Ino hugged her knees to her chest and cried; Sakura beside her and rubbing one of her shoulders. The two of them, plus Naruto (without the ninja turtle uniform; it lay in a pile beside him) sat on the edge of the cafeteria stage, where many couples had previously been dancing. They were alone in the school; the dance had ended a while ago, and their friends, though worried, had left moments ago.
Where was Shikamaru?
Ino could only weep.
It was just past seven, the dance had only just begun.
As Kiba searched the crowd to hunt down Hinata, and Naruto latched onto Sakura like a leech, Ino scanned the crowd. She spotted Neji and Tenten dancing… obviously, Tenten had roped Neji into doing it, because not only did it not seem like something he would do, but he also didn't look to be enjoying it. Lee, clad in the green jumpsuit Gai had given him (and also a flak jacket), was wandering around the cafeteria dance floor and probably looking for Sakura or Gai. She soon spotted Kiba again, having found Hinata and blatantly apologizing for any crime he may have committed against her. In return, she was blushing and shaking her head, probably trying to say he had done nothing wrong and she had merely gotten lost within the crowd.
Since she couldn't get him to dance with her, Ino took Shikamaru over into the cafeteria annex – or the 'Ninja Café' as it had now been dubbed – to grab a soda. She was just itching for an ice cold Dr. Pepper right now.
"Drink's are over here, Shika!" She pointed ahead of them, at the long table dressed in plastic table clothes and paper decorations that the student council had set up earlier that day. She grabbed a Dr. Pepper and raised it to her lips to take a sip.
"Shikamaru!"
Ino immediately pulled the plastic cup away from her face to see who had just squealed her date's name, splashing some of the soda out of the cup with the sudden force. The sound pitch of the person's voice was all too creepily familiar.
Temari tugged onto the Nara boy's arm, grinning. She was clad in a black ninja dress, with what seemed to be a giant fan strapped to her back.
It's ugly, Ino growled, crushing the cup in her hand and spilling Dr. Pepper all over the floor. She threw it off to her side and grabbed a napkin off the table, wiping her hand before tossing it haphazardly in the same unknown direction that she had thrown the cup.
The Yamanaka girl tried to put on her cheapest, fakest smile before greeting the Suna transfer student, "Temari!" She said so sickingly sweet that she wanted to throw up, "I'm surprised to see you here! After your old school's pathetic defeat, I thought you wouldn't even want to show your face around here."
"Yes, well," Temari returned with her own cheap, fake smile, "I have a score to settle with one certain Kyuubi boy. Plus," She hugged onto Shikamaru's arm tighter, "I missed him."
"It's only been a day since you last saw each other." Ino replied, gritting her teeth together to keep smiling.
"Love is complicated." Temari fake laughed. Shikamaru groaned and pulled away from her.
"Look, if you two are done with your… conversation here," he looked from one fake smile to the other, "Temari, I have a date. We'll talk later." He eyed her, annoyed, "Much later."
Temari crossed her arms and pouted at Shikamaru, before turning to Ino and giving her the finger and stalking off.
"Thanks, Shika," Ino grinned, for real this time, "For not abandoning me or something."
"Pssh, I hate her." He scowled, "We got stuck together in a chemistry project last month once, and all of a sudden she thinks she owns me."
"So there's nothing to worry about?"
"Nothing at all."
"All right, I'm going to get another soda. Want anything?"
"Grab me a coke?"
Ino nodded and ran back over to the table, grabbing two sodas and a cookie (since they were fresh and looked to scrumptious to pass up. Cookies own, you know) before returning to over to Shikamaru's side. He grabbed the soda and took a sip.
"All right, we should probably-"
"SHIKAMARU!" Kiba yelled, running through the door and accidentally hitting a few people every time he turned with that turtle shell strapped to his back, "CRAP, Nara, get out there! Something's going on between Naruto and Gaara!"
Shikamaru sighed, "What now?" He groaned, before stuffing his hands back in his pockets and leaving the annex. Kiba and Ino exchanged curious glances before running after him.
"What do you mean I disgraced your school? This is your school!" Naruto screamed, clenching his fists. The crowd that had formerly been populating the dance floor had gathered around the screaming orange ninja turtle and the Suna exchange student.
"This shit hole is just a temporary home," Gaara growled.
"What the hell is going on here!?" Shikamaru yelled, shoving his way through the crowd until he reached the center where Naruto and Gaara stood, the blonde one hunched over and shaking his fists while the other stood calmly, arms crossed. Both averted their gazes to him.
"This guy's talking crap about Konoha."
"No, I'm talking about your stupid Kyuubi mascot here. He had no right to do what he did."
"Who gives a crap? I always thought everyone laughed at the mascot!" Shikamaru stared incredulously at Gaara, "Or are you just taking your frustration out on Naruto because we beat Suna at the game yesterday? Because if you are, I'd suggest taking it out on Uchiha."
"I'd love too, but that fag is too frightened to show his face here," Gaara smirked, "Haven't you noticed? He isn't at the dance. He's off with some kids from Oto Academy."
So people gasped at this accusation. A rumor had been spreading that the Uchiha god had been interloping with students from their rival, Oto. Some said he would transfer because of a tight relationship with their principal Orochimaru. But no one thought it was actually true. They figured Naruto just got really pissed off one day and decided to spread a nasty rumor.
Shikamaru scoffed, "Like I give a crap about what Sasuke does. I never really liked him."
"You tell him, dattebayo!"
"Look, Nara," Gaara scowled, narrowing his eyes, "I don't want anything to do with you. I just want to teach Uzumaki here a lesson."
"I don't think you get the point. I always end up having to back these guys." He gestured towards Naruto and a few of their friends standing behind him, "I don't even want to be here, I have better things to do."
"If you have such better things to do, why don't you go do them and leave me the crap alone?" Gaara took a step forward, closing the distance between he and Shikamaru until he was about an arms distance from him.
"Can't do that," Shikamaru shrugged, "I hate to see them get hurt. It's a pet peeve."
Gaara growled again and clenched a fist, "Fine then."
He slammed his fist right into Shikamaru's right cheek.
"I'll hurt you instead!"
"Ah… crap." Shikamaru absorbed most of the impact, but still ended up taking a few steps back from some of the extra force. He held a hand to his cheek tenderly, noticing that it had already begun to swell. Picking a fight with Gaara had been unintentional, he knew that he had sent kids to the hospital in the past and didn't want to get messed up in anything so troublesome. Damnit, why did Naruto have to go and screw everything up like that? There was no way to get out of this now…
Gaara didn't wait for Shikamaru to react with his own physical attack, but instead kept throwing punches. "Are you going to fight back, Nara, or am I just going to get bored!?"
He threw another punch, this time at his shoulder, nearly dislocating it. Shikamaru flinched and grabbed his shoulder, gritting his teeth to try and get his mind off the pain. He looked back up at Gaara.
"You freaking bas- oof!"
Gaara's foot came into a forceful contact with Shikamaru's crotch, and the lazy genius fell to the floor with a sickly thud. The Suna boy walked up to him, placing his foot upon his forehead.
"You're so weak," he laughed, and started to apply pressure to Shikamaru's forehead via his Converse shoes, "How do you expect to save your friends any pain if you don't even fight back yourself?"
"I don't have to fight back against someone like you," he growled, wincing as it felt like his skull was being crushed between two ten-ton bricks. The fact that the cafeteria floor was coated in linoleum tile didn't help much. Gaara abruptly moved his head onto its side with his foot, still applying the same pressure. His neck cracked a little.
As Gaara laughed at his comment, Shikamaru slowly let his hand advance towards the foot Gaara used to crush his skull. In a swift motion, he pulled his foot away, throwing his opponent off balance and sending him crashing into before just like Shikamaru did only a moment before.
Gaara groaned, shaking from the impact but still trying to get up. However, he couldn't move fast enough; Shikamaru grabbed his arm to prevent him from moving and jabbed two fingers below his ear where his jaw and neck connected. Gaara screamed and tried to jerk away, but Shikamaru still had a firm grip on his arm.
Without sitting up, Shikamaru prodded Gaara's throat, just above his collar bone, and left shoulder, receiving a scream in return each time. Gaara finally found the strength to jerk away and rolled over to the side. Slowly, he got to his feet and look down at the Nara boy.
Shikamaru never stood up himself.
"Nara, you're on my hit list," he growled, holding his shoulder in pain. He kicked Shikamaru once more in his head before retreating through the crowd and out the door. With him, the crowd slowly dispersed back to what they were originally doing.
Ino had never made it through the crowd, so she could only wince and all the sounds of bodies hitting the floor and knuckles coming into a sickening contact with flesh. When the crowd finally let her through, she ran straight up to Shikamaru and knelt by his side.
"Are you okay?" She let a hand tenderly make its way to his forehead, tracing the lines left by Gaara's converse high-tops, "What happened?"
"Something troublesome," he groaned, reaching a hand up to his head and laying it on top oh hers. Ino adjusted her hand to grip onto his firmly. "I'll be fine."
"Whoa, Shikamaru!" Naruto grinned, "You just jabbed him like… four times and he was out! And he hit you like… a million, dattebayo!"
"It's all about pressure points," Shikamaru laughed to himself. "Asuma taught me about them once."
Ino smiled with him and stood back up. She took his hand with him, "Come on, I'll help you up."
He tugged at her arms and pulled himself up, using his other hand to hold his head. He grimaced and shut his eyes closed tightly.
"Is everything all right, Shika?"
"Yeah, yeah…" He groaned, opening his eyes before shutting them again, "Dizzy spell, I guess. Can't see, but it'll wear off." He moved the hand that had been holding his head in front of his face and blinked a few times. He had been bleeding.
In the time it took Ino to blink once, Shikamaru fell back down to the floor with another thud.
He had fainted.
Gaara's reputation lived up to him: everyone he fought was sent to the hospital.
However, he had what was coming to him. Principal Tsunade, after seeing the ambulance drive Shikamaru away, wrote a note to herself to suspend Gaara the next school day. He'd be sentenced to a life at the Learning Center for the next few weeks.
The dance soon ended, and after everyone filed out of the building, all that was left were the few student council freshmen who had been forced to do the task of cleaning up, the chaperoning teachers, and Ino, sitting sadly on the stage with Sakura and Naruto. She had been crying ever since Shikamaru had fainted an hour ago.
"Look, Ino, he'll be fine. Things like this happen around here all the time, and they always come back looking as good as ever."
"Yeah, Shikamaru's gonna be here Monday all brand spanking new, dattebayo."
Ino shook her head, choking on sobs. "Another Homecoming, ruined."
"Another one? You said you've never been to Homecoming before."
"No, I haven't." She tried to settled down her sobbing, "But I almost did. I told you, Sakura that last year I had a date, but we moved too soon?"
"Yeah."
"A guy named Sai asked me out," She smiled, but frowned right away, "I was so excited, that I searched high and low for an amazing dress to wear. My dad had a hard time playing along, and didn't want me to go. And he got his wish. The week of the dance, he announced we'd be moving again, on the day of the dance."
Sakura nodded and patted Ino's shoulder again. She let a few more tears escape, "When I told Sai I could make it, he just shrugged and asked for the ticket back. He was going to give it to someone else."
"So?"
"So! I thought Sai actually liked me, but it turned out I was just some random chick he thought would look good as his arm candy!" She cried and rubbed her eyes. They had grown red from all the tears she had wiped away, "And then this year, I got Shikamaru to take me, and everything was going wonderful until that bastard beat him into a coma!"
"Ino, it's all right," Sakura frowned, "Just calm down, I can see that Homecoming is not exactly your favorite thing in the world. I'm sorry I pressured you into finding a date."
"You didn't pressure me, I got myself into this." She sobbed again, wiped her eyes and stood up, "I have to go, I need to take Shikamaru's car back to his house."
"Do you know where he lives?"
"Yeah, kind of. I'll figure it out." She straightened her purple skirt and waved at Naruto and Sakura, "You should be going too, anyway."
"Will you be okay on the road?"
"I'll be fine."
Sakura and Naruto followed her out into the parking lot, but found they had each parked on different sides of the parking lot. Ino turned away from them and made her way to Shikamaru's Mitsubishi.
"Bye, Ino!" Sakura waved worriedly.
Ino waved a hand back, but didn't reply. She just grabbed the keys she had taken from Shikamaru out of her pocket, unlocked the car and got in. She turned on the engine and made her way out of the campus.
She couldn't help but think that Suna must be the hellhole home of bitches and bastards whose sole purposes were to ruin her life.
Ha! You thought it was going to have to do with Temari, didn't you? NOPE! Completely different!
This one was hard to write, I completely suck at fight scenes, not to mention I came up with it ALL off the top of my head. I'm just so special.
REMEMBER, EVERY TIME YOU READ WITHOUT REVIEWING, RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER GETS SICK AND CAN'T MAKE SANTA'S RUN, SO THE OTHER REINDEER CAN'T SEE AND CRASH INTO A BIG SKYSCRAPER AND FALL AND DIE!
Save the reindeer, people.
(haha, that one was creative)