Shikamaru crouched over Neji's meticulously drawn map of the Historian's estate, trying to force his brain to systematically work through the puzzle.

Complicated, Neji had called it.

Incredibly complicated.

Complicated wasn't even the half of it. No, complicated sounded like a long game of shogi, something that could ultimately be solved with clever planning and excellent execution. Shikamaru felt that a more accurate description of the thing should include phrases like extremely risky, a lot of work, full of traps, a little insane, oh, and a hazard to everyone's health. All types of things he normally went out of his way to avoid. Every path his mind traced, included at least three levels to cross just to get to "Ino". And now he was sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt – someone was expecting them. Because Ino was buried in the lowest room of the entire structure, in a section Neji had labeled with neat little print, "prison."

"I don't get it," Choji spoke valiantly.

"You idiot, how many times do I have to explain it?" Neji fumed, "the dashed lines there represent air tubes, the boxes are full rooms, the solid lines are passageways, the numbers indicate active chakra signatures at the time of drawing," Shikamaru tuned out. It was the fifth time Neji had tried to explain it and Shikamaru doubted that five would be the perfect number to make everything clear to Choji. After all, Neji's drawing was immaculate, it was the maze of chaos that made the mind mad.

"Um, uh-huh." Choji said, "so if that's where Ino is and that's the entrance, why don't we just follow that line straight to her. That seems easiest."

"Didn't you listen to a word I just said? Dashed lines are air tubes, we wouldn't fit!"

"Oh, well we could just make the air tube bigger. Sakura and I are good at digging."

Shikamaru cut in to save Neji's head from exploding, "we can't risk digging or breaking earth. We don't know the architecture well enough to keep the whole thing standing. For all we know, if we dig, we could cut off air to the room or bring the whole thing down on top of Ino."

Choji frowned, "but that's the only line that goes straight to Ino. The rest of them go to all these other places."

"Yeah," Shikamaru droned, "that's what we're trying to figure out."

Sakura placed a finger on the diagram, "What is this room? Why is there only one chakra signature?"

"It's some sort of exhibit hall, with monuments to different types of shinobi," Neji replied, "and it was the middle of the night."

Shikamaru had decided they only had four smart options for entry. This exhibit hall, a collection of ninja artifacts, a library, and some sort of room of rocks. All at a far enough distance from the center not to attract attention and each had its own system of metal vents they could use to break in. And all but the exhibit hall had been heavily guarded, even in the middle of the night.

Choji was now insisting on the single-person room, and Neji was protesting – too simple - something about a probable trap or incredibly skilled opponent. Then Choji was saying something about four against one, and they were at it again.

Shikamaru did not find their bickering helpful, his head was already spinning. To reach the person Neji thought could be Ino, they would have to get through one of the entry points, cross a city of women, break into the Historian's personal quarters, then get into a prison cell. Oh, then they had to do it all in reverse to get back out. And as one of their highest mission priorities was to avoid creating an international incident, they needed to do it without getting caught. Even though, the Historian clearly knew Ino was important enough to be kept, prisoner.

"What are you thinking about?" Neji was addressing him now.

Shikamaru knew that he was in charge of the plan, so whatever he said next, everyone would listen. He thought for a moment longer before speaking, "the problem isn't the number of guards or even their skill level," he pointed to a dot on the page, "it's these."

"What were those again?" Choji asked.

"Chakra encoded locks," Neji answered, clearly irritated, "like the one Sakura showed us in the hospital."

"Can't we just break the locks?"

"The locks are built into the walls," Neji continued, "if you break the locks, you risk damaging the internal structure."

Shikamaru nodded and explained further, "which means we not only need to bypass every locked door, but we also need to find the correct person to open each chakra encoded lock. For some, I think we can take a pretty good guess who has access. But for rooms like this," he pointed to the room of rocks, "there are eight separate locks that each have to be unlocked to get the door to open. Even if we somehow figure out exactly which eight people to get to open the locks, and that's a big if, we would still have to test their chakra with locks up to forty-five separate times to get the right combination."

"It's worse than that," Sakura added, "for locks that require combination users, all parties trying to enter have to use their chakra at the same time."

Shikamaru groaned, "okay, make that over forty thousand combinations to try to get the locks open. And that's still assuming we can even figure out which eight people to grab in the first place." Shikamaru considered how helpful it would be to have someone on their team who could jump into a mind, maybe figure out that type of information for them.

"So, what you're saying," Choji beamed, "is that you agree with me! We should go for the room with the one person."

"I'm saying we don't have a choice," Shikamaru replied, "even though I agree with Neji, if the security is that low, we need to prepare for a tough battle and a trap. We can break into the vent system for the hall of shinobi. I'm guessing it's used for some sort of temperature control, but because there are so many levels of metal grates, I'm also guessing it was built to keep dirt out. Because it's built to withstand outside elements, it should be safe to use blunt force on without breaking anything else, Choji and Sakura can get us in."

This led to the fresh horrors on the second level – the city of women. Shikamaru shuttered just at the idea, according to Neji's notes they were looking at almost three hundred unique chakra signals. Not even in his very worst nightmares was Shikamaru subjected to having to deal with that many women.

"Okay," Choji said a little too confidently, "how do we fight them?"

"The trick won't be to fight them," Shikamaru replied, because fighting three hundred kunoichis sounded like a bad plan any day, but especially now, "the trick will be to blend in." He had already thought through this portion, the four of them would use the transformation jutsu to impersonate whoever they took down in the shinobi exhibit hall as well as the three kunoichis they had faced when entering the land of earth – Blue and her team.

"What makes you so sure that they were working with the Historian?" Sakura asked, "is it just because they were all women? I've worked on an all kunoichi team before."

"Not just that, it's their fighting styles." Shikamaru thought back to his little raccoon realization. "Sakura, if you got stuck in a cave, how would you get out?"

She frowned, "I would break a wall."

Shikamaru turned to Choji, "Choji if you got stuck in a cave, how would you get out?"

He brightened as if this were the one question he knew the answer to, "I would also break a wall."

"Okay," Shikamaru continued, "Sakura if you heard a loud sound in the trees behind you and thought you were going to be attacked from behind, what would you do?"

"I would switch to more evasive techniques. Get out of the way of whatever is coming, before deciding if I should attack head-on."

"And what would you do, Choji?"

Choji looked less certain about his answer now, "I would knock down the trees?"

"Last one," Shikamaru promised, "Sakura if you were being chased by, hypothetically, a bunch of raccoons, what would you do?"

"Raccoons?" she looked at him skeptically.

He wished he had picked some other small fluffy animal for the example, "just, hypothetically."

"I guess if I couldn't handle, raccoons," she paused and stared at him, "I would try to run away, hide, set traps. I don't know, why am I afraid of raccoons anyway?"

"There's a lot of them," Shikamaru replied, turning to Choji, "Choji, in this hypothetical situation, what would you do?"

"Well, I tried turning into a boulder, but Ino didn't like that."

"Wait, you three actually got chased by a bunch of raccoons?" Sakura asked, suppressing a laugh.

"I wondered how you came up with the idea," Neji added unhelpfully.

"That's not the point. And we were kids." Shikamaru crossed his arms in irritation, "the point is that despite the fact that Sakura and Choji are both close-range direct force fighters, they approach situations differently. Sakura, you vary your responses a lot more because you're a more general fighter, Lady Tsunade trained you to be evasive but to also have a range of different attacks if you need them. Choji was intensively trained in one specialized set of secret techniques, so his instinct is to problem solve using those techniques. All the women we have faced so far, including the women who confronted us when we entered the land of Earth, fight like Choji, Ino, and me. Highly specialized, and they don't vary their attacks much to different situations."

Shikamaru had finally recognized the pattern when he had the women trapped in the cavern. It was highly unusual to not have a single jutsu in a team capable of breaking through stone, but it was exactly the type of problem that Shikamaru and Ino had when traveling on missions together. They were both so specialized in their attacks, that they had to go out of their way to avoid environment-based challenges. It wasn't their specialty. Without a mind for Ino to jump into or a situational element for Shikamaru to manipulate, they were near defenseless. If Shikamaru remembered correctly from old clan lectures he definitely didn't sleep through, it was the very reason the Akimichi clan had joined their family alliance.

Shikamaru continued to explain his plan. They knew Blue's scout team hadn't made it back, and at the speed their team had been traveling, they were likely arriving around when the scout team was to be expected. So, all they needed to do was imitate the look of the person they had fought and avoid attention as much as possible. Then, when they had crossed the city of women, they would have to break into a staircase leading directly to the Historian's personal rooms.

"This is where I get stuck," he pointed to a dot representing a chakra encoded lock to the Historian's quarters. "I'm going to guess that there's only one person who has unlimited access to that part of the estate, and I don't know how we're going to get to the guy to open his door for us."

"We may not have to," Sakura crossed her arms, "if the locks are anything like the ones at the hospital, they're advanced, but far from perfect."

She went on to explain that the locks have minor faults. Impossible for most people to take advantage of, but for someone with extremely refined chakra control (like, perhaps, a well-trained medical ninja) it was possible. They would just need a sample from the person who has access – hair, skin, blood – and enough time to work on it. This still left the problem of having to get a sample from the Historian but at least they wouldn't have to just knock and hope he lets them in.

Shikamaru thought on this, intent on avoiding the Historian by any means possible. The last thing he needed was for the guy to add Sakura to his little collection. Blood. He thought back to a seemingly useless conversation he had heard the night prior about a birthday party. "What about a child? A direct decedent of the Historian."

Sakura furrowed a brow in concentration, "maybe. In theory, it could work."

So, they added grab and sedate a kid to the list. Someone would then transform into that child and hang around the city of women, in case anyone came looking for the kid. Then it was up to the others to buy Sakura time to work on the lock.

Choosing who to keep stationed in the city of women was a challenge. Sakura would be busy working on the locks and Shikamaru wanted to keep Neji's eyes with the group the whole time. Whoever stayed behind would have to maintain cover, hide a sedated child, eventually switch places with said sedated child, and it would also be helpful if the person could also collect information. A backup plan for getting out of the place, as they fully expected to be walking into a trap. Choji was good with kids but not as good with undercover work. "I guess this is where I stay behind," Shikamaru finally said.

The group looked to protest but ultimately didn't say anything. Neji could lead them.

Once inside the Historian's quarters, the other three would rely heavily on Neji's byakugan to avoid anyone in the area. By far, the least involved or thought-out portion of their little plan, but no one knew enough about the area to improve it. And Shikamaru allowed this degree of uncertainty because even in the middle of the night, Neji had only detected one chakra signal coming from the room. If this was true during the day as well, avoiding the Historian altogether might just be possible.

Inside a small closet at the back of the Historian's chambers, there was a wardrobe. Inside that wardrobe was a small door leading to a hallway, leading to some sort of prison. One way in, one way out. The prison had eight distinct chakra signatures, all in chains. One of which Neji believed to be Ino. A passage was so well hidden that without Neji, Shikamaru doubted their team would have ever found it.

Neji had said he couldn't see any chakra encoded locks inside the prison, so Shikamaru gave Choji a lockpick. If the cells were old-fashioned enough, Choji would just be able to break them with a blunt force attack, but it was better to be prepared. Once inside the cell, in theory, they would unchain Ino, Sakura would heal the body if needed, and Ino would release her own jutsu. Then Sakura, Neji, and Choji will retrace their steps back out through the city of women, switch the kid back with Shikamaru, and the four of them exit the way they came in.

Unfortunately, this was all conjecture. It was entirely possible that their team could get there and find some other woman with a lot of chakra in her head. Then they would have to work through a whole new plan. Shikamaru regretted that he wouldn't be with the group if this were the case.

The team took a moment to swap cautions, trying to poke holes in the plan. But there weren't a lot of alternatives. Complicated, dangerous, full of traps, insane, a whole lot of work, and with a whole lot of uncertainty built right in. Shikamaru didn't like it, but he also acknowledged that they had quite the team for the job. Neji had the best sensory skills in their village, able to keep eyes on an entire underground city at once, Sakura was tripling up on roles as lock-pick, mobile sedation tool, and just in case medic, and Choji had a skill set practically tailor-made for breaking past simple barriers and close-range combat. Shikamaru trusted this team and was starting to accept that, maybe, Kakashi had put some thought into who he included after all.

"There's something else," Shikamaru said, "I've been thinking about what Sakura said to us about how this all got started. We should probably be careful about future confrontations with the women living on the estate."

"What do you mean, be careful with them?" Neji asked.

"We're trying to avoid an international event at all costs. If a bunch of powerful people put together an operation to assassinate the Historian after their wives willingly left with the guy, there's probably a lot of trouble down the line for anyone who kills their wives."

With that final happy thought, they were off.

Once they had traced back through the maze of the Historian's estate to the shinobi exhibit, Choji and Sakura made easy work of the first level of the vent. With their combined strength, they were able to pry open the massive metal grid, enough for the rest of their group to climb inside. Shikamaru stared down into the dark and stepped off the ledge. He estimated the fall to be approximately one floor and landed hard on a second metal grate. Beside him, he heard Neji and Sakura land with considerably more grace. Choji expanded his arms to climb down and re-position the first vent behind them, bringing as little attention to their entry point as possible.

Shikamaru and Neji climbed to the very edge of the railing, allowing space for Choji and Sakura to repeat the process. And they did, over and over, one grate at a time.

As they descended, each level had a little less sunlight and cold crept at the senses. They plunged deeper and deeper into the dark and Shikamaru felt his mind drift back to the last time he had seen Ino. And for the first time since leaving, he allowed himself to remember.

The whole ridiculous mess started at a ramen shop with Choji.

"You know, I really think you should ask her out."

Now, a little-known fact about Choji, was that he was quite capable of being persistent if he cared enough about the issue and knew the person well enough to bring it up. Food was just one example of this, but over the years this list also managed to include pushing Asuma to work fewer hours, Naruto to stop calling Shikamaru lazy, and unfortunately, Shikamaru to ask Ino out.

Shikamaru wasn't sure what, exactly, had prompted this new bout of persistence. Some sort of sudden realization on Choji's part involving nonsense logic had led him to decide that Ino was apparently waiting on Shikamaru and that's why she wasn't dating anyone. Then, according to Choji logic, because Ino was a pretty girl, Shikamaru should try to date her. And then his two friends would both be happy. Simple as that, apparently. Shikamaru disliked the conversations, in general. But as they were now having these conversations in public locations, in front of other people – with ears, he was pretty sure he needed to put a stop to it.

"Choji," Shikamaru had groaned, "can we please not talk about this anymore? Especially right here?"

"But all the best conversations happen over a tasty bowl of ramen," Choji said while slurping down his third of these tasty bowls. "And I really think Ino likes you, so you don't need to be shy or worried she'll say no or something."

"Dude!" Bark. Shikamaru turned to the very unwelcomed sight of Kiba and Akamaru right behind them, "you're going out with Ino. Very nice."

At that point, Shikamaru gave up on censoring Choji and went with the very reliable bury your head in your own arms and hope everyone around you goes away.

"They're not dating," Choji corrected. Because of course, he did. "Shikamaru doesn't want to ask her out, but I don't think he should be so worried. She already likes him."

"How do you know?" Kiba. And what was that? Was that the sound of him pulling up a chair? Shikamaru groaned to make his opinion on the matter clear.

"She brings him lunch," Choji replied confidently.

Baited, Shikamaru replied to this from his terribly clever hiding spot, "she also brings you lunch."

"They go on missions together."

"We all go on missions together. Have been since we were kids."

"She doesn't yell at him as much as when we were kids."

"Debatable."

"She talks to him, in his head."

"She used to talk to you that way too, until you told her it felt weird."

"She smiles when we all hang out together."

Shikamaru lifted his head just enough to glare. They weren't just nonsense reasons; they also sounded a little pathetic.

Choji slurped more soup, "she's just being shy."

This was probably the most absurd of Choji's points, "when," Shikamaru asked, "has Ino ever been shy about what she wanted?"

Choji ignored him and spoke to Kiba, "He doesn't get it. Ino gets asked out all the time, practically every time we all get dinner together, some guy is flirting with her. And she never says yes."

Shikamaru really wanted this new persistence to die. What had he done to deserve this exactly?

"That's something," Kiba had replied, "but I'm kind of with Shikamaru on this one. It still sounds like it could go either way."

Shikamaru decided that he liked Kiba a little better.

"Ooooh, what you need to do is test it out," Kiba declared.

"How do you do that?" Choji asked.

"Simple, if you want to know if a girl likes you, just ask out another girl."

And Shikamaru decided he didn't like Kiba anymore. "That sounds pretty counter-intuitive to me," he mumbled.

"And you're supposed to be the genius," Kiba slapped Shikamaru's arm and Akamaru barked, "listen, girls expect the guy to make a move until there's competition. If you ask someone else out and Ino's super into it and trying to set you two up, then she's not into you. But if she does like you, she'll be pissed. And the best part is, by asking someone else out, you give the girl someone to let all that anger out on, so it doesn't have to be you."

Limiting her anger to one person. That last little bit explained it. Apparently, Kiba had just never met Ino Yamanaka.

"Wow," Choji said, "you're really smart Kiba."

"Yeah, I am."

Shikamaru couldn't say he agreed, "what do you do about the whole other girl you're now dating?"

"Not a problem," Kiba made a sweeping gesture, "you just make it a casual thing, so you don't have to commit to a second date or anything. Then you can ask Ino out. Oh, but is that like weird, with your clans and stuff?"

"No, his mom just wants him to marry anyone at this point. And Ino is a person." Choji added oh so kindly.

While Choji was not objectively wrong that time - Ino was a person as far as they all knew - Shikamaru was very tired of the conversation. And he had ignorantly thought he was done with it, until a week later when Choji announced that he had done everything just like Kiba said.

Apparently, Choji had gone up to every girl he could find after eating that day and asked them if they would go on a date with his super cool friend, Shikamaru. And after twenty-seven no's – ah yes, after avoiding women for his entire life, Shikamaru had managed to be rejected by twenty-seven women in one day – someone said yes. Choji had then not only set up a date for Shikamaru, but he set it up during their team's dinner plans. Plus, to make things better, he had already told Ino, Shikamaru was bringing a date. And, the very best part, because Shikamaru had shut down all public gathering areas, Choji had asked Ino if they could all pick up food together and then do the whole thing at her family's flower shop.

It was at this point in the conversation, Shikamaru had considered assigning himself to a mission so he could get out of the whole thing, Hokage's orders. Unfortunately, Hokage's orders were for him to sit and play planning committee. But he sure tried to get out of it. They were right in the middle of the Historian's visit, he was busy. He didn't have time for any of it. He wasn't feeling well. He was nervous. But Choji was so persistent on the matter. Protesting eventually proved to be too much work. So, somehow, entirely not understood to Shikamaru's genius mind, he ended up at a stall to pick up food for the most awkward date of his life.

And surprising absolutely nobody, Kiba was dead wrong about that targeted aggression. It took all of two seconds for Shikamaru to realize Ino was not happy, but she wasn't sparing anyone of that negativity, least of all him.

She had arrived early and had her face buried in a menu when Shikamaru arrived. Absurd, given that they had been coming to eat there for over a decade, no one needed the menu. But she still refused to look up. "You're late."

He was not late. But he also was smart enough not to disagree. Little voice in his head telling him to shut up or something. Unfortunately, he was not smart enough to run for it, right then and there.

"Where's your date."

Shikamaru had vaguely said she was coming later, though he didn't actually know. Choji had not found it important to share details like how the girl would get there, what time she would get there, if she would get there, if this had all just been a big joke, her likes, her dislikes, her name. Stuff like that, that might have been helpful. Really, he didn't know anything about lucky number twenty-eight except that twenty-seven girls from the hidden leaf disagreed with her life decisions. So, they spent time in silence.

Eventually, Choji and lucky number twenty-eight showed up. Shikamaru contemplated an introduction, it seemed very rude to never learn her name and it might clear him from any association with the whole plot of an evening, but it was also a little embarrassing to admit that he had never met the woman. Oh, and that he had been informally rejected twenty-seven times before she came along. In the end, he decided to say nothing.

And the silence was not improved by the two additions to their party. Uncomfortable and very much wishing that Kiba would learn to mind his own business, Shikamaru eventually decided that, he too, should spend some time reading the menu.

Once they had decided what to order, surprise - the same thing they had been ordering since they were seven years old, Choji began feeble attempts at a conversation.

"Ino, have you met Shikamaru's date?" he tried.

She smiled and spoke through her teeth, "no Choji, I have not met Shikamaru's date."

Choji, missing the cue to tread carefully, smiled and carried on, "well they just met the other day, but she came to meet us since we're a team and all."

"Yeah," Ino looked at him then Choji, "a team."

Twenty-eight nodded politely, "nice to meet you, Ino."

"Likewise."

Shikamaru marveled at their exchange, wondering how much longer they could sustain a conversation without actually saying twenty-eight's name. They would, in fact, continue in this way for the rest of the miserable evening. So, for the rest of his life, he would remember the most awkward date of his life as being with some woman he named twenty-eight.

Ino and twenty-eight continued their name-less conversation as they walked to the flower shop.

"How did the two of you meet?"

"Through Choji."

"How did it get so serious?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"Any exciting upcoming plans?"

"Not really."

After reaching the flower shop, they sat in silence, again.

Twenty-eight had eventually taken to picking at her food in discomfort, Shikamaru enviously stared out the window, at people didn't have to be in the middle of whatever this was, Ino had started complaining about work and nagging Choji for his eating habits, and Choji enjoyed his food.

After another thirty minutes of pure torture, twenty-eight spoke very quietly. "It was nice to meet you all, but I need to get going. My clan has a curfew for me tonight."

Ino had laughed, "yeah, you can blame Shikamaru for that."

Twenty-eight looked confused, "what do you mean?"

"The Historian," Ino replied, mockingly, "out to get you."

"The Historian?" twenty-eight asked cautiously.

Shikamaru glared at her in warning, she knew not to discuss the things she learned in his head with others. But she continued, "the Historian. The Leaf's big visitor. Famous for making all the girls fall in love with him."

"Ino," Shikamaru darkened his tone, trying to get her to shut up before she said something really bad. Twenty-eight probably already knew too much.

Ino ignored him, "So Shikamaru ordered us to be locked up or shipped out."

"Ino!"

"What!" She glared at him, "it's not like you actually know anything about the guy."

"That's not the point."

She feigned shock, "worried I'm going to say something too speculative to your date? That she might learn something that nobody even knows for certain is true?"

Shikamaru remembered standing up at that point, "you're out of line, Ino."

"Whatever," she had grabbed a bag and stormed out of her own flower shop.

Shikamaru watched her leave, a little afraid. For all their years working stealth missions together, Ino never spoke out of turn with confidential information. He had been considering confronting her about it, when twenty-eight came up to him to say goodnight.

"I had a nice time," Shikamaru assumed she was lying, "but I need to go now."

She started in the direction opposite to where Ino had just stormed off.

Choji appeared at his side as he watched her walk away. "Sorry man, I guess I was wrong. Ino seemed to get along fine with your date. But she seemed pretty mad at you."

Shikamaru patted his friend's arm, not even a little happy that at least one of them had had a nice evening.

Then, because technically, he had instated the curfew and because it seemed messed up to make her walk home alone, and because there was still a crazy man around collecting women, he ran after twenty-eight and walked her home.

A night that Shikamaru considered incredibly complicated. Not to mention risky, a lot of work, insane, and a hazard to his health. Should have been avoided. And if Shikamaru had been paying attention to that little voice in his head that had been telling him to shut up all evening, he would have just gone to bed and the night would have been over. But no, he hadn't been quite that wise. The world's most awkward date was just how it all began.

A/N: Well, that's the end of the beginning. I guess I actually have to start writing a heist now (leaves to watch The Thieves a few times, for research). Thank you to everyone who has left a review, I'm still getting used to writing on this platform (not secret OneNote notebooks that shall never be found) and the feedback has extremely helpful in polishing up details. I'm going to go back and clean up older chapters... while watching The Thieves...