The whole troublesome incident seemed to be over in the blink of an eye. One moment, Shikamaru Nara was falling asleep as he did every night – alone in his quarters of the Nara clan compound, by the forest at the edge of the Hidden Leaf Village; the next, there was blood on his hands and a blade against his throat. As advisor to the Fifth Hokage in a time of unrest between the Hidden Leaf and Hidden Sand Villages, he knew very well how quickly a shinobi's life could be changed forever. He even thought that he himself had experienced such an upheaval of world-view, such a derailing of life plans, before. But never like this. How could a man who had always been praised as being intelligent, who had always felt old beyond his years, have been so naive?

It had been a day like any other day. He woke naturally, eight minutes before his alarm would ring, and spent the entirety of those eight minutes contemplating faking his own death instead of going to work. So far, he had always made the same choice and begrudgingly got up and dressed. Still, he had been in his current position for less than two years: he was bound to choose the other option at some point in what he might hope would be a long and fruitful career. Two years… it was almost two years since his father died. It was funny how the years could be so short when the days dragged on for so long.

Throughout his upbringing, people had told him that he looked just like his father. But aside from how they wore their thick, dark hair and an expression that betrayed a penchant for reflective melancholy, Shikamaru himself never thought the similarity ran very deep. His father had been a brave man, a warrior, whose love for his village and his family had been written in the deep scars across his face during his life and were now written in the date on his gravestone. His death had been too soon; a sacrifice borne from love. Shikamaru also loved his village and his clan, but served them in a different way: his work had him hidden behind a desk from too young an age, doing valuable work but earning no scars. He had been such a promising young shinobi - promising enough that his intellect and fortitude had earned him his position under the Hokage - but no one told stories of Nara Shikamaru and now that he was out of action, they never would. There had been times in his youth when he thought he shouldn't be a shinobi at all, but now he simply couldn't turn his back on the hole that his father's passing had left. It was a hole that Shikamaru was aware that he might never be able to fill.

It wasn't that there was no joy to his work. His position in the Kage tower paid well and was intellectually stimulating and the Fifth Hokage Lady Tsunade was, for the most part, a decent leader to work for. His position meant that he was largely protected from the dangers that other shinobi his age faced and even in the office, no two days were exactly the same. There was always something interesting to deal with. Since he had come to office, the threat of war hung over the Village, provoking a certain pressure in the air like when an incoming storm needs to break.

Outside of work, he was still close with his old comrades. Chouji Akimichi had been his best friend since childhood and the pair still got together regularly at each other's homes. He saw less of Ino Yamanaka these days than he'd like, but he valued the odd lunch she would bring him in his office in exchange for a catch-up of news. Naruto Uzumaki always seemed to have too much on his plate but would always make time for Shikamaru as long as there was ramen as part of the deal. He also tried to take an active role in his late sensei's daughter's upbringing, and being a shoulder for her widowed mother Kurenai to lean on came with that responsibility.

And of course, he had recently been thrust into the position of head of the Nara clan. That meant being responsible for the forest, for the deer herd, for the pharmaceutical research; though he was thankful to learn that the position was largely symbolic and the actual work could be left to other members of his clan. Weighed down by a sense of duty, he had to remind himself that it wasn't weakness to delegate work to others. He knew his mother worried about him when he took on too much. She was worried about him now.

Today, dealing with some irksome troubles from Sand-nin on a small town in the west of the Land of Fire had soured his mood enough that he postponed helping Asuma's young daughter with her academy homework in favour of going to Yakiniku Q with Chouji. In truth, Shikamaru didn't much relish in the atmosphere of the place when he was drained from his work like this, but clung to the hope that it might cheer him up. It never did. Chouji's company, however, was an elixir.

"You look terrible," his friend had told him affectionately in between mouthfuls of meat. Tendrils of salted smoke rose around them from the central burner.

"I feel old, Chouji."

The Akimichi called for another round of pork. "How can you say that? You have your whole life ahead of you."

Shikamaru couldn't picture what that life might look like. Surely not this for another fifty years? Work, sleep, repeat. Unfortunately, the only likely disturbances to this pattern seemed to be a coming war or an untimely death. Neither sounded particularly enjoyable. His friend didn't seem to be troubled by the prospect at all but Shikamaru knew that other shinobi weren't privy to the same intel that the advisor to the Hokage was. His shoulders ached from carrying the weight of the world.

"You haven't even hit your prime yet, Shikamaru."

He hoped not. But what more could there realistically be? He was valuable for who he was and for what he knew, but he was no warrior, not any more. He worked from the shadows, behind the scenes of the Leaf Village. It suited some of his skills, but he still clung to the hope that there was more to him that this. He had been good once.

It hadn't been a long meal, and he had arrived back at the compound long before the late summer nightfall. There were reports from the research facility he had agreed to cast his eye over, but they lay untouched on a side table while the young head of the Nara clan reclined on the engawa. It would be an evening of all his favourite activities: listening to the wind in the canopies, punctuated occasionally by the barking of a stag; watching the birds fly away to roost and the bats come out to feed; letting the night descend around him like the embrace of an old friend. There had been a time when he would spend such evenings playing shogi here with his father or with his sensei, but those days were dead now. He considered that if he could draw a finger through his soul as well as along the edge of his shogi board, he didn't know which one might have gathered the most dust.

When the air became uncomfortably chilled against the bare skin of his arms, the young Nara took himself to bed. He lay under old sheets, hair let down, both in his underwear and also in the knowledge that he would sleep alone, dreamlessly, until about eight minutes before his alarm was due to go off on the next day of his life.

Except tonight, he didn't.

Something woke him. It was pitch dark, still the middle of the night. He lifted his head from his pillow and held a breath, listening. The silence seemed unnatural, until something shuffled. Shikamaru swept his body out from under the covers and into a crouch behind the bed on the far side of his room from the door. He could sense the whisper of unrecognised chakra nearby, intentionally subdued. It made his skin crawl. He listened to what might have been quietened footsteps while waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, when another noise came to him – this time from outside. The first smudge against the quiet had come from within his own quarters, somehow past his personal security. This other noise came from behind him where his back was against the wall of his room which faced the courtyard of the compound. It was a muffled thump, the noise of a body hitting hard ground. He knew that his intel was worth more than his life, but the heat in his blood in that moment argued that his life was, as it happened, quite important, too.

Silently, in only his boxers and with hair hanging annoyingly around his face, Shikamaru reached for his trench knives. If he wanted to use his shadows, he'd need a light source and that wouldn't happen without giving himself away. Through the open door to his room, his dark-adjusted eyes sensed no movement. There was no noise. He ventured to raise himself up slightly, just enough to see through the crack in the blind and out of the window. It was his habit to sleep with the window open a little in the summers and he cursed himself for that carelessness now. It was an overcast night with almost no moonlight, but he could just about make out the shape of a body on the ground outside. He could feel the blood coursing through his veins at the sight but he made no sound, his breathing unchanged. He saw the shape move and a wave of relief ebbed up his spine before crashing into the truth and sinking back into his feet. That movement… it wasn't the movement of being alive; it was the movement of being dragged.

He crouched again, his senses refocusing on his own quarters for a moment before deeming it safe enough to move. There was an aid switch in his room – the same for all the higher up workers in the Kage tower. It was on the wall by his bedroom door, behind a cover to prevent it being accidentally pulled. It was designed to raise no alarm within the compound itself but sound alarms in the Kage tower so that security on shift knew an incident was occurring and could send reinforcements. He had never used it before, hoped he would never have to use it. But tonight, Shikamaru raised the cover, and pulled down the lever. Then, blades in hand, he positioned himself behind the door to his room and waited. His loose hair hung infuriatingly around his face, but pulling it back into his preferred ponytail was not currently an option. He was also very aware of being almost naked. In the agonising seconds that passed, a shriek was extinguished somewhere in the distance. It took all his strength to lay in wait instead of launching himself from his quarters to chase after his family. But soon, his patience paid off.

Someone stepped into his room. This was the source of the chakra he had felt. They faced the bed, passing him by where he stood behind the door – clearly not a sensory type ninja. Dressed in black, the edge of a pale gutrah just visible to him from his position – Suna ANBU. Shikamaru still couldn't use his shadows but focused chakra into his knives. He exhaled.

What happened next thundered vividly through Shikamaru's senses though the scene was blanketed in total darkness and silence. His strike should have hit the small of the intruder's back but didn't – this ANBU was too quick and deflected even a surprise attack. He was against the wall, his arm throbbing in what would eventually be pain when he had time to register it. The lamp was near but the switch didn't work – the electric was dead. Shadows were out of the question. Chances were, the aid switch had been deactivated too. No one was coming to help. And, much to his regret, Shikamaru had been spending far too much time in the office instead of keeping his fighting skills sharp. He was slow, out of shape.

Air movement told him a body was launching towards him, but he was on the other side of the room by the time it reached where he had been. One blade left his hand and thumped softly where he had tossed it onto a pile of clothes in the far corner of the room. The ANBU's focus shifted towards the noise as its brother blade, still attached to Shikamaru's fist, sunk between their ribs. To their credit, they made no sound at the strike, so that he wondered if his hit had even been successful, but the sticky heat of blood gushed over his hands just as the body began to slump and he knew his aim had been true.

"How many of you?" his low voice husked in the night.

Of course, they didn't answer. He tore the knife away, scraping against the infiltrator's ribs and kicked their body some distance away. The wound bubbled, the throat gargled. Then silence again.

One down.

Shikamaru moved, retrieving his other blade. The night air was fresh against his skin and he realised that the broad glass doors to his quarters were open. Somewhere in the night, an owl hooted. He was ready to leave his building to hunt down the remaining ANBU when movement passed one of the far windows. There was no sound of footfall. He judged the speed and direction of the dark shape to estimate when the figure would reach the front door but it didn't show itself. They must have paused when they saw the door already open - he wouldn't be able to surprise this one as easily.

The night had been still, no wind, but Shikamaru watched his front door sliding wide open seemingly of its own accord. Still, no figure appeared. A drop of blood fell from the blade in his right hand onto the top of his bare foot. He wasn't entirely a stranger to the feeling of being hunted, but it wasn't a role he liked to play - especially when unknown numbers of his clan might be laying dead in their beds right now. His tongue was dry in his mouth. There was a creak and a snap from the direction of his bedroom; from the open window, perhaps. One of his less favoured corners of his mind swore at him for not shutting it when he had the chance. A noise against the wooden floors of his home reminded Shikamaru of the noise of Shino's insects and the hair on the back of his arms stood on end. It was quick. He could see nothing but something scuttled out of his bedroom and into his living quarters. From his vantage point against the edge of a bookcase, his eyes followed the noise as it crossed the floor. For a fraction of a second, it passed in front of the glass doors and silhouetted against the dim light from outside, Shikamaru could make out the shape of a small animal, no bigger than a cat but long and low. Not insects – but lithe little feet, the clacking of claws on wood. It passed close to him but didn't seem to acknowledge him in any way before exiting through the door and disappearing from view.

He had no time to move before a veiled figure was at the door. They were facing him and strode silently into his home. Could they see him? No. The animal had been a scout. The ANBU gave a sharp, two-noted whistle, not even trying to hide their position. It was communication; this one was looking for their teammate. Shikamaru thought he could see the figure's shoulders drop slightly when they heard no answer.

Kunai flew across the room and Shikamaru's body was dodging the attacks before he realised what was happening; the thunder of adrenalin again. The aggressor was on him immediately and he slipped under the first blow to be caught across the back by a second. A trip, a strike, a dodge, a blade. This one seemed physically stronger than he was but he was quick around his own home, even in the dark. Still, some mesh armour would have been nice. They danced around each other, him with his hair whipping around his shoulders his each movement, them with the standard Suna veil covering their face. His own body didn't register where he was hit, but he knew that he was able to graze blows off a shin, an arm, a jaw, though it was difficult to tell if his blows was inflicting any real damage. He felt one of his chakra blades catch meat but it didn't seem to be enough to slow this Sand-nin down. He tried for a strike to the chest but his wrist was grabbed and he was pulled off balance, one of his blades skimming away across the floor of his living quarters. His opponent said a single word in the Wind Tongue that Shikamaru might have translated to mean "now" or "quickly" had his head not been otherwise occupied by the voice that spoke it: a woman's voice. Suddenly, his pride made him even more determined not to be beaten. He paused a moment to try to formulate a plan, but any coherent thought was interrupted by the sound of scuttling behind him. A slicing noise, and he felt blood drip down his ankle without the pain he'd expect to accompany it, so sharp was the blade.

His movement didn't seem to be compromised. The Suna ANBU was approaching him again and this time, he didn't wait for them to attack first. He launched a fist towards their abdomen but his body crashed into the wall. Did they dodge it? Or had he... missed? A kunai flew for him and he moved to evade it but stumbled. His breath was heavy and his vision was changing. The infiltrator's hands were on him, lifting him up and pushing him against the wall. He told his body to focus chakra into his remaining trench knife but it couldn't obey. His fingers felt like rubber, and the noise of his last weapon hitting the floor seemed to come to him from very far away as though the room was under water. This was poison.

The ANBU held his body up by pressing their forearm across his bare chest and the edge of a kunai into his neck. Their head and face were covered by cloth, except for the eyes. It took all his strength to try to meet this one's gaze as they looked at him, watching his consciousness drain away. Viridian eyes. He didn't realise eyes alone could smile and the arrogance of this one filled him with so much hatred that he could taste vomit in his mouth. Each breath hurt and Shikamaru wondered how many more of them he would take. Blood on his hands and a blade against his throat… he had failed his clan. Which meant he had failed the Hokage. Which meant he had failed his Village. He thought of how he had avoided seeing Mirai today, and how his mother would miss him, if she were still alive. These thoughts scattered to the wind at the same time as his vision finally failed. So this is how the brilliant young prodigy Shikamaru Nara would die. How disappointing.

No. This wasn't death. Not yet. It sure was dark though… how much time had passed? Was it still night or was he blind? Perhaps both. His hands were bound. There was rhythmic movement underneath him: he was being carried. Asymmetrical movement: he was being carried be a person with a limp. Slowly, he assessed the sensations in his body, noting his stinging ankle, aching limbs and bruised torso, all drowned out completely by the throbbing in his skull like someone had split it in half.

The movement stopped.

"Oh, good," came a woman's voice. "You're awake. I'm sick of carrying you." She spoke the Common Tongue with almost no hint of a Suna accent. He hadn't been loud – she must have noticed the return of consciousness from changes to his breath pattern and shifts in his weight.

He felt himself being lowered down and tried to orientate his feet underneath him but failed. His face hit the dirt before his hands could catch him and he tasted blood. There was a hood over his head. In fact, he felt fabric on skin all over his body – he was more dressed than he had been before. Someone laughed.

"Still sleepy, Nara?"

Shikamaru brought himself to his knees and breathed. His hands rested in his lap and he tried to flex his fingers to find that they were parted and held rigid by thin strips of metal, his hands bound together by cloth. He couldn't make hand signs. There were few elite shinobi in the great nations who could perform jutsu without the use of hand signs, but Shikamaru Nara was not one of them. He was incapacitated, but alive. If only this headache would ease.

There were hands on his neck and he flinched at the feeling, until realising that all they were doing was removing the hood. He blinked vision into his eyes and saw that the ANBU that he had fought earlier was stood in front of him, her face still hidden by the gutrah. So, he wasn't blind. From his position on the ground, she towered above him, with a travel pack over her shoulder and something long strapped to her back. But he took comfort in the realisation that there was apparently only one of them; and that this one was injured. The sky was just beginning to lighten. They were in a forest, but not his forest. They couldn't have gotten too far; maybe he could still escape and make it home.

Shikamaru opened his mouth to speak but could only croak instead of producing words. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Suna?"

"Stupid question."

Of course she was. It was in her uniform and in her language. None of the other nations would attempt an extraction mission like this – none of the others had any need to. It had been a stupid question, so he searched his recovering mind for a better one. "My family?"

"Alive." If she hadn't just broken into his home, beaten and kidnapped him, he might have called her tone reassuring. "They'll be waking up around now."

So they had been poisoned with the same thing he had been. His family would be okay, it was only him that the enemy wanted. He could have cried with relief.

"What are you going to do with me?"

"My, my," she teased him, "we are full of questions tonight, aren't we, Nara?"

"One more."

He was clearly in no position to be making requests but saw her nod in the half-light. "Did you dress me?"

Now that he could see, he noticed that he was wearing the combat pants and undershirt that he had being wearing the day before, that he had strewn carelessly onto his bedroom floor before bed. No mesh armour, no flak jacket… but it was better than being naked. The thought of someone dressing him while he was drugged and unconscious was as violating as the intrusion into his home.

"I even brought shoes, if you want them," she elaborated for him. "I had expected to have some help getting you out of there, but it looks like it's just me and you." He remembered the other Sand-nin he had killed. "And I'm not carrying you the entire fucking way. We have a rendezvous scheduled that I don't intent to miss."

When he was a very small child, he would sit on the step of the engawa while his mother or father put his shoes on for him before he went off into the forest. It was so long ago that he didn't know if it was a true memory or just something he pictured happening in his young mind. He was far from being a small child now, but here he was – on his backside, surrounded by forest, letting someone else dress him when he was unable to do so himself. Helpless and kidnapped by a girl. How humiliating.

"So. Can you walk?"

Getting to his feet was difficult with his hands bound, but his head only swam for a second once he came upright. The thought that his family were safe gave him strength. They'd raise the alarm and someone would come for him soon enough. All he had to do was get away from his captor, or perhaps leave a trail. Being valuable made him a target, but it also meant that the Leaf would work hard to get him back alive.

His body began to obey his orders again and he felt a little more alive than before, and certainly more motivated. He was thinking clearly again. Now stood, he was a little taller than her and she didn't seem as intimidating. Upon practising taking a few steps, it was clear than he could move faster than she could, too. A section of her pants was torn open across the thigh and a bloodied wound was visible underneath: this must be the meat that his blade had bitten into. Under normal circumstances, he might have grimaced at the gore, but right now, it was just another piece of information to arm himself with. The path they walked was one he didn't recognise but he knew the routes around the Land of Fire well – it wouldn't take long for him to get his bearings. And the low sun would tell him which way was home. He could do this.

"Stop it," she told him.

"Stop what?"

"Thinking. I can see the cogs turning behind your eyes. Let's get going."

It only took a few minutes of him following her for his confidence in his body to increase. He just needed to move a little for his bones to loosen up, just like any other morning. He felt strong. He let her walk a few steps ahead of him and decided that now was as good a time as any to make his escape. His mind pictured kicking her wound, her weak spot, and taking to the trees, racing back the way they had come until he recognised the track. He could probably use his teeth to get this device off his hands, then there'd be no stopping him, even if she did find him again before the Leaf did.

Except, that isn't how it actually happened. What actually happened was that the Suna kunoichi caught his foot before it came close to hitting her, and in a second he was on the ground again. This time, unhooded, he tasted dirt.

"That was stupid."

Okay, so maybe his strategist's mind was still a little foggy if he thought that might have worked.

He resigned to follow her for a while longer. Now, there was a rope around his waist, the other end of which she held on to as though he were a dog on a leash. And worse, she had now begun humming tunelessly to her self. How he hated the Sand.

The land around them began to awaken as they walked, the sun rising higher into the sky. It was a hazy day, the sky a bright white beyond the canopies of the trees above them. Wildlife twittered around them and little rocks and twigs crunched under the pair's feet as they walked. Intermittently, the Suna ANBU would tug sharply on the rope, digging into his sides and prompting him to join her leaping between the boughs, but this method of travel was difficult for him without use of his hands and also for her with her leg wound, so each time they soon returned to walking. They didn't hurry – he lagged behind in the vague hope that missing the rendezvous she mentioned might work in his favour, and he suspected that she might have been glad of the slower pace given her injury.

He had plenty of time to consider how he might leave a trail for his comrades to follow. The long dark hair that fell around his face, still loose from the night before, would make perfectly adequate figurative breadcrumbs. Alternatively, it would be easy enough to make himself bleed and let the droplets show them the way. Not that it was even likely necessary: the Leaf's tracking ninja were elite amongst the great nations. Between the Inuzuka nose, the Aburame insects, and Hyuuga byakugan, he'd be home in time for brunch.

But brunch time came and went. And still they kept moving, further and further from the Village. With every step, his chances of being found dwindled. With every step, a little more hope slipped away. He lagged.

"Getting tired, Nara?" she taunted him.

"As it happens, Suna, I didn't get much rest last night."

A physical escape might be out of the question, but there was a person under that veil, and people were flawed. Susceptible to manipulation. Corruptible. Maybe he could bribe her. Or threaten her.

"I hope they're paying you well for such a dangerous mission," he offered. When she didn't reply he probed further. "That is, if you even make the journey with a leg like that. I'm no medical nin, but I've seen wounds much smaller than that sour the blood and kill the victim."

Still, his captor walked on in silence.

"If we turned around, I know the Hokage would double whatever you've been promised by the Sand for my safe return, and fix your leg," he lied. "Plus, you wouldn't need to share the reward money with anyone else, since your teammate was killed."

"Two," she said.

"What?"

"Two teammates."

He thought back to the night before, to killing the first with his sensei's trench knives and being taken captive by the second. If there had been a third, they must have been lost somewhere else in the compound, taken down by someone else. He began to ask but she cut him off. "Who-?"

"Your mother."

Yoshino. He should have known she was too fierce to let the compound be infiltrated without a fight. The thought of her being alive and being strong warmed his bones. One side of his face curled into a smile, but was quickly removed by the force of her fist in his gut.

"I just lost Maki-"

He was doubled over at the pain, but was immediately distracted by another hit across the side of his face.

"-and Otokaze because of you."

He stumbled but somehow remained on his feet. He spat onto the ground and watched blood stain the earth. This fucking Sand Ninja. Shikamaru liked to think of himself as a rational person, not quick to anger. Maybe it was the pain of the beating or the humiliation of the capture or the exhaustion of the drugging, or maybe he had actually been very angry for a very long time and had been ignoring how it had been building inside him for years. But now, here it was. Nothing but the rage in his gut gave him the strength to stand and face her, to square his shoulders to her, to hate her so intensely that she became the embodiment of all the Sand shinobi that had made his life so difficult for so long, the Sand shinobi that plagued his Land and slaughtered his people, the Sand shinobi that had killed Asuma and Shikaku. His hatred for her boiled in his veins.

Bloodied spit hit her in the eye before he even realised he had done it. She turned her face away immediately, a reflex, wiping it off with her sleeve and swearing at him in her mother tongue.

"You'll get what's coming to you, Suna" he snarled at her, "when they catch you."

He clenched his abs against the pain in his gut and felt heat radiating from where her fist had made contact with his cheekbone. He watched her turn back to face him and her chest heave dramatically with a sharp sigh. He watched her grab the rope around him with both hands and pull, and the ground came up to meet him.

There was a foot on the back of his neck.

"No one's going to catch me, Nara. No one's looking for you, not here." He heard fabric tearing. "Your little Leaf Village friends think I've taken you on the North road, through the Land of Rain. We're going south, through the Land of Rivers, along the coast. I've been very thorough."

A false trail? Shikamaru felt sick again. She was lying, she had to be. Someone had to come for him. He needed to get out of this. She grabbed his hair in her hand to pull his face up out of the dirt.

He managed to reason a small retort. "If that's true, they'll realise it's a false trail soon enough."

"I'm sure they will," she agreed. "But not before you're half way across the desert."

He hoped she wasn't correct, but doubted his chances. And if he wasn't going to be found by his comrades, if he really was taken to rendezvous with other Sand shinobi and taken to Sunagakure, to the Kazekage, what would happen to him? Luckily for Shikamaru, the urge to wallow in despair was cut short by a roll of material being forced into his mouth and tied behind his head. He bit down on it in frustration and grunted. He couldn't speak.

"How careless of me to think I'd disarmed you," she said as she hauled him back onto his feet, "while forgetting about your most dangerous weapon - that vicious tongue of yours."

He could only stare at her as she made her snide remarks. Those disgustingly arrogant eyes, the only thing he could see behind her ANBU uniform. He had never hated anything more than those eyes.

"Be thankful I'm only gagging you, and not cutting your tongue out of your mouth. Now," she gave two little tugs on the rope again. "Are you ready to start doing what you're told, Nara?"

He walked with her. There was nothing else he could do but walk with her.

Hello again, friends! I have coursework due, so obviously I had to ignore that and instead write about our two favourite idiots accidentally falling in love and hating every second of the process.

Most of this is already planned out so hopefully updates won't be too far apart but, you know *non-committal shrug*

Cinder x