem like they were going to have a choice. He considered their team's position, they were now between three women intent on killing them and a giant chasm of spikes. He wondered if, perhaps, he had failed in his execution of teamwork that day.
A woman cloaked in blue, threw her large hat into the air. In spun in the space between their groups, then proceeded to unravel into over a dozen spiraling blades. Coming straight for them.
Neji whipped up an air palms defense, creating a protective sphere around the group. The blades ricocheted at its circumference, but the defense held.
"That's no fair." A voice shrieked.
Suddenly, the woman in green appeared at the center of their defense, grabbed Neji by the wrist and both disappeared. The protective sphere disappearing with them.
The woman in blue pointed at them, "now, let's try this again."
The spiraled blades came rushing at them from behind. Their three remaining team members moved to dodge, swerving right and left to avoid being sliced in two. Shikamaru extended his shadow hoping to immobilize the woman in blue, and thus her attack, but the rings moved too quickly. He struggled to complete a possession while also not getting hit by flying disks.
Shikamaru considered throwing his blade after the disks to buy time but doubted it would match their momentum. More likely it would just be a waste of Kunai.
From the edge of his periphery, he saw a large object collide with one of the disks. Sakura had begun using rocks as projectiles. The disk fell to the ground, pinned, but writhing beneath. By this, Shikamaru determined the woman in blue was controlling them, independent of type of motion.
"Choji," he shouted, "Sakura has the right idea, can you get her some more things to throw?"
"Right," he replied, then transformed into a giant human boulder, targeting the wall of stone at her back.
Unfortunately, the woman in blue seemed to also understand this suggestion, as she swept an arm, directing her disks directly in front of Choji's path of pursuit.
Sakura stopped him mere inches from being torn to shreds and shoved him to the ground.
"You," the woman in blue's voice had gone shrill as she pointed to where Sakura had landed, "you are getting on my nerves."
On cue, the woman in red bellowed and transformed into a massive creature of stone. Before Choji could block the attack, the stone woman charged at Sakura. She collided with stone wall as Sakura lurched forward, dashing ahead. The stone woman charged after, with pounding steps.
In moments, their team had been separated. Three fights, three different women. Shikamaru set his attention on the woman in blue, a thought just beginning to form. She wanted this.
He reached for his shadow, trying this time to capture the blue woman and halt her attacks, but she jumped backwards out of his shadow's immediate range. She watched him curiously and he searched for alternatives. It was the wrong time of day for the cliff to cash shadow, and he considered where to push her to extend his own range.
Choji had followed Sakura's lead of attempting to stone the attacking rings, though his aim proved less precise. The rings had begun collecting in a wide v shape, which from Choji's movements, Shikamaru decided must be the end of his friend's peripheral vision.
"Choji," Shikamaru called, and signaled to his friend to switch targets. Choji began a b-line toward the woman in blue and Shikamaru threw out shadows to where spinning rings had conveniently aligned. They held. But they weren't human. They revved against his strangle, centers of acceleration waiting for his grip to falter, he wouldn't be able to hold them all for long.
Choji had resorted to attacking full force, limbs and will extended, but Blue responded with equally nimble taijutsu, never letting him land a hit. Shikamaru's mind whirled with the possibility of what to do next, binding offshoots of combination attacks into a coherent plan. Then he felt the blade.
Shock radiated through his body as a loose disk sliced through his right side, followed by pain. Shikamaru collapsed into a mound to avoid a second attack, forcing the reach of his shadow to extend to the stray. Side searing, desperately keeping his hold of shadows, the game became clear. From the moment they had arrived, this woman had been listening to and watching him.
She divided their group because he had first instructed them to gather. She had removed Sakura at his decision to copy her technique. She had seen him signal to Choji to switch positions and intentionally held one of her disks in reserve, away from his reach. She didn't have a strategy; she was simply doing whatever necessary to sabotage his. She was practically following his command.
Had he more chakra, he would have just stopped talking. Fought her without betraying his lead, but the pool of blood at his feet and dizziness in the head refused to be ignored. He would need Choji's help to fight her. He needed an attack and a way to communicate that she wouldn't understand. Quick glances took stock of their landscape, she had fought well. He and Choji remained between her and a spiked pit, but she had kept her ground - refusing to be pushed far enough that they would have been able to escape. But he had been fighting with Choji since they were children, they didn't need her to go easy. And with that thought, he knew what to do.
"Choji!" He shouted, "do you remember when we got locked up in that land of Earth tower as kids?"
"Yeah, I remember," Choji returned between failed blows.
Without further explanation, Choji abandoned Blue and started toward Shikamaru, wreaking havoc to the cliffside on the way. As expected, Blue followed, though a bit slower - biding time to follow Shikamaru's next move. Just waiting for his next order. Choji charged, throwing boulders this way and that, reaching Shikamaru just in time for his shadow possession to break.
The disks spiraled wildly, but without specific attack. They, like Blue, were still waiting on orders.
Choji transformed into a human boulder, rolled in a circle at their pursuit, then directly toward the pit of spikes. He rolled off the edge followed by crashing sounds below. The metal disks shot after, Shikamaru recognized the sound of blade on rock.
Blue was on him now, chasing with a remainder of disks she had held in reserve.
Just as she extended an arm, signaling in his direction, she froze - captured in shadow. Choji's little rampage having created plenty of shadows from dislodged boulders. Shikamaru couldn't hold her for long, but that had never been his plan, he just needed to frighten her into acting rashly. His head spun, a signal from his body to remind his brain that he was still bleeding, he ignored this signal.
He released Blue seconds before he would have had no choice and bounded in the direction of the pit. He jumped, flailing for a moment while spinning his body. Halfway down his blade finally made contact with the wall. Quickly, he found a dent where Choji's blade had done the same, catching his friend while shifting between a human boulder and normal form. Below were several rocks Choji had dropped on his way down, and the first set of spinning blades now trapped in stone. Choji, of course, never having been anywhere near the treacherous bottom. But she didn't know that. She only knew to watch Shikamaru and copy him.
So when Blue launched herself into the ditch, it was with all the conviction he and Choji had been faking. Shikamaru watched as she made quick use of her nimble taijutsu, narrowly avoiding the spikes upon finally realizing that there was no hidden safety measure. But her rings were less quick to amend their path, she dodged and weaved, but the terrain was no longer friendly to her. One of her blades caught the end of her robe, pinning her down. All of her disks were tightly lodged into rocks, in the way that blades would be if instructed with full force conviction to shoot off a cliff at whatever was below.
She looked at him hanging on the wall while tearing at the fabric of her cloak, "where'd your friend go?"
Her answer came quickly as Choji sent a hundred, newly dislodged boulders flying in her direction from above. His aim still wasn't very good, but it was hard to miss a target pinned in place. Shikamaru watched Blue fall on her own blade under the crushing weight, a look of confusion still playing in her eyes. Shikamaru's head pounded, he hadn't really wanted to kill the bothersome women. He forced his eyes to stay open and dragged himself back up the wall.
Now, Shikamaru liked to believe that when he finally reached the top and then passed out, it was in a particularly manly sort of way. Not just a loser hanging out in a puddle of his own blood. Even if it were true.
As the world went black, he caught a glimpse of Choji's overly worried face. That image in mind along with their teamwork fighting Blue, Shikamaru thought vaguely of that day in the tower.
After endless hours of complaining, in the middle of the night, the guards had finally agreed to let them eat. Prisoner's food, but Choji didn't complain about the type of food. The earth-style user had been given the unhappy task of feeding the teenagers, one he clearly did not relish, so Shikamaru offered. He even shared a little clan secret to sweeten the proposition, his shadow jutsu didn't work without light. After putting out every light in the tower, the earth-style user had unchained Shikamaru and allowed him to feed his friend.
Choji had been thrilled, delightedly wolfing down every bite; he would need it, after all. In the dark of the tower, the earth-style user missed the little lock-pick at the bottom of the rations that the food preparation team had accidentally included during a momentary lapse of mind. Or, more accurately, extra person barging into their minds. Kitchens were often the easiest places to break into.
It hadn't taken long to secretly free Choji, who then made a show of demanding more food.
The earth-style user had groaned something about being too demanding and kids these days. As he moved to lock Shikamaru back in his chains, Choji yelled and expanded into a human boulder. Without further explanation, he rolled right through the side of the tower.
The earth-style user had thrown out an earth-style jutsu, trying to grab Choji mid-air in a grip of stones, instead, he heard a crashing sound below.
That time, the crashing sound had been Asuma dumping rocks or whatever. Choji was safe, hanging off the side of a building, from a kunai.
But the effect had been the same, the earth-style user had believed Choji had rolled right through the tower, straight to his death below. It was easy to be dramatic when you couldn't see all the way down. Served them right, Shikamaru thought, for always building up.
Rounding on Shikamaru, the earth-style user froze, suddenly unable to move.
With the tower now sporting a Choji sized hole, there was plenty of moonlight spilling in, which meant shadows. That, Shikamaru had made clear, was the real purpose of their little show. How Choji would later know that making a mess was the best way to help his friend work.
Realization of their dupe was barely starting to set in on the guard's features, now glowing in moonlight, when the other reason for that hole finally showed up.
Shikamaru watched as Ino jumped into the man's mind and Asuma stopped her body from falling off a building. Choji climbed back into the tower, Shikamaru released his shadow, and both clamped their shackles back into place.
Just in time for the rest of the guards to charge in.
"What is going on here," the first bellowed, immediately confused by the situation.
The Ino possessed body pointed directly at Choji and put on a show, "this one! This one right here! I had to entertain these two kids all day and listen to him complain non-stop about food. Then when I finally get them some food, he goes and demands more. I can't do it any more I just can't. I'm going to destroy this whole building if I have to spend one more moment with teenagers!"
Shikamaru had always hoped that Ino's penchant for throwing temper tantrums would pay off one day.
The other guards had gaped, entirely unsure how to react, eyes darting back and forth between the prisoners, the giant hole in their tower, and the rock fist still hanging out the window. One hovered a hand at the hilt of his blade, likely sensing something off about the situation.
Then Ino started crying. Mind you, she was crying out of a giant man's body, so the image was hard to forget. And while Shikamaru could recognize fake Ino tears anytime, anywhere, the other guards were less practiced in the art. They looked like they were being strangled as Ino began talking through sobs, "it's Masumi. She's so. She's so unhappy. I just love her so much and she's never happy. Man, what if she leaves me? What will I do then? And Yoko, what if she takes him with her? I should be there, with my kid, instead of babysitting these two babies." She started crying louder.
The man with his had on his sword had frowned, unphased by this display. He walked right up to Ino – in the large man's body – staring very closely, hand still playing on the hilt of his sword.
He brought a heavy hand down on Ino's still sobbing shoulder and spoke, "we get it dude."
Shikamaru had to admit, he had not actually expected that. But the man with Ino continued, "we've all been there. And Masumi, she's a good girl. We're all rooting for you two to work it out."
Ino sniffed dramatically as he continued, "but you can't just go punching through walls when you're upset, our builders work very hard on those walls."
Ino sniffed again, collecting her fake tears, "yeah, I know. I'm sorry, I didn't mean it man. It's just been such a long day, you know."
"I know. I know. And tell you what, if the kids are bothering you this much, I'll switch with you if you want. You go downstairs and I'll stay with the brats."
"Nah," Ino replied, "I think. I think I'm good now. Let me finish my shift, and the next one too. I really want to show that I'm sorry about the hole, make it up to you."
The guard and Ino stared at each other very seriously for a long time, then the guard clasped her arm, "that's a good man. Come on guys."
The other guards shouted encouraging things as they left.
"It'll be okay."
"Bring Yoko here, we'll straighten the kid out."
"Don't worry about it man."
Several minutes after they were gone, Asuma arrived with Ino's body and she released her jutsu. The earth-style user, still dazed from being possessed by a teenage girl, was out with one swift punch from Asuma. Their team made quick into the night, Asuma, for once, not terribly interested in setting off any more traps.
Outside of some minor congratulations, nobody talked about the scene they had just witnessed.
That was until Shikamaru's genius brain realized something, "why did you start crying in that guy's body?"
She had replied, hopping between rocks like a game, "I realized when I was in his body that being really angry was out of character for him. He has a break-down every other week, but he rarely breaks anything."
And with that, she answered his real question. Though, he asked it anyway, in case, by some miracle he had been wrong; "how did you know he has problems with his wife?"
She brushed it off, "it was all over his thoughts, all he does is think about her."
At that exact moment, Shikamaru wished he were back with the earth-style user. And he really wished that Choji hadn't followed this up with another question.
Choji, two and a half steps behind, innocently asked Ino, "did he show you his problems?"
Ino, also a two and a half steps behind, innocently answered, "no? They were just in there."
Choji continued, "wow Ino. I thought you could only see thoughts people allowed you to see. When did you learn to see the rest?"
"I don't know, a while ago," that had been the moment Ino caught up, finally aware of what she had given away "I mean today! I figured it out today. Just on my own, while I was in that guy's head." She laughed loudly and started talking absolute nonsense.
For the rest of the very long walk back to the leaf, Shikamaru had refused to make eye contact with her. Because she knew exactly what was all over his head and he did not want to talk about it.