Chapter 3
'What a little perv,' she thought angrily when she reappeared at camp. 'Spying on me while I was bathing! I have never been so insulted before in my life!'
Then it struck her what she had forgotten at the pond. Her bag. "Ah man! Can this really get any worse!" She yelled half to herself, and half to the boy who had been spying on her.
Grumbling angrily, Temari dressed, and waited for her brothers to return with dinner. She decided it was best not to tell them what had happened at the pond.
Another week pasted without incident, and Naruto returned with Jiraiya and Tsunade, the fifth Hokage. Temari was growing more and more restless.
But eventually, their mission came. Word reached them that Uchiha Sasuke had left the village with four sound nins in pursuit of Orochimaru. The village assigned the mission of retrieving the Uchiha to a group of rookies, one Chuunin, Nara Shikamaru, and four Genin, Uzumaki Naruto, Hyuga Neji, Inuzuka Kiba, and Akimichi Choji. All of whom were acquainted with Temari, Gaara, and Kankuro, thanks to the Chuunin Exam.
"This is gonna be good," Kankuro said rubbing his hands together in relish. "I haven't seen any action since we attacked the leaf."
Gaara and Temari remained silent as they jumped through the shadows, about a half a mile behind the team in search of Sasuke. Well, Gaara was always very quiet, but Temari felt bad about the attack on the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Temari hated war. Fighting, yea, that was fun, but war. No. Not fun. Countless people died in wars. She always thought there were easier ways to work out problems between countries then fighting. But it wasn't her choice to make. She was just happy that they might be able to make it up to the leaf by helping them against Orochimaru.
"Alright," Gaara said. "We need to split up. Temari, keep track of the leader, Kankuro, watch the kid with the dog on his head. I'll take Naruto."
"What about the other two?" Temari wanted to know.
"We can't be everywhere at once Temari." Gaara pointed out. "The Hyuga is strong, he can take care of himself, and the other one…well, Shikamaru would be stupid to send him off to fight, so I'm not worrying about it."
Temari nodded her head, and the three siblings divided, each following their target.
As Temari followed Shikamaru, the group of ninjas slowly got smaller and smaller. Choji was the first to be left behind to fight. (Despite what Gaara had predicted.) The next to go was Neji, then Kiba. All that remained now was Naruto and Shikamaru.
The two eventually ran into the last of the sound's four, Tayuya. This time, it was Shikamaru who was left behind to fight.
Temari hung behind, about a quarter mile away from where the fight between the leaf and the sound was taking place. She wanted to observe the Sound nin in action before jumping into a fight. She also was able to watch Shikamaru's great strategy against his opponent. It reminded her of her fight with Shikamaru, and how he had beaten her, not by strength, but smarts, but then gave up the match.
It wasn't until she saw a sound nin-now a lovely color of raging red by the way-grab a hold of Shikamaru, that she was snapped back from the past.
'Well, that's my queue,' she thought, grabbing her fan.