The Wanderers
Chapter 23 – Shikamaru – War in Suna
A/N: I've updated the first chapter of this story, since it was pretty crap. I have no shame in admitting it was bad writing, but I removed the flashbacks. It doesn't contain any new information, but I'd like to think it makes it easier for new people to start with this story.
Also apologies for the lateness. I'm back at university, so I haven't had as much time to write as I would like.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If I did, there would be some casualties in war. It's war damnit!
***Previously-On***
After being captured by the Suna shinobi and imprisoned on false accusations, Shikamaru was thrown into a dark prison underneath the Hidden Village of Sand. Making friends with the only other prisoner in the jail cells, Shikamaru was both beaten and interrogated at the hands of the Suna ANBU, who refused to listen to his statements about being set up. After a month of imprisonment, and physical training since he had nothing better to do, three figures appeared within the prison. They revealed themselves as the three Sand Siblings, Temari, Gaara and Kankuro, who had been on an undercover mission to discover why there were food problems in the country. After a long discussion, in which Shikamaru took a large risk and revealed all that had happened since the last time he had seen them in the Chuunin Exams, they took him out of the prison. On the road in their pursuit of the Kazekage's trail, Shikamaru and Temari resolved their previous grievance, though the Nara heir was still thoroughly confused by the blonde's interactions with him. Using an underground tunnel to cut through the terrain in the Land of Fire, the four of them found a building that they knew the missing Kazekage. They found a red-armoured warrior and the Kazekage encased in solid gold, and after a decisive but quick battle they defeated the chakra nullifying warrior, and after finding that their father was still alive they realised that the whole situation was a trap to draw the three siblings from their village. With their father in their hands, sealed by his own technique, the Suna Siblings and Shikamaru make haste back to the Hidden Village of Sand.
***End Summary***
***Five Months after Separation****
Upon leaving the building, the four of them considered their options. Shikamaru and Temari worked on figuring out how long it would take them to get back to the village, at full pace they calculated it would still take over a day, which they suspected was too long. Without a word Gaara had begun to collect large amounts of sand beneath their feet, while Kankuro analysed their father's golden statue. It had been made clear that it was a technique that had accumulated his golden dust around him to prevent him from being attacked, but none of them had seen it on this scale before. Without shattered the gold itself, which was nearly impossible, Kankuro saw no way of releasing his father.
"We could take the tunnels again, but even then it'll take too long. The village is probably being attacked now, or very soon."
Shikamaru frowned as they watched large columns of sand collect around their little group, a sand arm reaching out to grab at the Kazekage's statue. "What are you doing Gaara?"
He got no response but after a few moments he felt the ground beneath his feet shake. Looking down he noticed that underneath the four of them was a patch of dense sand that had begun to rise slowly from the ground, carrying them and the statue high above the ground.
So we'll travel by sand. That might gain us an hour or two.
Temari turned to her younger brother while simultaneously unfurling her large fan. "We're going with that?"
Gaara offered her no response, resolving to concentrate on raising the sand platform carrying them above the surrounding tree line. Kankuro tightened the bands holding his puppets before sitting down and crossing his legs. Temari positioned herself at the back of their group while Gaara moved the sand to angle them facing the direction that the Suna village was in.
It took Shikamaru a few seconds before he realised what they had planned, his eyes widening in surprise, he hadn't thought of something so basic. "Wait…won't we fall off?"
His question was answered without a word from the others, small locks of sands emerging from the platform to attach his feet to their floating floor. He looked around to see that the others were similarly locked in place, the golden Kazekage laying next his youngest son, who had resolved to stand with his arms crossed in his usual stoic position.
Gaara took a few more seconds to ensure that they had a clear path before turning his head slightly, still staring forward. "Whenever you are ready, Temari."
The kunoichi smirked as she began to mould chakra through her arms. "All passengers please keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times. Warning, this ride will contain turbulence."
Shikamaru moved to plant a hand on his face, but before he could complete the action he almost collapsed to the sandy ground as Temari waved her fan in the opposite direction they were facing.
"Daigenwakukaze!" (Great Blinding Wind)
oOoOoOo
They travelled through the air at a speed Shikamaru hadn't thought possible, the ground beneath them was a blur of green and brown as they drew closer to the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind. Temari only had to occasionally wave her fan to maintain their speed, the Kazekage's daughter grinning wildly as her ponytails flicked about with the movement of the platform.
"I have a question, Nara Shikamaru."
Having finally orientated himself to the intense speed of their sand platform, Shikamaru struggled to turn himself so he could look at the standing sand-user. "Something you want to know, Gaara?"
He could tell that stoic sand user held very little opinion about him, but there was something about the reserved Suna Jounin that forced him to re-evaluate his initial impressions of the tailed beast container.
"After discovering your destroyed village, why did you not turn around and seek assistance from Sunagakure?"
Shikamaru sighed and moved slightly in a vain attempt to mitigate the wind slamming into his face. "We considered it, but it wasn't a viable option. After all, at that time we had no information on who had destroyed our home, and we couldn't rule anyone out. I'm not so sure we can now."
"So you didn't trust us."
"Of course not. But then again, out of all the possibilities we considered, Suna had the most to gain from Konoha's destruction. Just look at how far your village has progressed in the past year."
"I didn't know you felt that way" said Temari, sitting down with an angry look on her face.
Shikamaru didn't respond, he knew when he would be digging his own grave, but he could tell there was a touch of pain in her voice that he knew he would pay for later.
"Hmm…you are wiser than I thought, Nara Shikamaru."
oOoOoOo
He hadn't thought it possible, but after an hour of high speed travel they moved into the desert air, speeding through waves of brown and grey beneath them.
"How much further?" asked Shikamaru, trying to see if he could see any signs of battle.
At the back Temari let out another gust of wind before leaning on her fan. "Half an hour, maybe less. We've caught onto the back of a draft, so we've made good time."
"What's the plan then?" asked Kankuro from the side.
Temari looked out over the desert in front of them. "If that warrior signalled to his allies the moment we entered the area, then the village is probably already under attack."
"How do you think they'll attack?" asked Shikamaru.
Ensuring that her fan wasn't going to blow away in the air, Temari pulled out a small piece of paper from her kimono, using both hands to keep it on the solid sand platform. Kankuro leant over and held it down while Temari pointed to the entrance marked on the map of the Hidden Village of Sand. "There's only one way to attack Suna on a large scale. Our village was built in a chasm that is unclimbable on the sides, forcing large enemy forces to only be able to attack through the bottleneck at the entrance. The only other way to attack is infiltration, which is still extremely difficult."
Shikamaru frowned as he looked over the plans, she was right in that he could see no way for a large amount of enemy forces to breach the high walls, but he could see that small numbers could attempt to scale the walls under the cover of darkness and there was little Suna could do about it, but he didn't think that was how they would be attacked.
They'll want to make a show of it. Konoha was a stealthy destruction, where nobody knew who they were or what their motivations were. In this circumstance they have revealed both themselves and almost entirely revealed what their plans were surrounding this village. It speaks to their confidence, or their arrogance. Whatever happens…it won't end well.
Quietly he looked at his three companions, noticing their relatively calm demeanour. Gaara was stoic as usual, but even Kankuro and Temari seemed unsettled by the coming battle.
Should I be in this fight? I have no loyalty to Suna. But…if Suna were to disappear, in a similar manner to Konoha, then the balance of the shinobi world would be completely messed up. That would cause issues for everyone, not just us.
His eyes rested on the wind user of the group, Shikamaru doing his best not to get noticed as he looked at her green eyes.
And then there is that reason…but that…even I don't understand that…
Shikamaru blinked several times, waiting for the sand platform to slow down to get a proper look. "Well…it doesn't look destroyed."
"No…perhaps they fought them off" commented Kankuro, still preparing his chakra strings at the tips of his fingers.
Temari looked down at the village with curiosity. "No signs of damage…I think we got here before the battle."
She indicated for Gaara to take them to the hospital, "Our first priority is healing Father. We can concentrate on defending the village once he is secure."
Gaara wordlessly began to move the sand to the centre of the village, noticing that there were civilians that were staring up at them from the streets. Children in parks were pointing and cheering, their parents trying to pull them away. He knew he was still feared by the civilians of the village, they still thought of him as the demon container. But the shinobi of the village had slowly come to realise that Gaara had a large amount of control over his tailed beast, and they understood his commitment to the village.
They landed near the entrance of the hospital, both Temari and Shikamaru hopping off while Gaara lowered his father's statue between them. "Kankuro and I will see to the entrance."
The two of them flew off on top of the sand towards the twin cliffs that decorated the entrance to the shinobi village. Shikamaru watched them go for a few seconds before looking over at Temari and finally resting his eyes on the golden Kazekage. He thought about it for a moment before turning to his female companion, putting up a closed hand. "Odds or evens?"
Temari just glared at him with her green eyes before placing her fan on her back and walking through the open doors of the hospital. Shikamaru pulled his hand down and watched the blonde disappear into the hospital. He looked over at the statue with a sigh. "I guess I'll carry him then."
oOoOoOo
"Something is wrong" observed Kankuro, telling Gaara to move them to the centre line to convene with a Sand Jounin waving them down.
The sand user moved them to the ground and stepped off the sand platform while Kankuro looked over at the Sand forces standing guard at the stairs around them. The Jounin saluted the two of them quickly; they noticed he was one of the older Jounin, so it surprised them to be saluted at.
"Gaara-san, Kankuro-kun, you are just in time. Were you able to retrieve the Kazekage?"
Kankuro nodded slowly, to the relief of the shinobi around them, while Gaara asked for a report on their current situation. While he was the youngest Jounin in the Suna forces, being the most prominent of the Kazekage's children granted him a level of respect among the shinobi of their village.
A Jounin with a scar across his face indicated to the outside desert area with a gloved finger. "There is a strange person standing in the middle of the desert. He's been there for over an hour and hasn't moved."
Beside his younger brother Kankuro frowned and placed his hands on his sides. "And you haven't engaged him?"
"No. We haven't been able to confirm it, but we believe him to be a powerful enemy that we shouldn't underestimate. We were just about to order an evacuation into the tunnels."
Kankuro went to say something to the shinobi, but was cut off when he saw Gaara moving towards the desert. He frowned as he ran past the guards to catch up to his younger brother, both of them quietly counting the forces covering the entrance. By their calculation, almost 90% of their standing forces manned the walls, several hundred shinobi of varying strength levels. Suna wasn't known for their numbers, not like Konoha once was, but they prided themselves on the strength of their individual shinobi. It was still a frightening show of strength, and caused the puppet-user to question who might be facing against them to inspire such fear.
The desert opened up before them, both of them taking positions at the front of the shinobi army and looked out to see who was standing against them. It appeared to be a single figure as the guard had said, though he didn't look imposing in the slightest, at least not from a distance. Kankuro squinted to get a better view of the figure, while Gaara made note of the fact that there was no wind at all around the man. He appeared to be quite young, not much older than Gaara from Kankuro's perspective, with a short head of red hair and seemingly dead brown eyes with a stoic expression that put Gaara to shame. What drew his interest was the black robe that the red-haired man was wearing, one that had red and white clouds scattered across it.
"I don't understand, why this show of force for one boy?" asked Kankuro, wondering why so many of their fellow shinobi were so afraid of this one person.
Gaara folded his arms and removed the top off of his gourd with a trail of sand. "It is surprising that you don't recognise him, Kankuro. He created your puppets."
Kankuro's eyes widened as he realised who the red haired shinobi faced them was. He had recognised the cloak from Shikamaru's story, but he hadn't realised that such a figure was still around, let alone looking that young. "Sasori of the Red Sands…why is he here?"
Collecting sand underneath his feet before rising off the ground, Gaara began to motion to the shinobi around them. "It doesn't matter. He is a missing shinobi from our village."
With a burst of chakra, Gaara shot forward straight across the desert, not looking back to see whether his orders had been followed or not. He halted a dozen feet away from Sasori's static position, a large cloud of sand surrounding his head while he stared at the red-haired missing shinobi.
Sasori slowly looked up at the hovering sand user with a dead look on his face, Gaara realising that his brown eyes were actually a dull red colour, and there was something that made even him cautious. He started mixing his gourd's sand with the sand around him, to increase the strength of his natural defence. "Why are you here, Sasori of the Red Sands?"
The famous puppet user barely moved as he cocked his head slightly. "Th…full…mu…proc…" It appeared to be a struggle for the red head to speak, but Gaara could hear an odd metallic sound in his voice.
He didn't flinch as his sand shield instinctively moved to cover his face, the sand user's eyes darkening as he realised he hadn't seen the attack coming at all, Sasori hadn't appeared to have moved at all. The robe-wearing shinobi shifted his arms slightly, and at that moment Gaara realised what had happened to the ex-Suna shinobi. With a large gesture he shot back towards the rest of the Suna shinobi, a large waterfall of sand covering his escape. Normally Gaara was not one to retreat, particularly since he was so strong against puppet-users, but there was an observation that he needed to inform the rest of the village about.
oOoOoOo
Shikamaru waited in the lobby and flicked his thumbs in boredom. He had been expecting them to drop into a war zone, or to be sent to the battle, but here he was sitting in a hospital waiting room while the Suna villagers glared at him as they walked past.
What the hell am I doing? I've done my part in guiding them through the Land of Fire, but now what?
He looked up to see Temari walking towards him, shaking her head as she sat down next to him.
"Bad news?"
"Damn incompetent doctors. They have no way of releasing Father without killing him inside the gold."
"Hn…"
Shikamaru looked outside the hospital doors, seeing a large group of villagers running around in front of the hospital. "What is going on?" he asked, noticing a strange pattern within the chaos.
Temari lent past him so that she could get a better view. "An evacuation by the looks of it. But they only do this when there is an attack from within the village and they need to get the civilians into the tunnels."
Pushing herself up from her knees, she bumped him on the shoulder with a fist. "We should go have a look."
Shikamaru watched her walk away, taking note of a slight swagger in her steps beneath her black kimono. A part of him wanted to just sit there and let them sort out their own problems, but there was something else that he felt, one that he couldn't explain. It was powerful enough to force him to his feet and follow her out of the hospital.
Is it that I'm too lazy to be lazy? No that just sounds stupid.
Once they were out of the hospital, Temari grabbed at the nearest civilian she could find, asking in her most polite tone to tell them what was going on. The young man initially went to shrug her off, until he saw who she was, which caused him to shiver in fear and place up his hands defensively.
"Temari-sama! You have to leave this area immediately! There's a bunch of crazy people attacking the village a few blocks away!"
The kunoichi let him go once he pointed to the direction he was talking about, the young man quickly fleeing the area with another group of fearful civilians. Temari and Shikamaru shared a look for a moment before she unsheathed her fan and he moulded a small amount of chakra into his arms, the two of them quickly moving through the sand covered streets, trying their best to wade through the fleeing crowd. Shikamaru hadn't realised how quickly the situation had deteriorated, but after seeing the terrified faces of the fleeing civilians, Shikamaru didn't understand why he hadn't heard any screams, until he worked it out.
Even in situations where they are terrified, they don't panic. Suna just continues to impress.
They moved past the crowd and skidded to a halt as they came to an open area, both of them standing defensively. Shikamaru had his hands together in a handseal instantly, while Temari had her fan pulled back ready to attack. They found themselves standing on a battlefield that seemed very out of place for the middle of a shinobi village. In front of them was a scattered battlefield littered with dead robed bodies, the sand beneath their feet slowly seeping with blood. In an instant they could tell that all the dead were civilians, people that had no capacity to fight back, Shikamaru feeling his anger spike considerably when he saw that there were small children amongst the dead. With a quick glance they both saw two figures cutting down a pair of old women, the foes armoured in a similar manner to the warrior they had fought in the Land of Fire.
"Shikamaru…"
"I see them" he responded angrily, using his shadow to grab a discarded sword before sending it to his hand and grasping at the hilt. He didn't have much experience with swords, but at that moment he felt it didn't matter.
The two warriors wore lithe looking red armour and looked like they could be twins, both sporting the same jet black hair and icy look in their eyes as they turned to face the two of them. The one on the left held a long katana in each hand, while the other one spun a broad-axe around wildly. They didn't seem particularly worried about the two of them; they both sported the same arrogance that the other warrior had demonstrated, though there was something about them that Shikamaru couldn't place, something that set them apart.
Standing next to him, Temari could barely contain her rage, her hands shaking to the point that she had to resist the urge to drop her fan and attack them with her bare hands. She moved to attack them, but felt a strong grip on her shoulder pulling her back. She turned with a furious look on her face, but stopped herself from attacking him when she saw the resolute look on Shikamaru's face.
"Focus, Temari. You can grieve later, but if you lose your cool here the village will lose more than just their civilians."
She went to yell at him for stopping her, but a look in his dark eyes made her stand down, the anger that she had felt in her heart had been replaced with a cold hatred, one that she immediately directed towards the two enemies that were slaughtering their civilians.
Shikamaru released his grip on her shoulder and turned his gaze back to the two butchers, noticing that they hadn't moved from their position, they seemed happy to see someone who would give them a real fight. Gripping the sword in his hand tightly, Shikamaru could feel his own rage building inside of him. While he had no love for Suna, it still offended his sensibilities to see such brutality.
Temari held down her fan slightly and took a deep breath before resting her eyes on the red armoured figures in front of them. "We'll need to work together, Shikamaru."
Cracking his neck and standing next to her with a grim smile, Shikamaru nodded and indicated for her to follow his lead. "I have a theory that needs to be tested. I know it's a big ask, but I'll need you to do exactly what I say."
Temari gripped her fan tightly and lent on it with one arm. "Just this once."
oOoOoOo
Gaara kept an eye on the army of shinobi with his sand third eye, watching them prepare themselves for battle quickly. While he didn't have that much authority to command the Suna shinobi, he was only a Jounin; he had found that if his decision made sense they complied quietly.
"Are you sure?" asked Kankuro, holding his offensive puppet Karasu up with his chakra strings. He hadn't been able to repair his other puppet in time, but knew that Kuroari wouldn't be much use against an opponent like Sasori.
Gaara nodded and watched carefully as they saw Sasori reveal his hands from within his robe, two scrolls in his hands. "I could hear it. There was something…inhuman about his body."
"If there was ever anyone who could do it, it would be him. But why is he here? What are his motivations?"
A Jounin beside the puppet-user motioned for silence, the Suna forces watching Sasori's movements carefully. The red-haired Akatsuki member opened his scrolls slowly, none of the Suna shinobi were able to read the writing on the scrolls, but the puppet-users in the army recognised what he was aiming to do, putting them on edge immediately. Ten large clouds of smokes appeared in front of Sasori, dissipating quickly to reveal a variety of puppets covered in black robes.
"Ten puppets at once…I guess that's why he's the genius of puppet use." Kankuro was unable to contain his amazement at Sasori's feat, like every puppet-user he knew that a puppet-master's skill was based upon how many puppets they could use effectively at once. He had been slowly working his way up to three, but ten seemed far out of the realm of possibility.
He glanced over the ten black robed puppets, barely able to see the chakra strings that bound them to Sasori's fingers. His eyes widened as the puppets all collectively clapped their hands together and placed their wooden hands outstretched in front of them, undistinguishable symbols on the inside of their palms.
Wait…he couldn't have…
Kankuro's fears were confirmed quickly, a giant cloud of smoke appeared in front of the ten puppets to reveal a large army of red cloaked puppets floating in the air, so many that it was impossible to count them all. Each of the black puppets moved their wooden fingers and connected long blue chakra strings to the red puppets, creepy movement sounds echoing in the desert as the puppets began to draw a variety of weapons, each clearly coated with purple coloured poisons.
Despite the situation, Gaara kept his composure, turning to his older brother with a stoic look on his face. "What is this, Kankuro?"
His brother hesitated and felt his chakra strings fall limp, Karasu collapsing slightly. "This…the…impossible…"
"Kankuro! Concentrate." Gaara wasn't one to raise his voice, but he knew that they needed Kankuro's expertise with puppets; he didn't have time for his brother's meltdown.
"He's…" Kankuro took a long breath and collected his thoughts. "Normally a puppet user can only control as many as they have fingers, thus ten being the maximum. But…he's gone to a whole other level. There's probably a hundred red puppets there, being controlled by the black puppets, who in turn are being controlled by him."
A shinobi beside them pulled out a kunai and held it in front of him. "That explains why he came alone. He's an army in of himself."
Gaara slowly rose on top of his small sand platform. "Then we take him out, and the army collapses."
Kankuro recovered his chakra strings and held Karasu up. "It won't be that easy. We might outnumber them, but Sasori is notorious for his poisons and hidden weapons. We aren't going to come out of this without heavy casualties."
The red puppet army began to fly towards the entrance to the Hidden Village of Sand, a wide variety of projectiles firing at the defending shinobi. Quickly outstretching his hands, Gaara summoned up two massive hands of sand, forcing all the strikes to bounce harmlessly off his defence before retracting it and moving towards the red puppet army on top of his flying sand.
Kankuro watched his younger brother with surprise, he hadn't thought Gaara would do something so reckless until he realised what he was doing. "He's trying to force the battle away from the village. Damnit, why did he go in alone? He knows he's vulnerable to some puppet weapons like poison gas."
With a tut he flicked his hands up and began running towards his younger brother's position, Karasu flying beside him with two large sickle protruding from his forearms.
In the middle of the battlefield, Gaara found himself surrounded by attacking puppets. His sand shield was holding easily, but he wasn't able to progress towards the black robed puppets like he had intended. He frowned and turned around, trusting in his sand shield to cover him, even his stoic features began to break when he saw the Suna army of shinobi charging towards him, roaring loudly with their weapons raised. He felt a slight smile creep onto his face, but he quickly dismissed it, drawing his sand around him quickly. There was a part of him that worried about how close they still were to the village; any loose explosions could spill over into the village, but he knew there was no pushing the puppet army back. With a determined look in his eyes a sand arm reached out and grasped a sword-wielding red puppet, Gaara closing his hand quickly to crush its wooden form within the sand.
They seem to be destroyed easily enough, but the precision of their movements and their attacks…each puppet seems to be of Chuunin strength or greater.
While Gaara preoccupied a group of puppets in the air, the Suna shinobi engaged the red puppets head on, striking kunai on kunai while being backed up by ninjutsu from the shinobi behind them. Dozens of puppets fell in the first and second volleys, but like the proverbial dead of fantasy stories they rose and reattached their broken limbs, attacking the Suna shinobi with a ferocity that they hadn't expected from puppets, with many Suna shinobi caught off-guard and falling to the ground, clutching at slashed limbs and pulling out poisoned senbon.
With a quick manipulation of his chakra strings, Kankuro shredded a puppet to pieces using Karasu's inbuilt buzz saw, taking a moment to ensure that the puppet couldn't be reconstituted before jumped back to avoid a hail of senbon. He moved Karasu to cover his front as he looked around the battlefield. They had taken out nearly twenty of the puppets in short order, but the tenacity and endurance of the puppet army was wearing the Suna shinobi out, dozens had already fallen to the ground, paralysed by the puppet's poisoned weapons. He saw that they hadn't taken out any of the black robed puppets controlling the army puppets, and none of them looked like they were even close to getting near them.
Blocking another sword strike to his side with sand, Gaara scanned the battlefield with his third eye above the battlefield. He kept a static position with a dozen puppets trying to pierce through his sand shield without success. He had to intermittently replace sections of his sand with sand from the ground, so that none of the poison seeped through his shield. Clapping his hands together, Gaara found a gap in the puppet army, drawing his sand around him to form a dense shell.
Using his third eye to concentrate his attack, Gaara moved a large section of the sand beneath the puppet army's feet, shooting it through a small gap between robed puppets directly at a large black robed puppet that seemed to notice the attack and move several puppets to intercept the attack. Gaara changed his handseal and concentrated, shooting long spikes of sand at the puppets to throw them off the attack. With a small burst of chakra Gaara covered the black robed puppet with large amounts of sand before motioning with an open hand.
"Sabaku Soso!"
The controller puppet disintegrated within the sand, Gaara crushing its pieces twice just to be sure, noticing with his third eye that several of the red puppets fell to the ground limp with his destruction of the black puppet. After checking to make sure his area was clear, he retracted his sand shell, commanding his sand to take him to another part of the battlefield.
"We need to recover our wounded!" yelled a Suna Chuunin, dragging another shinobi across the desert while dodging stray projectiles.
A Jounin beside him pushed him out of the way of a sword strike and kicked the puppet away, putting his hands together quickly into a handseal. "Katon: Hinoteomoi!" (Fire Element: Massive Blaze)
Kankuro ducked under a kunai and moved Karasu to attack the red puppet that shot at him, cursing under his breath as he jumped back to avoid another puppet's attack. In a brief instant he could see that they were slowly whittling down the puppet's numbers, only half the red puppets remained. A combined assault by dozens of Suna shinobi had taken out three of the controlling puppets in an instant, but they had paid dearly for their attack, over a hundred groaning bodies littered the battlefield.
He tried to move Karasu back into position after beating back another animal-like puppet, but found the wooden creature oddly unresponsive to his commands. He tried to pull it back directly, but the puppet merely creaked loudly and sat frozen in the air. Kankuro swore and moved his head slightly, looking past its cloaked form to see a black cloaked puppet motioning with its wooden fingers towards the puppet. He tried again to move Karasu towards his position, but the black puppet's grip was ironclad.
An idea popped into Kankuro's head, the puppet user cutting off his chakra threads to Karasu when he noticed that three of the black robed puppets had grouped near the one that had taken his puppet, since their red puppets had been destroyed by the slowly diminishing Suna army. He waited until the black puppet drew Karasu closer to its position, taking a moment to analyse it before motioning for it to attack a nearby fallen Suna shinobi. Kankuro shook his head slowly and placed his hands up; reconnecting his chakra strings to an area he knew the black puppet hadn't connected itself to, his threads opening Karasu's mouth quickly while immobilising the rest of the puppet in the same manner as it had been before.
"Sorry, Karasu" he said quietly, flicking his index finger to activate the safety measure he had installed in the puppet. The shockwave struck him before he heard the explosion, the puppet-user not realising how powerful he had made Karasu's self-destruction feature. To his relief the blast took out all three of the black cloaked puppets, and a secondary glance showed him that another two had been taken out by Gaara's sand attacks, while another had been slashed to pieces by a squad of Suna ANBU who had subsequently been taken out by a retaliation strike from the dozen remaining red puppets.
Above the battlefield, Gaara used his sand to encircle the final two black puppets and their red puppets. He knew that he had used up a large majority of his chakra in keeping as many of the Suna shinobi alive as possible, but he knew the battle wasn't over until they had destroyed all of the puppets and gotten to Sasori. Several of their shinobi had tried to break through and reach the static Akatsuki, but they had been easily intercepted and taken out in the process.
Moulding all the chakra he could afford, while still keeping himself afloat, Gaara stretched out his hands and felt the sand around the battlefield like it was a part of his body. He motioned towards the remaining puppets, noticing that Sasori had broken out of the circle with no problem, but Gaara had to let him go for now.
The ground beneath the puppets began to swirl as Gaara activated his most dangerous sand technique that didn't involve Shukaku. He twisted his hands before closing his palms, forcing the sand underneath the puppets to reach up and grasp the puppets, pulling them down into the ground.
"Sabaku Hakyoku!" (Sand Cataclysm)
The sand whirled around for a few seconds before sucking the puppets completely into the ground and crushing them to bits, buried underneath the desert floor.
Gaara floated down to the ground and dissipated his sand platform, crossing his arms with a slow breath. Around him the surviving Suna shinobi scrambled to remove their fallen comrades from the battlefield, while the stronger ones that had escaped ran to stand next to him. He noticed, as Kankuro moved up next to him, that Sasori seemed unconcerned over his puppet army's destruction, the Akatsuki member merely standing stoically, moving his eyes across the remaining Suna shinobi that stood against him.
He's analysing our numbers. This can't be his last trick, it was too easy to defeat. Sasori of the Red Sands would know that the Hidden Village of Sand could repel an invasion of that magnitude, particularly since he gave us the time to commit our forces. He must have something else up his sleeve.
oOoOoOo
"Why do you get the sword guy? I don't want the axe one, he looks funny."
"You said you'd do what I asked."
Temari clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth. "Yeah. That was going to happen. Definitely."
"Temari…"
She picked up her fan and cracked her knuckles. Without responding to Shikamaru again she pulled back her fan and activated her technique, waving the large weapon straight at the two warriors. After seeing that they were about to do battle, any remaining civilians had evacuated the area, meaning that Temari was free to be as destructive as necessary.
"Kamaitachi no Jutsu!"
A long vacuum of air flew out of her fan directly at the two of them, slicing up the air between her and the warriors wildly, forcing the two of them to jump to the sides separately to avoid the strike. As they moved Shikamaru kept a close eye on their movements, a quick manipulation of his shadow towards their confirming something he already knew.
He split off from his position and pursued the twin-sword wielding enemy, leaving the axe-wielder for Temari, as he had planned. After seeing them move from her wind attack, Shikamaru knew they weren't the same calibre as the first warrior, but he still couldn't feel any chakra from them. His shadow confirmed his suspicion as well. Since he was unable to manipulate them with his chakra, which was how his Kagemane no Jutsu worked, he suspected techniques like genjutsu wouldn't work either. However if they dodged the wind attack that the other warrior had easily defeated, then that meant they didn't have his immunity to chakra, which opened up a whole different avenue of attacks that he could utilise.
He glared at the armoured warrior and gripped his sword tightly. He decided to see what information he could get out of the warrior, since they seemed to be relatively loose-lipped. "Who are you people? Why are you attacking these people?"
The warrior stood up from the ground slowly, having landed on a slide, placing his swords in a cross position in front of him. He didn't say a word, but Shikamaru could feel an intense aura of hatred coming from his ice-blue eyes.
The shinobi world must have done something to these people. I'm not from this village, which is fairly obvious, yet he still gives me that intense look.
He shoved his sword into the ground in front of him, running rapidly through a set of handseals before clapping his hands together and picking up his sword again. To the untrained eye it appeared that he hadn't done anything, but if they looked down at the ground they would have noticed his shadow had wavered and disappeared into the ground.
Let's see if this works.
With a long breath he charged forward with his sword raised. He yelled as he brought down the sword against the warrior, who easily blocked the strike on one of his swords. With an emotionless face, the warrior drew back his other sword, moving to slice straight through his neck. As he watched the blade fall towards him, a slow grin came across his face.
"Shield"
A thin black shape emerged from his feet, covering his exposed neck and taking the sword blow easily. He could see the surprise on the warrior's face, but it didn't last long before it was once again replaced with arrogance. With a burst of chakra, Shikamaru pushed off the warrior's blade with his, taking several long jumps backwards and letting his shadow shield collapse while holding up his sword defensively. He glanced at the blade, noticing a deep cut in the sword's metal.
I guess that won't work. He's got some serious physical strength, my arm is killing me.
Watching the warrior recover and place up his blades again, Shikamaru threw away his blade and drew a hand back.
"Bow"
In an instant his shadow leapt to his hands and formed a long string, a second shadow appearing between his hands. He drew back the shadow arrow with as much chakra as he could, staring down the black line to track the warrior. The enemy had caught onto the fact that he had prepared a ranged weapon, charging towards Shikamaru while dodging and weaving with his swords slashing at the air randomly.
Shikamaru tracked him carefully, knowing that he only had one shot before the warrior reached him. After a moment he realised that there was no way he could hit the warrior if he moved at that speed, to which he wished he had a free hand so that he could face plant himself for being so stupid.
"Kagenui no Jutsu."
The ground beneath him darkened instantly before dozens of long shadowy threads expanded towards warrior, too fast for him to avoid as they grabbed at his arms and legs, immobilising him tightly.
Knowing that his threads wouldn't be able to stand up to the warrior's strength for very long, Shikamaru aimed his shadow arrow directly at the red metal plate that was where his heart was. With a huge spike of chakra he released the arrow, simultaneously tightening his thread's grip on the warrior so that he could divert the blow.
The arrow struck the warrior exactly where Shikamaru had intended it to, sending the warrior flying into a house behind him, breaking the shadow threads that were holding him onto the ground. Nodding his satisfaction at his techniques efficiency, Shikamaru glanced over at Temari to see how she was handling her opponent. To his surprise he saw that she was sitting on top of the warrior with her legs crossed and her fan across her thighs, a sly grin on her face as he noticed the warrior's armoured had been shredded to pieces.
He smiled slowly and went to wave at her, but Temari just cocked her head and pointed at him. Shikamaru frowned for a second before finally understanding what she meant. He ducked and rolled forward instinctively, bringing up a shadow around him as he stood up. He took a slow breath in relief as he saw that she was just messing with him, the warrior he had shot was lying on the ground with a large pool of blood underneath him.
Shikamaru cancelled his shadow manipulation technique and sighed again, it had taken more chakra than he would have liked to perform the solid matter shadow techniques, but he couldn't argue with the results.
That was…too easy. I know that most of the Suna forces are at the entrance to the village, but surely they should have had some Chuunin-level shinobi that could have handled the two of them.
"Bit tired?"
Shikamaru shook his head and turned to face the kunoichi standing next to him. "I'm fine. What's the plan now?"
Temari placed her fan in front of her and leaned on it while looking around at the makeshift battlefield. "This was too easy. Something feels off here."
"We should go back to the hospital. If they are here to kill innocents, then that's where they would go."
She nodded in agreement and picked up her fan. She motioned for him to lead the way, smiling as Shikamaru rolled his eyes and began to run towards the hospital.
oOoOoOo
Sasori scanned the battlefield one last time before reaching up and slowly unbuttoning his robe. Across the field, Gaara motioned for the remaining shinobi to be cautious, he knew that the Akatsuki member was far from done, and he didn't want there to be any more casualties. By his estimation they had lost a third of their forces, with another third having fallen to Sasori's poison and their outlook wasn't particularly good either. He took a long breath, trying his best to stall for time so that he could recover as much chakra as possible. It hadn't been his intention, but he knew that after two or three techniques he wouldn't be able to fight anymore, though he doubted Sasori would afford him such a luxury.
Beside him Kankuro used his chakra strings in a vain attempt to find a workable puppet, he was able to compile several arms and weapons, but all the puppets left on the battlefield were essentially useless. Glancing around the battlefield he noticed that there were still dozens of fallen Suna shinobi that were too close to Sasori to be evacuated properly. Summoning what chakra he had left, Kankuro resolved to remove them himself, since he had a longer range than most of their remaining forces, and moving a living target wasn't much different from a puppet.
The two of them looked up at once, noticing that Sasori had shed his robe and confirmed Gaara's suspicion. His arms appeared jointed and stiff; a long spiked wire protruded from his chest and a strange circular object was embedded in the area his heart would have been in.
Kankuro's eyes widened when he saw what Sasori had turned himself into. He had read the puppet-users notes on such a phenomenon, but seeing it in reality was a whole other ordeal. However looking around at the standing Suna forces, he didn't understand the move at all. They had beaten his army of puppets, and even as dangerous as Sasori likely was when in puppet form, Kankuro couldn't see a way for the attacker to win against such numbers.
"What is he trying to do?" asked a shinobi in the battle line.
Several of his companions gave indifferent answers before the remaining Jounin called for quiet. Suna didn't have a particularly large ANBU division, so each senior shinobi that had fallen was a serious blow to the village, with less than twenty left standing in front of a mix of Chuunin and Genin. Gaara stood in the middle with his hands crossed, concentrating on analysing Sasori's movements for a hint of a weakness, his third eye floating high above the puppet user.
He watched Sasori remove a scroll from a contraption on his back, glaring indifferent while placing it open on the ground and placing his puppet hands together in a basic handseal. He didn't recognise any of the symbols on the scroll, but he was experienced enough to know that whatever Sasori was doing wouldn't be good for their forces. He went to motion for them to advance on him, but hesitated when he saw a small plume of red smoke slowly rising from the scroll on the ground. A slow shiver ran up his spine, one that he had only experienced once before during his battle with Naruto when the blonde had summoned the Kyuubi's chakra.
A Jounin beside him asked if he knew what was going on, they were too far away to see, but Gaara didn't respond. Sasori released his hands from the handseal and, without any indications of emotion that Gaara could see, slamming his hands through the red smoke onto the seals on the scroll.
For a few seconds nothing happened. Gaara thought the technique may not have activated, but a few seconds after that a huge explosion of smoke came from the smoke, completely obscuring both his third eye and his regular vision.
Some of the shinobi stepped back, the sheer size of the smoke cloud was highly intimidating for even well trained shinobi, though the majority of the army stayed where they were, weapons raised for whatever might emerge from the cloud. Standing beside his superiors, Kankuro continued to pull people from the battlefield with his chakra strings, several of their forces taking the injured shinobi off him and transferring them to the village proper. Even he stopped his vital purpose when he saw the smoke slowly clearing.
They heard it long before they saw it. The smoke cleared in small pockets, revealing large sections of a giant wooden construct's body. Four long arms pushed through the cloud, revealing wicked blades the size of buildings in their wooden hands, two giant feet buried in the sand with a body that seemed to be the stuff of nightmares, covered in compartments and fire points. It was tall enough that its shadow eclipsed the village entirely; the sun behind it seemed almost a distant memory. It didn't appear to have a face on its body, but the sheer size was enough to cause a frightening chill down all of the shinobi's spines.
A Jounin at the front found his sword arm shaking violently, unable to stop it despite his best intentions. "How…how do we beat that?!"
An ANBU next to him smacked him on the back of his head, his serpent symbol concealing his own fear. "We can't take a step backwards. That thing will destroy the village in an instant."
A quick check with his floating eye revealed to Gaara that when the smoke had cleared there was no sign of Sasori anywhere near the puppet construct. It creaked loudly when its arms began to move up and down. Gaara remained stone faced, but even his eyes widened as a large spike shot straight past him and buried itself it the serpent ANBU beside him, sending the shinobi flying towards the village with a wordless scream.
That caused even the most stalwart shinobi to hesitate; none of them had even seen where the attack had come from. It confirmed to Gaara what he had suspected; he figured Sasori was likely inside the construct, controlling it from a safe position beneath layers of solid wood. He considered his options for a moment before breathing out slowly and taking a step forward.
Without turning his head, Gaara removed his gourd and dropped it on the desert floor behind him. "Tell the army to retreat back to the village."
An older Jounin scoffed at the sand-users apparent bravado. "Don't think you can order us around boy. You only just made Jounin."
Stepping forward so that he was in line with the Jounin, Kankuro called out to his younger brother. "Gaara, are you…"
The sand user didn't respond, though the sand around him began to fluctuate wildly around him, answering Kankuro's question for him.
The puppet user swore under his breath and turned to the remaining Jounin. "We have to leave. Now. This area isn't safe anymore."
"What are you talking about?" demanded the Jounin, disliking the tone of the Kazekage's eldest son.
Turning around and ignoring the Jounin's question, Kankuro grabbed the last five shinobi from the battlefield and brought them around him with his chakra strings. He broke out in a run, giving off the injured shinobi to his collaborators.
"Fall back to the village! Fall back!"
The line of Jounin frowned and turned to see the remaining Suna shinobi running along with Kankuro. They looked at each other for a moment, glanced over at Gaara who was half way towards the construct with the sand around him moving like a sandstorm concentrated around him.
"What do you think?" asked the sword-wielding Jounin.
A scorpion-wearing ANBU shinobi considered it for a moment before turning around. "I have my suspicions. We should move."
Alone on the battlefield, Gaara slowly placed his hands together. The construct had shot several spikes and hails of needles at him, and he was bleeding from several scratches on his skin, strikes that had gone through his sand shield.
Remember our deal. Once the construct is down…
I know the deal. Remember your part little boy. Three hours' worth this time.
You know, it's a bit strange that you are so obsessed with funk music.
After decades of imprisonment let's see how strange you get.
Fair point. No rampaging.
I know. You have your own eccentricities.
oOoOoOo
"I…can't believe it…"
"It's…"
"How can…"
The Jounin that had retreated back to the cliffs swore collectively. They tried to calm down the other shinobi, but there was no way that was going to happen. It wasn't the first time they had seen the demon appear, it had rampaged many years ago and nearly destroyed the village before the Kazekage had stopped it. However the giant sand creature seemed to be acting differently than most of them remembered. It stood as tall as the construct, lined symbols covering its sandy body while its single giant tail wavered slowly in the air. Its back faced the village, and after a few seconds it opened its mouth and began to laugh.
It had a strange playful laugh that was somewhat mitigated by the deep tone and sheer volume of its voice.
"Yeah! It's about time! I'm gonna go crazy! Oh wait, I'm not meant to." The giant raccoon beast pointed to the immobile construct with a giant arm. "I guess I'll just destroy you. Yeah!"
The construct slowly lifted up one of its feet, hovering it for a moment before bring it crashing down on the ground, sending shockwaves all throughout the area. To the shinobi on the ground it seemed like the two of them were sizing each other up. A wide grin came across Shukaku's demonic face. It reached up a giant hand and slammed it into its large chest.
"Fuuton: Renkuudan!" (Wind Element: Drilling Air Bullet)
A large concentrated ball of air exploded out of its jaws directly at the construct, but before the blow struck it the construct leapt up into the air with agility that was unnatural for something of its size. Shukaku watched it move high up into the air, backwards from its position before landing heavily on the ground, sending more shockwaves out from their battlefield.
"Oh how fun! This is what I've been waiting for!"
It felt two thumps against its chest, looking down to see two sizable spikes protruding out of its left shoulder. It didn't feel pain, having a body made entirely of sand helped, but it made a show of grimacing as it pulled out the spikes and dropped them to the ground.
"Not good enough!"
Back on the ground, the Suna shinobi watched in the battle in awe. Each time the construct tried to move past the giant beast, Shukaku blocked its approach, pushing it back with blasts of compressed air.
"What if it rampages?"
"The beast is loose!"
"Shut up!" yelled Kankuro, his frustration levels having peaked long ago. He turned and stood in front of the crowd. "He is protecting our village! Show some damn respect!"
The crowd of shinobi was silent immediately, all of them staring at Kankuro with open mouths. The puppet user grinned and nodded his satisfaction at the outcome, but his moment was short lived. He heard a laugh behind him, causing him to spin around to see three figures standing with their backs to him, facing the battlefield.
"This is not good. We need to restrain the Shukaku before it goes out of control."
Crossing her arms with a frown, Temari glared at the middle figure. "That is your son. He's not a monster! When will you realise that?!"
"Temari, you don't know. It is a monster, and I will not let it destroy my village."
Standing beside the two of them, Shikamaru felt completely out of place in their current situation. They had only just reached the hospital when they saw the Kazekage charged through the village on his golden dust towards their present location, mumbling about the Shukaku and his duty. Shikamaru could never have imagined that he would be seeing a battle like he was.
The construct slashed at Shukaku with two of its blades, the tailed beast taking the blows on its arm before blasting a ball of air straight into its chest. The construct was sent flying back, large chunks of wood falling to the ground as two of its arms disintegrated into splinters.
"Yeah! One shot for the tanuki!"
With a creepy creaking sound the construct slowly picked itself up from the ground, staring at the giant with its feature-less face. Once it had recovered its remaining two arms came together at the palm before stretching outwards towards Shukaku. It held them there momentarily before slowly moving them to face the village. Shukaku went to move to block whatever was coming, but the giant puppet's palm moved up to reveal two large opening, which quickly firing two large spiked balls straight at the village. Shukaku saw that it wasn't going to be get there in time, so it put up its hands towards the flying projectiles.
A massive wall of sand appeared in a solid wall between the spiked balls and the village, forcing the attacks to explode on the wall. Thousands of spikes erupted out of the balls and peppered the battlefield, slamming into both the construct and Shukaku.
From his standing position the Kazekage took a step back in surprise, not sure what to make of the situation. "He's…defending the village. This makes no sense…"
Ignoring the Kazekage for a moment, Shikamaru moved around and stood next to the Kazekage's daughter. "Temari, you need to send your shinobi into the village to clear it out. There are likely more than just those two."
The Kazekage looked down at the Nara heir with a curious look. "Who are you? Why are you ordering around my daughter?"
Temari laughed and slapped Shikamaru on the back. "He's not ordering me to do anything. We should do what he says, Father. I know he doesn't look like much, but he's a friend."
The Suna leader frowned but still turned around and signalled to the remaining Suna shinobi, indicating for them to fall back and secure the village. On their way to the battlefield Temari had attempted to fill her father in, but hadn't been able to tell him much beyond that the village was in danger by an unknown group of enemies.
He looked back at the battlefield without checking to see if his orders had been followed, watching as the wall of sand fell to the ground and revealed the two giant fighters. "I'm not doing this because of your recommendation. Once it destroys the puppet, I'll take Shukaku down. That's what a Kage is meant to do, protect the village."
oOoOoOo
Shukaku grimaced as the last spike fell to the ground, large piles of sand falling to the ground from the holes in its chest. The construct had suffered as much as he had, but it didn't seem to have slowed down, its arms already moving to fire another set of projectiles towards the village.
"Enough of these games. I've had my fun."
It placed its arms outstretched and summoned a huge amount of chakra. The limbs instantly turned to sand and sped rapidly towards the construct, attaching itself to its legs and arms, immobilising the giant puppet with extremely dense sand. The tailed beast grimaced immediately as dozens of huge projectiles slammed into its chest, but it forced itself to ignore the attacks and opening its mouth directly at the construct with a deafening roar.
"Fuuton: Kazekujo!" (Wind Element: Wind Destruction)
A tiny sphere of compressed air floated out of its mouth, slowly travelling across the battlefield towards the construct. The giant puppet struggled to move out of the way of the attack but Shukaku kept it held tightly bound, watching with a playful look in its eyes.
The compressed air slowly pressed into the constructs chest, and for almost half a minute it seemed like nothing had happened. Shukaku released its bindings and jumping back, ensuring that it wasn't close to the Suna shinobi and Shikamaru on the ground. The construct seemed to take a step forward with a struggle, but once its wooden foot struck the ground it began to collapse in on itself. A small hole appeared where the ball of air had struck, the wooden parts of the construct slowly began to disintegrate outwards from the hole, and not even tiny splinters seemed to be left. After a few minutes there was nothing left of the giant wooden puppet, the only evidence of its existence was the two arms that had been blown off earlier in the battle, and the large pieces of wood that had been ripped off at the same time.
"Ah, that was surprisingly satisfying. Remember boy, three hours. Don't make me start attacking your dreams again. And none of that pop crap!"
With a deep laugh the tailed beast slowly fell apart into a waterfall of sand, falling to the ground into the desert floor to reveal Shukaku's jailer standing in the middle of the sand pit with his arms crossed. Gaara let go of the breath he had been holding and placed a hand on the sand beneath him. "I am aware, Shukaku. And…thank you."
Don't be like that. It's not like you. Just do that stone-faced thing…otherwise it's just pathetic.
Gaara felt a grin growing on his face, but before he could say anything else his legs gave way, forcing him to collapse face-down into the sand beneath him.
"Gaara!" Temari leapt forward when she saw Shukaku disappearing, with Shikamaru running by her side and her father and brother right behind them.
They reached the sand-user quickly; a check of his pulse told them that he was okay, just out of chakra. The Kazekage looked around the battlefield with wide eyes, seeing the destroyed bodies of Suna shinobi mixed with dozens of destroyed puppets.
"What happened here? Temari, who attacked my village?"
"The same people who attacked you" said Shikamaru, sitting down with a sigh.
Above him Kankuro frowned and looked down at the Konoha shinobi. "This wasn't that group. This was Sasori."
"Sasori of the Red Sands? Why was he here?"
Temari smiled and placed her fan on her back beside her younger brother. "It's a long story, Father. We should get back to the village. We can explain it there."
The Kazekage nodded slowly and looked down at his youngest son's unconscious body. "It would appear I misjudged you. Perhaps you can be the man your mother would have wanted you to be."
"Are you okay, Father? You seem different" asked Kankuro, wary of this strange attitude their father was showing. While their father wasn't a particularly living person, he had rarely showed anything but contempt for Gaara.
The Suna leader reached down and touched Gaara's hand with his, feeling his son's dry skin against his fingers with a sad smile before standing up and turning to his other children. "I've…gained some perspective. Your brother deserves more than…"
His sentence was cut off as he felt himself unable to talk. He looked down and suddenly felt all his strength drain from his body, his eyes barely able to see the long sword protruding from his chest. Behind him stood the red haired puppet that had started the war, a dead look in his eyes.
Shikamaru shot his shadow towards Sasori immediately as Temari and Kankuro leapt forward to catch their falling father. The puppet user jumped back and flicked the blood of his fallen Suna sword before disappearing into the sand beneath his feet.
Shikamaru frantically tried to look around the area, knowing that Sasori wasn't going to be satisfied with just attacking the Kazekage. A quick glance told him that the Kazekage was already dead, and it was to their credit that neither Temari nor Kankuro had lost their cool completely at such a confrontation, though he could tell they were nearly at their breaking point.
"We've got to retreat to the village!" he called out, the shadow beneath him fluctuating with his depleted chakra.
Kankuro nodded with a grim look on his face, moving to attach his chakra strings to his father's body so that he moved him as carefully as possible while Temari jumped to grab Gaara. She smiled grimly when she saw that Gaara was twitching, as if he was trying to force himself awake because he knew the battle wasn't quite over yet.
A strange sound behind her caused her to flip around quickly, only to find herself confronted by Shikamaru's back right in front of her. Even from behind she could see that he was breathing heavily, and after a violent cough she realised what had happened.
"W…why?"
Shikamaru smirked and sat blood onto the sand in front of him, staring with drooping eyes at the grim form of Sasori in front of him, not bothering to grab at the long sword wound across his chest.
"I…don't know. I just…troublesome…woman…"
A part of him wanted to try and connect his shadow for one final technique, but it was easily trumpeted by the parts of him that felt the overwhelming need to just fall to the ground and bleed out.
Sasori went to disappear into the sand again, but found his puppet form unresponsive. He looked down to see ten chakra strings attached to various parts of his body, restricting his movement completely.
He went to tell Temari to attack Sasori, but the blonde kunoichi was already running a line of blood across the front of her fan, drawing the large weapon back.
"Ninpou Kuchiyose: Funkei! (Summoning Technique: Decapitation)
A weasel carrying a large sickle appeared in front of her, flying straight into the red haired puppet and slashing him lightly across his front before disappearing in a puff of smoke. Unlike the giant puppets destruction, Sasori's was very quick. Long lines appeared across his wooden face and body for a few seconds before he simply vanished into dust.
Temari dropped her fan and bent down next to Shikamaru's fallen body, pulling off his shirt to look at his wound. She knew the wound wasn't poisoned, the sword had been from a Suna shinobi that had died from the battle, but it was still deep enough to warrant her concern. She turned to Kankuro and asked the question that had been on her lips for the past two minutes, the puppet user slowly shaking his head sadly. She sighed and reached down, picking up Shikamaru with as much care as she could.
She reached down with her foot and kicked at her fan, causing the instrument to pop up and hover in the air. "You take Father and Gaara back to the village."
"Temari…"
"Just do it Kankuro. I won't lose him too."
***Six Months after Separation***
Shikamaru moved his head on his pillow with a groan. "You know, you can't just keep coming in here and using me like this. I feel abused."
Temari shouldered her kimono over her arms and tied it up at her waist. "I will do whatever I please. I never seem to hear you complaining."
Shikamaru grinned slightly and placed his hands behind his head, watching as she pulled up her leggings and tied up her ponytails. "I'm an injured man. Surely I should get better treatment than this."
With a similar grin Temari wandered over to his hospital bed, adjusting her forehead protector before leaning down and pecking him on the lips softly. She didn't let him enjoy the contact for long though, quickly reaching up and flicking him hard on his forehead. The injured shinobi winced in pain and grasped at his head as Temari laughed and leapt off the bed.
"You are far too easy to tease, Shika."
She moved to walk out of his room, but stopped when she heard him call out for her to wait.
Shikamaru sat up in his bed slowly, taking a slow breath to calm himself. "Hey Temari…um…"
With a huff the blonde kunoichi placed her hands on her hips. "Whatever happened to that man from the battle? Until my final breath...and all that."
"He nearly died from his injuries. And I think you made that last bit up. But…look I wanted to talk about what I'll be doing once I recover."
"I believe I have something to contribute in that area."
Temari and Shikamaru both turned at the familiar voice, watching as the door opened and the newly appointed Kazekage walking into the room, his arms folded across his chest. According to the information Temari had provided Shikamaru, it had taken the Suna Council nearly the full month to decide on their father's successor. The only downside to Gaara's ascension was his youth and inexperience, and after seeing his performance during the war they had made the decision to allow him to grow into his father's position. He refused to wear the robes until the Council positions lost in the war had been filled, but the two of them had to admit he looked quite different since his assuming of the village leader role.
"Are the two of you finished?" he asked quietly.
"Well actually…"
"We are fine, little brother" interrupted Temari, grinned with pride at her brother's image.
"Good." Gaara reached into a pocket and drew a large bulky envelope. He walked over to Shikamaru's bed and placed it next to the recovering shinobi.
"What is this?" asked Shikamaru, picking up the envelope and feeling its weight in hands with interest.
"An invitation. You are free to deny it of course, but you won't. I do not make this offer lightly."
Shikamaru placed the envelope back on his bed reluctantly, wincing as he attempted to move his legs properly to get off the bed. Without a hint of mercy, Temari slammed a hand onto his chest, forcing the Nara heir to remain where he was. He coughed in pain, but conceded her point, telling her that he wasn't going to move.
"Let me guess. You want to be a liaison, someone to barter with other villages? Perhaps an analyst or strategist?"
Gaara wasn't conveying any emotions whatsoever in his expression, choosing not to answer Shikamaru's question at all, preferring to simply walk out of the room.
Temari and Shikamaru shared a confused look for a few seconds before she indicated that he should look inside the envelope. With one motion he ripped the top off the envelope, his eyes widened as he saw what he had emptied onto the bed. Lying on top of the sheets was a forehead protector, one that had the hourglass-like figure that adorned all of the icons in the village. It appeared to be a normal forehead protector, though Shikamaru noticed that it had a white cloth around it, as opposed to the normal dark blue or brown.
He picked it up and felt the metal on his skin. He had predicted something like this, and while he was flattered it didn't explain why Temari seemed so surprised. The past month, and his prior experiences, had shown him that she was more intelligent than most people he knew or did know, and something like this was almost a given considering what had happened a month ago.
Temari was unable to contain her surprise, sitting down on the bed and taking the forehead protector from his hands. "I just can't believe it. He said he was thinking about it…but this…"
"It's just a forehead protector, right? He wants me to be a shinobi for the village."
Temari shook her head and handed it back to him. "It's much more than that. Only members of the Suna Council and high level advisors have the right to wear that cloth. Gaara is asking you to be his personal advisor."
"That…" Shikamaru leaned on the back of his bed. "I don't know what to make of this. I…I can't stay here. It's been six months since we got separated, and I haven't heard a word about them. If I'm going to find them again, I need to start looking."
"I've been thinking about that." She stood up from his bed and picked up her fan from the side of the room, leaning on it while looking at the recovering Nara shinobi. "You are thinking about it all wrong."
Shikamaru frowned, not quite getting what she was getting at. "I know you want me to stay here, but I can't just abandon my friends."
"Imagine that your comrades are in similar positions to you, completely out of contact with each other. Wouldn't it be better for you as a group to have some kind of base that you can rally around?"
Shikamaru placed a hand on his chin in contemplation, he hadn't thought of that. "That…makes sense. I can create a name for myself here, and any of the Konoha group that hear about me can regroup here at Suna."
He smiled slowly at the prospect of meeting his friends again, thinking of all the tales they likely had in comparison to his. He looked down at the symbol on the forehead protector, running his fingers over it slowly.
It feels strange…though it's been a long time since I wore the Konoha symbol, I'll still always consider myself a Konoha shinobi.
He reached up and touched the very back of his neck, where the small leaf symbol had been tattooed onto his skin. It occasionally stung, but Shikamaru took that as a constant reminder of where he came from.
Placing the forehead protector onto his lap, Shikamaru took a long breath and looked out of the window at the relatively quiet village. They had rebuilt surprisingly quickly, and Shikamaru had been placed in a room that allowed him to see into the clear sky above the sand village.
I suppose it won't be all bad. The heat is tolerable…as is the company…
"Tell your brother I've made my decision."
He turned around to see what her reaction was, but wasn't able to say anything as he watched Temari remove her leggings while simultaneously removing her hair from their ponytails, letting the blonde hair fall past her shoulders.
"Um Temari…what are you doing?"
With her hands quickly working at the cloth around her waist, the newly promoted Suna Jounin looked at him with a strange expression. "What? I just checked, I've got time."
Shikamaru just shook his head with a sigh, placing the forehead protector carefully on the small table beside his bed.
More tolerable than I first thought. Still too troublesome though.
Author's Note:
And that concludes Shikamaru's journey, at least for now. He will, of course, be back in the story but at a later point. Now we go back to another character's arc. Next week will be Naruto and Hinata, and is a chapter I've been waiting to write for months.
I know Sasori fought differently than he does in the manga, but that's part of the point of this story. When there are characters that we've already met, you don't want to read the same type of fights. You want to see them do cool stuff with techniques, stuff that wasn't in the manga but totally could have been. That's the basis for most of the techniques in this story.
Please review and tell me what you think. I try to reply to each review, and believe me I read them all. Tell me what can be improved, what you liked, what you didn't, everything. I'm a writer so I'm always open to criticism.