Hello everyone! :) I'm glad to be back and writing. Hope you enjoy this one! It's a bit short today.

Shikamaru bolted upright to the splash of cold water in his face and spluttered as he took a sweep of his surroundings with a bleary gaze. When he tried to move his hands, he found that they were bounded by chains behind him and that he was in a dirty ass cell.

The person who had woken him wasn't in front of him anymore he noticed, and when he caught the head of pink hair on the opposite wall of him, Shikamaru widened his eyes. From what he could gather, Sakura looked like she was knocked out cold from the way her head was slumped down. Without any warning, the figure in front of Sakura tossed the second bucket of water they were holding on to her head. It splashed on to the stone floor the two of them were sitting on and pooled at Sakura's crossed legs.

What worried Shikamaru was her reaction time. While it took Shikamaru about 2 seconds for him to register to wake up, it took Sakura almost 10 seconds for her to even shift slightly.

When the figure saw that she moved, it turned around with its black hood covering its face and walked out of the cell locking the door behind them.

"Hey, Sakura," Shikamaru tried to get out, after clearing his voice a bit. He was trying to remember how they ended up in the situation they were in. He blinked hard, shaking his head as he was drawing up blanks.

What happened?

Shikamaru tried getting Sakura's attention again when she didn't reply by calling her name louder. Her head shifted to the side along with the twitch of an eyebrow. A groan of pain escaped her lips as her eyebrows furrowed together in pain and recognition. Then she leaned her head back against the wall, eyes still closed.

"Are you okay?" Shikamaru asked as he gauged her every move with a dart of his eyes. It was a little hard to see in the overhead lighting that they had but he could see dried blood on her uniform.

After a moment, with her eyes still closed, Sakura replied.

"I've never been better." She softly said with a light turn of her lips. Shikamaru chuckled slightly at that.

At least she still had her spirit.

"From…what I can piece together, I think we were assigned on an infiltration mission." Sakura said as she shifted her head forward and let it hang. There, she slowly opened her eyes and had them adjust to the light. Her emerald eyes took in the dried blood along her uniform, her hands instinctively going for it when she realized she was bound to chains behind her.

"An infiltration? Is this an A rank or an S?" Shikamaru inquired, still trying to figure things out.

Before Sakura answered his question, she inwardly examined her own injuries. A dozen bruises and barely bandaged lacerations, bruised ribs, a possibly sprained ankle. It didn't look good. She checked her chakra supply and saw that she barely had enough to heal a bruise. Fantastic.

"Judging based on my injuries, I'd say an A rank." Sakura replied as she met Shikamaru's gaze. He raised an eyebrow at the mention of her injuries.

"That's strange, you're injured yet can remember most of it, but I don't have any injuries yet I can't seem to remember anything that's happened." Shikamaru noted.

"My guess is that we got caught somehow and now we're waiting to see where we end up."

Not only a moment later, were the two of them shoved into a wooden barrel. And where was that wooden barrel going?

Oh, just straight down a raging river. With a huge waterfall at the bottom. Classic.

"What in the world?!" Sakura yelled as she and Shikamaru were whisked away from their captors. She swore she saw one of them wave with a smile as they sent us off.

"Quick, can you move?" Shikamaru said as he tried to shift his body that was pinned underneath Sakura's. "What can you see?"

Sakura gritted her teeth in pain by Shikamaru's movements as her injuries screamed in protest. The pink haired woman glanced down the raging river and saw a thick branch at the side. She leapt at the opportunity, throwing the thought that she was going to be in extreme pain for grabbing the branch herself out of her mind.

"Hold on, there's a branch here. Grab on to me, Shika." She said as she heard Shikamaru remain quiet for a moment.

"Hold on, you're injured why don't I-?" His hand was at Sakura's shoulder.

"There's no time! We're about to be hurled off of a waterfall!" Sakura exclaimed, concern for both of their safety clearly in her voice.

"Move back!" Shikamaru suddenly said, surprising Sakura. Suddenly he was in her face—well next to her face—with his hands in his jutsu position.

"How are you going to-?!"

"Just watch!"

The shadows that he created from the barrel in the water leaped out to one of the trees and wrapped tightly around it.

"I'm not gonna let some damn waterfall be the death of the both of us!" Shikamaru muttered under his breath as he indicated for Sakura to hang on.

As the barrel passed the tree, the shadows that clung to the trunk tightened and the barrel was pulled taut. Shikamaru furrowed a brow as he slowly reeled the both of them in, struggling as his own chakra was depleting. A small gasp from Sakura alerted him that there was a wide eyed look in her eyes. She was staring at something inside the barrel….

"…Shit, Shikamaru wait!"

Before he could react, the barrel around them exploded and Shikamaru was sent hurtling towards the tree, while Sakura slammed back into the water. As he turned around, he saw the remains of a paper bomb on one of the pieces of wood and cursed to himself, searching for his partner.

Sakura's pink head burst from the water gasping, trying to grab on to something as she was sent even faster down the river. Shikamaru bolted for her, running along the edge, trying to think of something quick because by Kami he was not going to lose her to a freaking water fall.

"Shika…I just remembered!" Sakura called out from the water, a strange look in her emerald eyes.

"What's so important that we have to talk about it now?!" Shikamaru snapped back, his hand grabbing a long branch that was on the side. He tried handing it out to her.

"We infiltrated to get something. They never got it back! You have to take it home, Shika!" Sakura quickly said as she threw something in his direction, a pained look appearing on her face.

She was almost at the edge now. The land Shikamaru was running on was getting smaller…

"What are you doing, Sakura? Grab on!" He cried out as he extended the branch for her again. Sakura reached an arm out to grab it, had a hold on it for a good second, enough for Shikamaru to wrap his shadow around her wrist.

With everything he had in him, he pulled her towards him, white hot pain coming from his shoulders from how the sudden weight jerked him to her. Then he had her in his arms. Then they were on the grass, gasping for air for what seemed like ages.

Then he hit her forehead with a flick of his finger, not caring for one second that she was already injured.

"Hey!" She said in an exasperated voice.

"Just why…in the world…would you sacrifice yourself just for the sake of the mission?" Shikamaru quietly said. Sakura realized with a blink of her eyes that he was dead serious. She tried to get off of him, but the grip he had on her arms kept her in place.

"I…the first thing that came into my head was about the mission…" Sakura trailed off, still unnerved at seeing her teammate like this.

"Shouldn't your life be more important than a measly mission?! Sakura, who knows if you were going to make it down at the bottom of that waterfall? Who knows if there were rocks down there, or if you would've even been able to survive the fall?" Shikamaru's voice was still quiet but there was an underlying concern in it.

"I might've survived who knows-!"

Sakura suddenly wasn't looking at Shikamaru's face anymore. There was a chin on her shoulder, and a blossoming warmth right in front of her, and strong lean arms wrapped around her. She couldn't move.

…Shikamaru was hugging her. And tightly at that.

"…geez, Sakura." He said with a slightly laugh next to her ear. "If you died, to whom would I tease about being a smartass all the time?"

Sakura couldn't speak. Breathe even. What was happening right now?

All she could do was splutter incoherent words as she felt her cheeks grow extremely warm.

I thought this was cute. Ahh heck, I think all these chapters are cute. Drop me a review with suggestions for a new chapter! I'm up for anything :)

-FallenWing21