Asunder

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Well, this took a nice long time to write. I blame Shikamaru and Temari because they hate me. But, to compensate, this is a nice eight pages long (more than chapter one!). And, because she is uber and is the entire reason behind this entire fic, props to Chev and hope you enjoy this. All for you, hun.

Comments and criticisms, as always, appreciated.

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Chapter Five: Slipping Away

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The door slammed open, and Shikamaru managed not to flinch. He'd been expecting her, after all.

"The hell's going on? Why'd you call me at three in the morning!"

"Temari," he greeted, nodding his head slightly. He was beginning to question his reasons for calling on her so early as well—she was troublesome enough when she had sleep. Being woken rudely probably didn't help her disposition any. "We need your help."

"My help. I thought you were the ones helping us?"

"We are. Now it's your turn to help us. It's what allies do."

"…You woke me up at three in the morning to tell me that?"

He shrugged. "No. I woke you up because I couldn't sleep, so I figured someone else could suffer too. Troublesome woman…" he finished under his breath, but her glare told him she'd heard.

"If you weren't so cute I would kill you."

He raised an eyebrow at that, then just shook his head and sighed. Women. "Anyway. Naruto and Hinata are missing, and your brother is as well. We can't comb the city and surrounding areas on our own, so we need your help. No one knows the terrain better than Sand's best ninja, and if we have your help this will go by faster."

She smirked, folding her arms below her breasts and putting her weight on one leg, hip jutting out. If Shikamaru didn't know better he would think she was almost flirting.

"So, you're just using us."

Well, that was one way of saying it. Not that Shikamaru would. He valued his skin too much.

"We're calling it cooperation."

Her grin was absolutely evil as she unfolded her arms and walked towards him until they were face to face.

"What do I get in return?"

His eyebrow went up again. Why do women always have to be like this… "You get the help we're already providing."

"That's part of a treaty, assuring help between the two villages when it's needed. It's not a personal thing." She was closer now, and their last encounter suddenly played in his head.

If you let her get ahead, you lose… "This involves one of my ninja being taken while on your soil. It's not a personal thing, it's a violation of treaty."

"Then why not go to the Kazekage about it?"

"Because if he does know, then our Hokage will know, and then the treaty really will be violated. We don't want that anymore than you do."

"Mm…" She pushed him back a step, noses nearly touching. "So, again. What do I get out of this?"

He rolled his eyes. This wasn't the time to play women's mind games. "The sooner we find Naruto and Hinata, the sooner we finish up here and we leave."

Temari leaned back a bit, quirky smile on her lips. "Hmm… Naruto leaving is definitely a good thing. But I like playing with you."

Shikamaru was not a stupid boy. He knew when he was being toyed with, and when he was being tested. He could counter plan and counter plan continuously for nearly all occasions.

But women. Women never followed the plans. And with this woman he was usually hard pressed to stay ahead of her. Ever since their fight in the Chuunin exam, it seemed as though she tried as hard as she could to outsmart him.

"Sorry. I'm not the playful type."

Her hand fisted in his vest a second before her forehead butted against his and they really were nose to nose.

"I've always liked a challenge."

"And I never have."

"Yes," she smirked, "I know."

Her closeness was beginning to unnerve him, and if that happened he would never be able to beat her. The thing with Temari, he'd realized, was that as long as you didn't let her unnerve you, you could stay at least one step ahead of her.

And if you lost that one step, you lost completely.

"So, will you help us track down your brother and our comrades?"

It took him a moment to realize the sound she was making was a chuckle, and when he did he frowned, mentally sighing. He really hated dealing with women. He especially hated it when the women took joy out of tormenting him, as she seemed to do every time they met.

Although, a part of him had to admit that the feel of her forehead against his and the hand she had fisted in his shirt felt kind of nice…

"And again I ask…" Her mouth was so very close to his… "What. Do I. Get out of it?"

Why why why is it always pushy women I have to deal with…? "My gratitude?"

"That's not very fulfilling, now is it?"

"No, but it's what I'm offering."

She smirked, their lips almost touching, then she jerked the hand fisted in his shirt, a quick flick of the wrist, and he was shoved down onto a bench that lined the wall, with her hovering above him, pinning him down. He raised an eyebrow, face calm as his mind raced to find an opening, to plan for anything and everything she could possibly be thinking before she had time to make a move.

He was just about to make a move when she leaned down and pinned him with a kiss, sharp and harsh and quick, before she stood and backed up, managing to somehow graze his cheek with her nails as she pulled her hand away from his shirt. The grin she had was feral, her stance predatory, and he just continued to sit where he was, watching and gauging and planning, and mulling over what the hell just happened and why the hell these things always happened to him.

"There's no need to worry about Gaara, he can take care of himself." She looked to her left, folding her arms below her breasts and narrowing her eyes slightly. "If anything, I doubt you even have to worry about finding your friends." She looked back at him out of the corner of her eye. "He won't let anything happen to that boy, or if I'm guessing right, to that girl either. Gaara doesn't really get curious too often, but when he does he watches his prey like a hawk.

"Your two friends have caught my little brother's interest. I wouldn't worry about their safety."

Shikamaru sighed, running a hand down his face and back up through his hair. "So what, we're expected to sit here and wait for Gaara to bring them back?"

"No." Again with that smirk. "We're going to do a little bit of cleaning up around here, and you're going to help." Shikamaru raised an eyebrow at her expression, a bad feeling beginning in his stomach.

"After all, that's what allies are for, right?"

-

"If you don't stop struggling right now, I will break your arms and legs. …On second thought, I might just break them because I want to."

Naruto growled at the girl walking beside him, eyes narrowing when she only smirked at him. Dumb bitch…

"And stop glaring, I hate that too."

Naruto kicked his leg out to trip her, grinning with almost sadistic glee when his heel smashed into her kneecap and sent her crashing to the ground.

The grin quickly disappeared when he went down with her.

"Bitch!"

"Asshole!"

Naruto scrambled back to his feet as fast as he could manage with only his legs free, glaring bloody murder at the kunoichi across from him who was also hurrying to her feet. A huge bruise was already forming on her knee, and from the way she stood he could tell she'd be limping for a while, and he wondered, again, just how someone like her could make it into the Akatsuki. Were they so hard up for members they'd take anyone who wasn't the least bit squeamish about killing someone?

"Goddammit, I hate you!" Her black and red cloud patterned cloak billowed in the desert wind, hat obscuring her face, but he could tell without seeing her body that she was red with anger and her hands were tensed like claws. She'd looked that way since the moment he met her, he doubted now would be any different.

"Ugly hag, let me go!"

Her foot lashed out and connected with his jaw, sending him back to the ground, but his legs snaked out to reciprocate. She saw the attack coming and jumped in time to dodge, landing on his ankles and smirking at his expression.

"I told you I would break them just for the hell of it, don't tempt me."

Naruto growled low in the back of his throat, jerking his legs to make her move. The short girl jumped off, her smirk still there, and watched him struggle back onto his feet, hands still bound behind his back with chakra.

I'll wipe that smirk off your face… If I could wipe Sasuke's off a few times when we were growing up, I can do it to you, too! He smiled to himself at the thought of her face when she realized he was about to completely defeat her, and the image helped the next few miles of desert trek to pass rather quickly.

She finally called them to a halt in what he thought of as the middle of nowhere, nothing but flat sand as far as the eye could see. Lip pouting out in a mix of anger, frustration and pure confusion, he turned to his captor, indicating the area with his head.

"Yo, ugly. Why did we stop here?"

"Because."

His eye twitched. "Yah, ok. Now why?"

The hat shifted a bit; she was facing him now, although he couldn't see her face. "Because this is where I decided to stop. Now shut up, your voice is annoying."

"So's your face, but you don't see me complaining."

The chakra holding his hands clenched uncomfortably, bending his arms in a way they shouldn't ever bend, and Naruto sucked in his breath, refusing to make any sound. There was no way he'd give her that kind of a victory.

"Anyone ever tell you silence is golden? No, I don't think they ever did." The hat shifted again, and she was facing away. By the way the cloak moved though, he could tell she was making seals with her hands, although what they were and what they were for he had no idea.

But while she's doing that… He tested the chakra bond, pulling against it lightly. The bindings tightened sharply, cutting into his wrists, and he stopped. When the pain dulled a bit, he tried again, this time attempting to pluck at the chakra with his own. Chakra manipulation was never his thing, and his control of chakra—while better—was still not on par with anyone in his group. He allowed himself a small inner chuckle at the knowledge Sakura could do this with her eyes closed and standing upside down, then forced himself to focus. He had to take full advantage of any chance he had to free himself. The Akatsuki girl might be weak in her body, but her chakra control was above even Sakura's, and her genjutsu wasn't anything to take lightly. He'd realized that when she'd dragged him from the cell and he'd seen all the bodies littering his little prison.

But even with extensive prodding, the bonds wouldn't give way, and Naruto found himself growing more and more frustrated. There was no way he was going to let this woman take him to the Akatsuki, or anyone else. He'd managed to escape Itachi—with Jiraiya's help—so he could definitely get away from someone who wasn't half as strong as the Uchiha.

"You're wasting your time, you know." He growled at her, but she refused to turn back towards him. And since his hands weren't free, he had to be content with only mentally flipping her off. "You'll never break my chakra, so there's no use in trying."

Cocky, arrogant… Naruto was briefly reminded of Sasuke in that fact, then quickly shoved that thought aside. Sasuke may have been cocky, but at least there were some redeeming factors to pull the boy out of the 'No-one likes you' hole he'd been trying to dig himself into. Kyuubi on the other hand…

Inside his head, Naruto was sure he heard the fox demon laugh.

You could help instead of just laughing, asshole!

He received a nonchalant shrug as a response, along with some words that he was quite sure would make many a mother discipline her child for a month.

His chakra must have spiked, because the bonds on his hands tightened and Ayaru turned to face him, hat turned back so he could see half of her face. Unable to do anything else, Naruto stuck his tongue out at her.

"You shouldn't do that, unless you intend to you use it." She smirked at him as he quickly pulled his tongue back in his mouth, torn between being horrified that she would suggest something like that or being angry at himself for being horrified.

He decided to take a note from his friend's book and brush it off as though it didn't affect him.

"If you were pretty, maybe. But sorry, ugly people just don't do it for me."

Her smile was fit to kill. "And prepubescent boys don't do it for me, either. Maybe if your voice starts cracking we'll talk."

"Hey!"

"Except not because the very idea makes me sick." Naruto lunged at her but she dodged to the side and brought her hand down on the back of his neck, easily felling him. Face in the sand, he let out a string of curses that would make Hinata hide and make Sakura smack him, then forced himself to his knees, spitting.

"Pure pigheaded stubbornness won't save you, you know," she said from behind him. A moment later he heard a hollow thump noise and the ground shifted beneath him, and then her hand was in his hair and he was roughly pulled to his feet.

"We're here. Welcome to your new, temporary home."

She turned him around and shoved him into the small cave she'd created, following closely after him. He didn't even have time to turn around and try to take her down before the opening closed behind them and everything was pitch black.

And she just laughed.

-

The sun had barely kissed the horizon when a lone shadow darted off from the small camp, gliding along the sand like a bird through the air. Chouji sat and watched, eyes narrowed sadly, but he made no move to stop the figure.

Good luck.

When the shadow was long since gone, the young genin turned back to his bag of chips, grabbing a few and popping them into his mouth. His watch was almost over—Shikamaru would wake up soon, and then Chouji could catch an hour or so of sleep before he had to wake to help out in the village.

"Mornings sure are pretty in the desert," he said to no one in particular, crunching down on a chip. Come back safe. We'll be waiting for you guys.

-

Harsh sun beat down on the top of his head, his long black hair quickly absorbing the heat and burning his scalp, but Neji pressed on, not willing to stop and unable to even if he'd wanted.

Hinata-sama…

He'd failed to find her the other day, but he would not fail today. Byakugan engaged, he forced himself through the burning heat, forced himself to ignore the mirages his eyes saw but the Byakugan dismissed. For someone who hadn't mastered the Hyuuga clan's blood limit, he knew the very act of combating mirages would make them dizzy and sick, but Neji was the most efficient Byakugan user, surpassing even Hiashi himself.

Feet slipping slightly on a dune, the sand shifting uncertainly, Neji growled and caught himself, pausing only a second to readjust his chakra control for better footing. Urgency did not equate carelessness. And if Neji was anything, it wasn't careless.

A change in the wind caught his attention, eyes and head darting to look to the left, horizon hazy and indistinct. But there was something there. Squinting his eyes, forcing the Byakugan's range, he allowed himself to stop, feet planted firmly on the constantly shifting dunes.

A figure? No… It wasn't quite right. There was something strange about the figure, some kind of deformity. No human he knew stood quite that way…

His eyes narrowed dangerously as the sands shifted and the figure's chakra pattern was clearly, painfully visible. He'd seen that chakra pattern only a few times before, and the sight was enough to make his hackles rise.

The sand beneath his feet barely moved as he took off, darting across the dunes, eyes locked firmly on the figure in the distance. And while he knew it was pure foolishness, and more than likely deadly, he couldn't stop himself from his headlong dash.

If he's done anything to Hinata-sama I will kill him, demon or no.

Sometimes, Neji forgot the difference between urgency and carelessness. And sometimes, he didn't care.

He was nearly upon Gaara when another chakra signature revealed itself, half-hidden in the sand, and Neji stopped dead where he was, eyes widening in shock.

Even with his normal eyes he could see them now, Gaara sitting calmly on the side of a dune, the roiling sand always just managing to miss him, the red-haired young man's eyes impassive. Neji didn't need to follow the younger boy's eyes to know what he was looking at.

Hinata was lying in the sand, her legs and half her torso covered, face down and passed out. Her skin was dangerously burned, her chakra weak.

"Hinata-sama!"

Neji raced towards them, skidding down the dune Gaara sat at, not even bothering to give the cold eyed boy a glance. Hinata made no move she heard his voice, and even when he reached her side and shook her, she barely responded.

"Hinata-sama! Wake up!"

"Leave her alone."

Neji turned towards the other boy, eyes narrowed dangerously and chakra sparking. "She's going to die if nothing is done!"

That impassive mask stayed strong, and Neji found himself hating the other ninja for it. "Leave her alone. I want to see what she does."

"What?"

"I want to see what she does. To see how strong she really is."

"You've been watching her die just for that?"

Gaara blinked slowly, staring through Neji at the girl lying on the ground, and the Konoha-nin felt the last of his severely strained patience snap. The sand at his feet whirled as he pushed himself away from Hinata and towards Gaara, Byakugan and chakra ready for the attack.

Naturally, Gaara saw him coming, and within a few steps had Neji frozen in place, sand roped around his legs and arms. The older ninja's eyes widened when he realized what he'd just tried to do, but Gaara just stood and walked past him without a word.

"Stop! What do you think you're—"

"Noisy," he heard the Sand-nin mutter, and then sand clamped over Neji's mouth, effectively silencing the irritated ninja.

The hell is he going to do…?

Struggling against the sand and failing miserably, Neji finally had to resign himself to only using the Byakugan to see what was going on. It wasn't the inability to see so much as the inability to stop Gaara from doing anything that frustrated him so much.

Strangely enough, Gaara just seated himself a bit away from Hinata, legs crossed the same way they'd been while he sat on the dune, and watched. Just sat, and watched, and Neji was forced to do the same.

Eventually, Hinata began to stir, the sand covering her shifting and falling off as she raised her head, blinking and wincing as her skin pulled tightly. Gaara continued to sit and watch, but Hinata made no move as though she noticed him, or cared he was there, and Neji had the sinking suspicion she was used to this.

Bastard, what's been going on?

She did, however, react when she saw him, back to her and still held by sand. Gasping and covering her mouth with her hands, she struggled to her feet, hastily brushing the sand off as she made her way towards him, small sunburnt hands trailing over the sand and his arms alike.

"Neji-niisan… Why are you h-here…?"

He resisted the urge to sigh. "I've been looking for you, Hinata-sama. I… We've all been worried. Come back to camp with me."

She bit her lip and stepped back from him, hands held before her heart as her eyes darted to the right, towards where Gaara sat. Neji frowned, eyes narrowing, but he said nothing.

"I-I can't… I already told you that, Neji-niisan…"

"I don't care!" He tried to take a step towards her but the sand held him tightly. "I won't let anything happen to you, especially not here and especially not near him."

"Neji-niisan…"

"And if you won't return with me," he continued, forcing her eyes to meet his, "then I will go with you." She shook her head at that, eyes widening as she took a step towards him, mouth opening to protest. "Whether you say it's okay or not, I will follow you."

Hinata looked back and forth between her cousin and the Sand-nin, biting her bottom lip so hard Neji was afraid she'd tear it. He watched her closely, his eyes never leaving her face, taking in every action, every nuance, until at last, finally, he saw her slight twitch, saw the decision click into place, and then suddenly the sand was gone and he was free. He barely managed to catch himself from falling, giving a glare back at the other ninja, but Gaara was already gone, lost in the shadows of the dunes.

"He's always doing that," Hinata supplied softly, face down and hands clasped before her. "I've gotten used to it…"

In a little over a day…? Neji raised an eyebrow but said nothing, instead disengaging his Byakugan and gripping the sand with his chakra, holding out a hand to the younger girl beside him.

"Either way…" She looked up at him, head tilted to the side in a way that could be either endearing or annoying. He had yet to decide which way he thought of it as. But his hand was still extended, and she finally took it, and he started off in a random direction, not really sure where he was going or why.

Let's hope this doesn't get us killed.

The sand whirled behind them, and eventually their footprints were gone with their forms as they crested the horizon and continued on towards the gradually rising sun.