Naruto left the medical ward the second he was cleared to go. He had bandages on his arms and hands, a gap in his grin where a tooth used to be, and a black eye. He was frustrated that he had missed the match between Shino and Kankuro, and he wasn't about to miss Shikamaru going up against Temari. Naruto arrived at the contestant spectating room just as the third battle of the day was beginning. His hope was that Sasuke would already be there getting ready for his fight, but he found that Gaara was the only one present.
Naruto realized that he might have to fight Gaara next. They watched the match from opposite corners of the room without exchanging a glance.
Down below, Shikamaru and Temari sized each other up at opposite ends of the arena. Shikamaru thought back to Temari's match with Tenten in the preliminaries. She's fast, she's strong and she's good at futon-style. This is going to be a hassle. Genma gave the signal, and Temari charged in, closing the gap and cocking her giant fan back to ready an attack.
Futon: Wind Scythe! Temari swung her fan and kicked up a howling gust of wind, powerful enough to kick up rocks, break tree branches and carve grooves in the trunks.
Shikamaru dove for cover behind a large rock as he suffered shallow scratches to his arms and face from the flying debris and cutting winds. Temari sent another blast of wind, bigger than the first, and Shikamaru ducked down and stabbed a kunai into a nearby tree to stop himself from being blown away. He realized that he had grabbed the wrong bag on his way to the arena that morning, and thus his ninja tools were not fully stocked. This sucks… I don't even want to fight right now. I'd rather play her in a game of shogi. But I can't just let her smack me around, I don't want to get beat up by a girl on this public stage. Not to mention, I can't let a sand-nin get an easy win in Konoha, I have home court advantage.
There was a pause in Temari's assault, and Shikamaru leapt up from his hiding spot. Kagemane no Jutsu: Shadow Possession! His shadow morphed in shape, slithering out of the shade of the wind-damaged trees. One end of Shikamaru's shadow stayed grounded with him, the other contorting into a sharp point that zipped across the sunny arena floor. Temari jumped back—her reflexes were quick. Shikamaru's shadow came to an abrupt stop, as if it struck a barrier. Temari stood safely out of range in a clear section of the arena.
"You have an interesting technique, shadow-ninja," said Temari. "I remember you from the preliminaries too. I think I've got it mostly figured out. You alter the shape of your shadow while maintaining the same surface area, and there's a limit to how narrow you can make the shadow, so there's a limit to your range. Yours seems to extend about twenty-one meters, or sixteen and a half meters from the edge of the natural shade. I'm guessing that your shadow's range is extended by natural shade, otherwise you probably wouldn't be positioned so far back when on the offensive."
Shikamaru sighed. Well, she's got the basics figured out. He had held back the full range of Kagemane no Jutsu, a fact that he hoped would catch Temari by surprise on his next attempt. The technique worked most effectively at close range on the dark umbra of his target's shadow. The sun was at Shikamaru's back, at an angle about twenty degrees past its peak. With every minute, the angle of the sunlight relative to the ground decreases by 0.25 degrees, increasing the length of the wall's natural shade. The back wall of this arena is about thirty-five meters tall, so at this time of day the wall's natural shade will only increase by about seventeen centimeters per minute. No way can I stall long enough for the shadows to lengthen enough on their own.
"If you're not coming out, then I'll just get rid of the shade," said Temari. She focused chakra into her fan and created a wind vortex, tearing up bushes and shearing branches off of trees.
Shikamaru was back to burrowing under cover. How long can she keep this up? He watched the currents of wind sweep up the wall behind him, sending loose soil, stones and branches high up into the air. Shikamaru knew the dust cloud was good for cover, but it wasn't pleasant. Shikamaru saw patterns in the wind's velocity, patterns in Temari's movements. He collected his thoughts and took inventory: four shuriken, three kunai knives, one smoke bomb, one flash bomb, and the clothes on his back.
A tree beside Shikamaru was torn out at the roots by Temari's constant battery of wind, and Shikamaru dove out of the way of the falling branches. He pulled off his jacket and headband, constructing a makeshift parachute with one of his kunai knives as a counterweight. On the end of the kunai, Shikamaru attached his smoke bomb. Temari's moves were becoming more predictable with each swing of her fan, and Shikamaru had a decent idea of the trajectory of projectiles caught up in the wind. Each gust provided more data.
"How long can he hide back there?" said Ino.
"At this rate, his cover isn't going to last much longer," said Kiba. "He'll be torn to shreds!"
"Stop worrying, this is Shikamaru we're talking about," said Choji. "I'm sure he already has the rest of the match planned out in his head. When he feels like competing, Shikamaru comes up with the best strategies."
Sakura raised an eyebrow at Choji's optimism. She thought back to their academy days, and Shikamaru's poor marks in every subject from ninja tool mechanics to combat tactics. He scored the minimum grade required to graduate, right alongside Naruto. To Shikamaru's credit, Sakura did recall one afternoon at the academy when they were assigned to play a game of capture the flag. Iruka-sensei told them that the losing team would be required to stay late for physical training and shuriken sharpening, while the winning team could leave early. She remembered Shikamaru, rubbing the sleep from his eyes fresh off a nap, decisively leading his team to victory by targeting the weaknesses of everyone on the opposing team, and optimizing the strengths of his teammates. It only took him a few minutes. But moments of inspiration like that had been exceedingly rare.
"Temari's attacks are too powerful and long-ranged for Shikamaru to get close," said Sakura. "He's at a serious disadvantage."
"You have to consider, this a girl that he's fighting," said Choji. "Shikamaru gets really embarrassed when he loses to girls—he'll do just about anything to avoid it."
Three shuriken zipped out from Shikamaru's hiding spot between Temari's attacks, but she knocked them away with the side of her fan. She leapt back as Shikamaru's shadow slithered toward her feet. "Trying to distract me from watching the ground for your shadow, eh?" she said. "And it looks like you were holding back a few meters earlier, trying to get tricky! Your range is closer to nineteen meters." With her focus on the arena floor, Temari had not noticed Shikamaru lobbing his parachute-smoke bomb contraption up into the dusty wind vortex. The parachute floated up on the current, silently gliding overhead.
Shikamaru used his shadow to corral Temari to her back left as she retreated, forcing her between the crater that Naruto had made with his final landing during his fight with Neji, and the hole that Naruto's last clone had erupted from. The slithering shadow cut hard toward the crater, disappearing into the natural shade of the earthen hole, and reappeared from the other hole that was connected by a narrow underground tunnel, which was behind Temari as she stepped back. The maneuver left Temari pinned with Shikamaru's shadow now approaching from behind her, her momentum carrying her toward it.
She stuck the end of her fan into the ground and used it to stop her momentum and vault herself away. "Sneaky use of the terrain, you almost had me!"
BOOM! The parachute-smoke bomb detonated in the sky, blanketing a large swath of the arena between Shikamaru and Temari with a gray shadow from the airborne black smoke. With the influx of natural shade, Shikamaru extended the range of his shadow.
When did he?! Temari leapt up, centimeters from being snared by Kagemane no Jutsu, using a wind technique to propel herself and her fan as a glider. It doesn't matter, I can just fly up so my shadow gets too light for him to catch. Based on his preliminary match, his technique seems to work best on darker shadows, so he's pretty ineffective against opponents that can take to the air. She performed a short sequence of hand signs, took a deep breath, then exhaled a powerful gust that disseminated the black smoke cloud. Futon: Giant Gust!
Shikamaru dashed out from behind his cover and hurled two kunai up at Temari. She ducked beneath them as she floated on the giant fan, failing to notice that one kunai flying past her had Shikamaru's flash bomb attached at the handle. Coming out of hiding? Finally, time to end this. The flash bomb detonated, and a bright light emanated from above and behind Temari, darkening the shadow that she cast on the arena floor. She rotated on her fan, blocking her eyes from the blinding light. What?! You've got to be kidding me! I'll blow him away before he gets close!
Kagemane no Jutsu: Shadow Possession! Shikamaru's shadow latched onto the shadow cast by Temari and her fan the instant before she could belt out a second giant gust. I had a feeling she would take to the air eventually. That makes shadow possession a lot more difficult, unless there's an especially bright light source even higher up and in line with me and her. I had to make sure she was too distracted to deflect the flash bomb. This is perfect.
Temari was paralyzed. Shikamaru took control of her movements as she glided on the fan. He shifted his body weight, simultaneously shifting hers, to bring the fan swooping down, then Shikamaru hopped up onto the fan with Temari. He shifted their weight again, pulling the fan back up into the air. They both crouched on the fan face-to-face as Shikamaru attempted to steer the unstable aerial vehicle higher up.
"What the hell are you doing!?" said Temari. Damnit! My body won't move how I want! I shouldn't have been so wasteful with my chakra… I can't break free of this!
"I wanted to try riding on this thing, you made it look pretty fun," said Shikamaru. "So many futon-style moves in an arena of this shape lead to a particular pattern of wind currents. Not too hard to fly when you have a decent estimate of that."
"Idiot! You're going to crash us into the wall!" said Temari.
"I know what I'm doing! Don't tell me how to drive!" said Shikamaru.
Kage–Kubishibari no Jutsu: Shadow Strangulation! At point blank range, Shikamaru activated the oppressive next form of the Nara Clan shadow possession technique. Not only was Temari immobilized, she began to feel a stifling pressure across her body, blurring her vision and leaving her lightheaded. She struggled to remain conscious. Sweat formed on Shikamaru's neck as he tried to maintain the jutsu—the chakra tax was high, even at this close range. I can hold on for just a few more seconds.
The gliding fan swerved with another shift in their weight, and an air current carried Shikamaru and Temari toward the upper stands. Audience members bumbled out of the way, pushing and shoving. A split second before impact, Shikamaru released his technique and leapt off the fan, giving it a final push. He landed clumsily in the branches of a tree on the battlefield below as Temari and her fan crashed into the audience seating.
Shikamaru climbed down from the tree, brushing twigs out of his hair. Oops, I meant to land her a little more softly than that… oh well, she'll be fine. He called out to Genma. "Yo! She's out of bounds, right?"
Genma gave the signal, and Shikamaru was declared the winner of the third match of the day.