Chapter 25: I'm With You

About a mile from the Golden Academy and they could all tell that Shikamaru was fighting tears. He'd just left his two teammates, probably to die, facing an army of Harbingers. The most that could be said for him was that at least he was still moving forward.

"Shikamaru," Temari called from just behind him, increasing her pace so that they were traveling side by side, " they'll be fine. They've faced this threat before, just like the rest of us, and they know what they're doing. Don't underestimate them Shikamaru, Choji said they'd catch up to us and they will."

"Of course they will," Shikamaru agreed, with no real feeling behind his words.

Temari gritted her teeth and made a noise of frustration. She jumped in front of Shikamaru, cutting him off and in turn stopping the whole procession. "They will be fine!" she snapped.

"I was agreeing with you!" Shikamaru retorted angrily, glaring at her.

"No you weren't!" she shrieked, "You were off in your own little world, shutting me out as usual!"

"Woman, what are you talking about!" Shikamaru yelled.

"I'm talking about this!" she sobbed, "About every time this happens! You're locked up inside your head thinking you know everything about it, and you won't listen to anything I say! You're not the only one here, you know, I'm here too!"

"I hate to interrupt, but that's not all that's here!" Neji barked.

Temari's whirled around to see the shadows of the trees quickly converging into large forbidding shapes. Taking advantage of the group's sudden halt they grew, twisting and morphing into at least a dozen grotesque monsters blocking the group's path.

"Get going!" Shikamaru called to the others, "I'll hold them off!"

"The hell you will!" Temari spat, whipping out her iron fan with practiced ease.

"Temari," Shikamaru growled as the others stood by, "go on, I'll handle it!"

"No," Temari retorted evenly, staring down the nearest dark, "we will."

Shikamaru gritted his teeth and jerked his head at the others, signaling them to move on. In a flash they were past him, and he and his wife jumped between the retreating army and the advancing darks. Sweat beaded Shikamaru's brow as he readied for the attack. Many more, smaller darks began forming around the larger ones, all but a solid wall of shadow.

"There's no point in you staying," Shikamaru told her softly, crouching slightly, "you know my plan Temari."

"I know," she replied evenly, not budging, "you plan on doing just what Ino did."

"And you?" Shikamaru asked, shooting her a sidelong glance.

"I plan on doing just what Choji did."

Shikamaru's eyes shot sideways again, "What? But thats . . ."

"You're my husband," Temari shot, "I'm with you."

"And what about our son?"

Temari looked back at the darks, a great mass of black writhing before them. "Our son has many parents. And he'll know . . . he'll know I was with you."

"Temari . . ." he breathed.

"Don't get all teary on my now, Shika-chan," she said, a little louder, guard back up, "are we gonna do this or what?"

"Come on then!"

With those words Shikamaru shot a tagged kunai into the conglomerate of darks, which exploded a moment later. The shadow beasts roared and attacked, massing forward toward the two shinobi. Temari swung her fan and a great wind obscured everything for a moment, knocking the smaller darks back to disintegrate against trees.

They managed to destroy eight of them before the last four consolidated into two.

An enormous, unnameable thing scuttled towards Temari, launching itself from a tree trunk at her. She swung her fan and it exploded into a thousand little dark insects raining down on her. She grunted in pain as she was thrown to the ground beside a fallen tree, blood pouring from several wounds.

"Temari!" Shikamaru yelled, leaping downwards toward her. The remaining monster swung one clawed arm, as thick as his waist, at him, knocking him to the ground on the other side of the tree, a great gash in his chest. The victorious creature made to follow the army, until another tagged kunai embedded itself in the thing's back, blowing up the last threat.

"There you go," Temari laughed cynically, coughing up a bit of blood, "we sacrificed ourselves for the team."

"How noble of us," Shikamaru grunted, his chest heaving. Temari gave a soft, half-hearted laugh in reply, and for a moment they lay in silence, panting and bleeding.

"Shikamaru?" Temari asked, her voice uncharacteristically soft.

"Yeah?"

"I can't see you."

"Damn log's in the way."

Another moment slipped by, an odd quiet settling over the stretch of forest. Shikamaru lay on his back, looking up at the leaves obscuring the sky.

"Temari?"

"Yeah?"

"Give me your hand."

Slowly, Temari placed on hand on top of the felled tree, and Shikamaru placed his hand on top of hers. He felt her heartbeat slow. He felt his slow with it. They got slower and slower, until at last they synced into a silent beat.

He felt like he was floating.

Then there was an odd light. He wanted to raise on hand to shield his eyes, but his arm felt too heavy.

"Temari?" he whispered.

"Yeah?"

"What do you see?"

There was a long pause, then . . . "Clouds. I see clouds."