Temari swung her fan again. The trees shook with the intensity of the blast of air and branches were torn free to spiral off into the forest. It was no good! She had been chasing Shikamaru through the woods for almost an hour but he always seemed to be just out of reach, or at least never where she expected. She knew he was close because periodically practice kunais would come flying at her from the surrounding trees. She cursed again as another practice kunai shot towards her. She Dodged it, trying to conserve chakra, only to spot the tendril of shadow sneaking along the floor towards her from the direction she had dodged to. She threw herself away from it and activated a tripwire, sending more kunai at her. Desperately she swung her fan, blasting the kunai off course and allowing her to regain her footing.

Damn him! That cocky little snot was jerking her around like one of Kankouro's puppets. He has to be close. Otherwise he couldn't keep attacking. The problem was that she couldn't pin down where he was going to attack from next, so she couldn't defend effectively or fight back. Hmph. Maybe she didn't need to know where he was hiding. It was risky, because he could be seriously hurt but...

She smiled viciously to herself. A full circle swing gave her the breathing space she needed to perform the summoning technique. She would have him swing the scythe backwards. After-all, she chuckled to herself, it's not like she wanted to KILL him.

The giant weasel appeared in a huge blast of smoke and began to swing its scythe. From the other side of the tree Temari had her back against she heard a sound that killed her feeling of triumph stone dead.

"Feh."

The weasel's swing changed course, swinging in tight and low, smacking Temari's fan from her hands and up over the trees. Temari was flung backwards by the impact. She cried out as she crashed into some bushes. The weasel was preparing another swing but Temari quickly unsummoned it and scrambled to her feet. Her hair was in a mess and her clothes were torn, but that was nothing to the anger that burned through her at how humiliatingly easily she had been read. Where was that little worm now?

She watched carefully for shadows, but the forest was still around her. No, wait! She could just hear the sounds of someone moving rapidly away from her. In fact, the direction was the same as the one her fan had been thrown in.

Damn him!

She threw herself after Shikamaru and began to make ground on him. If she could get to him, she could still win this! He was no match for her at Taijutsu, and if she could disable him even for a second, she could regain her fan and take back control of the fight. Clearly he had an advantage in these woods, but once she had her fan, she could take the fight into a clearing and hold her ground. There! She could see him moving through the trees ahead of her and increased her pace, desperate to reach him before he could get to her fan. She leapt towards him, her fist lashing out as she landed behind him on the branch.

She seemed to watch in slow motion as he turned and she saw the seals he was forming.

Oh no.

Shadowy hands rooted her feet to the branch she was standing on and twined their way up her body. She tried desperately to reach Shikamaru and managed to grab his jacket. She yanked him close and attempted to grasp his throat, but he caught her hands and although she was stronger, she could feel the shadow hands creeping up her arms.

She couldn't fight their strength.

Had she truly lost?

For a long time after he woke up, Shikamaru lay on the ground looking up through a gap in the canopy at the clouds passing overhead.

Damn, what a troublesome woman! He smiled to himself.

The plan had been perfect. He had read the fight exactly and hadn't even been forced into any of his dozen or so back up strategies. He had spent the whole night thinking it through step by careful step. Never before had he devoted so much time to the planning of a single fight. He had been so sure that it would work...and it had, as far as it went.

He had moved her around like one of the pieces in a game of Go. Never once did she do anything other than exactly what he expected her to, even down to her last efforts to strangle him. He sighed.

No, the plan had been perfect. It was only after the plan that things went wrong. He had her bound by shadowy hands, unable to move her arms or legs. All he had to do was get her to admit defeat...but then she had kissed him.

He lifted one hand to touch his lips as he remembered the taste of her kiss. His heart had stopped in that moment as she pressed herself forward to plant her lips on his. Then everything went black.

He chuckled to himself. He didn't even remember releasing her. In fact, only the lump on the back of his head told him what had happened. She really was the most troublesome woman he had ever met. Of course she would never let him forget that she beat him...again. Somehow though Shikamaru wasn't bothered too much by that. He probably wouldn't be able to forget that moment even if she never mentioned it ever again. Definitely troublesome, but while she was around life was never boring.

Shikamaru smiled up at the clouds...