A/N: I think I labeled this story complete sometime in 2016 at Chapter 121/109 because...I can't write anymore. So what am I doing now?! Ahh right, I finally figure the details out within 10 seconds yesterday because of...reviews.
—oOo—
Chapter 115
The sky suddenly darkens. Temari looks up and sees clouds of sand blanketing Suna as if to protect it.
"Gaara," she whispers.
Someone is attacking the village of Suna and Gaara, her brother, is doing all he can to defend it from a foreign shinobi who is riding a big, white bird.
Gaara is in pursuit, on top of his sand, flying while the enemy creates explosion after explosion.
Clutching her baby tightly in her arms, Temari runs, not towards the fight but to get away. Rasa, her father, probably had a back-up plan that wasn't canceled. She has a feeling, her child—no, she knows Shikadai is in danger.
—oOo—
Shikamaru is woken up by something very loud outside. He scrambles to get up from the bed and looks out of the window from his and Temari's room. He sees tons of sands being sucked up from the ground towards the sky and the massive sound it creates has woken him up.
"Temari!" he shouts only to belatedly remember the kiss on his cheek before his wife and kid left much too early this morning to visit Rasa's grave. "Damn it!" he mutters to himself as he runs towards their roof deck. He will see better from that vantage point. Afterall their room is in one of the tallest buildings in Suna.
Reaching the roof deck, he spots Kankuro already wearing his purple face paint and his full body suit.
The roof deck is also filled with other Suna shinobis, watching too what is happening in the sky. Gaara covers almost the whole of the village with mushroom like sand shield protecting the village from a huge clay bomb that is suddenly dropped by the enemy nin riding an owl like white bird. The explosion is immense but the sand barrier is bigger and stronger.
Cheers are heard around Suna, encouraging the Kazekage to defeat the enemy nin.
"Let's move," Shikamaru shouts his orders to shinobis around him. "Let's make sure no one dies in case there are more bombs."
"Hai," the shinobis reply, some rushing to leave the roof deck to perform their duties.
Kankuro looking around at the faces present, finally asks, "Temari?"
"She can take care of herself," answers Shikamaru although a frown mars his forehead.
The Suna shinobis are busy preparing massive weapons that can fire arrows in great distance towards the sky. When those are ready they train their arrows with explosion tags towards the enemy but it's futile. The arrows don't even graze their target. Only Gaara is able to block the flying clay bombs thrown their way with his sand.
Gaara keeps on trying to catch the elusive enemy nin with his sand. One time, he almost succeeds but before he can activate his Sand Binding Coffin technique to crush the enemy's arm, the enemy gives him another slip by bombarding and chipping away the sand on his arm as his bird flies an evading maneuver.
Freed from the enveloping sand on his arm, the enemy nin atop his owl like clay bird starts to flee towards the edge of Suna while still leaving a trail of exploding bombs. Soon the sky clears as most of the protective sand shield subsides back to the ground.
Kankuro smirks. "That's right. Run away you, bastard! You're no match to our Gaara!"
Shikamaru cups his hand on his forehead, shielding his eyes from the sunlight to see the flying white bird in the sky. Due to the distance, the white bird appears small but Shikamaru can still see it swooping down, finally disappearing from his line of sight, only to soar up high once again. The white lump in the sky suddenly appears to have something wriggling on its tail feathers.
—o0o—
Temari's plan is to hide as far away as from where the commotion is at. She runs towards the edge of Suna. As of the moment she has the advantage of no one knowing where she is.
Shikadai won't starve because she can nurse him. Thank God her baby takes after his father. All he does is sleep, sleep and suckle her breast.
She finally sees a huge boulder that can provide her with shade in this desert land, she can wait for the fight to be done from out there. She runs faster towards the boulder. There are less and less people out here, so there's less and less targets for bombs. When suddenly, a big shadow of a bird appears on the ground. Temari then looks up behind her. Damn it, it may be a clay bird but that owl face should have given her the clue that it's god damn silent when it flies! She tries to remove her fan from her back but encumbered with a baby and a bulky baby bag, her reflexes are slowed down. Too late, she and her baby are swooped up, enfolded by the bird's tail feathers.
"Nooo!" Temari shouts, struggling against the feather's hold until she can even feel her yukata loosening. Her movements and shouts soon alarms Shikadai and the baby starts to wail heartily.
The enemy nin standing on top of the bird's body suddenly pauses in releasing his bird bombs to swivel around towards the tail to glower at Temari, pointing with his index finger at the baby. "You won't hear my art explode with that awful noise your miniature is making."
With the wind blowing their hair, Temari then spies the enemy's left eye scope concealed by his hair bang and realizes belatedly how she was seen fleeing from the village. "Damn you, let us go!" she orders, glaring at the shinobi who holds her and her son hostage up in the air.
"If I do that, you and your miniature will fall down in to your death," cackles the enemy shinobi as his paper white bird soars higher and higher towards the blueness of the sky.
"No, we won't," growls Temari only to suddenly bite her tongue to stop herself from uttering her gasp of surprise as she feels her supine body turns sideways and the rush of wind tousling and battering her and Shikadai as they climb the sky really fast. She curves her body around Shikadai to protect her baby. She then turns her head to look down and that's when she notices the trails of sands flying after them. "You're dead. Gaara will make sure of it," she rasps before kissing Shikadai's forehead, murmuring words of reassurance in a cooing voice to the crying infant, "Your uncle is coming for us."
The bird's tail feathers curling around them feels secure enough but it doesn't feel all that solid as a support for her and Shikadai's weight. Temari's still afraid that she might drop her baby in the horizontal sideways position she's in. She tries to relax her clutch on her son. She continues to talk in a reassuring tone as she lets go one of her kunais through the slit of the feathers. "Your father is a lazy as—arg your father is lazy but he might just come too. Maybe he will even bring your favorite uncle. You'll like that won't you, Shikadai?"
—oOo—
"Give me the binoculars now!" Shikamaru suddenly shouts.
"What?" Kankuro squints, trying to see better the white speck in the sky.
A shinobi scrambles to give Shikamaru the binoculars.
"It seems the enemy nin picked up something along the way," another shinobi that just arrives, reports. "The villagers near the area has signaled such happening. We'll know more in a while."
Shikamaru watches the speck through the binoculars and sees someone struggling until a piece of his or her cloth comes undone. It is a purple obi printed with tiny flowers that is seen trailing down from in between the whiteness of the birds paper like feathers.
"The bastard got Temari!" Shikamaru, gritting each word, announces.
Kankuro swivels around to stare at his brother. "How can you know it's Temari? They're too far away."
"That obi is my gift to her. Thanking her for agreeing to finally come with me here in Suna. Damn it! She is right! Rasa—she shouldn't have come. Not yet anyway."
"Don't beat yourself up, big bro." Kankuro looks sharply at Kamaru. "Gaara will get her back." He then pats his older brother's nearest shoulder before pointing to the brown speck in the sky that is obviously Gaara with his trail of sand. "And you said it yourself. Temari can take care of herself. Thank God at least Shikadai is safe in your room."
Shikamaru's eyes meet Kankuro's. His voice soft and slightly trembling as he reveals, "The bastard got Shikadai too."
"Fuck!" Kankuro then starts to run. "Come on then!"
Shikamaru lifts his hand to immediately grab Kankuro's arm. His voice regaining strength as he utters, "Don't be absurd! They're too far away now. And as they are flying, they won't leave any trail. Our best hope is Gaara."
"But—" Kankuro says helpless.
"Tracking isn't your strongest suit, neither am I," Shikamaru rasps. "Even though, it's hopeless, we can gather our best men in tracking. Each one will then lead a team with a medic. Hopefully, my son won't need one."
"I'll join one of the teams," Kankuro says, "My nephew must be scared. He'll be reassured once he sees my painted face. He thinks it's super funny."
Shikamaru nods his head. "I don't care if your group reaches them first before mine. What's important is we find them."
"Maybe Gaara left trails of his special sand for us to find," Kankaru says wistfully.
"He won't do that. The grains are just too small and lightweight. They are flying quite high, the wind will just carry his grains of sand every where and will just mislead us. Hopefully though, Temari has brought some kunai but she can only throw down those sparsely since I know she doesn't carry much of those. Not when she has her giant fan."
"Damn it. There's just too much ground for us to cover and we don't have that many men," complains Kankuro. "Won't your wife just fight—"
Shikamaru raises his hand to halt Kankuro's words. "On the ground, Temari only has one hand tied with Shikadai. Up in the air, she needs both hands around him. She won't risk it. And I don't want her to."
"Then we better hope Gaara gets that bastard," growls Kankuro.
"Oh he will. We'll just draw flak from my wife for going after them too," Shikamaru says, the joke lying flat for once.
—oOo—
~9 27 20 P9 28 20~