Chapter summary: Sakura fights like a professional boxer. Shikamaru fights like a cunning tactician. Tayuya fights like a rabid raccoon trapped inside a garbage bag. I know which one scares me most.

- Run -

'When he goes to punch, don't be there.'

Sakura slips between Utsuho's outstretched arms, rolling clear of his oncoming strike. His Katana passes inches from her throat, nearly taking her head clean off.

'When he telegraphs a strike, don't be there. '

She dodges his next series of blows, launching off a dead tree branch.

'When he turns to find you, don't be there.'

She races farther into the forest, Utsuho gaining ground with every step. He is so insanely fast. Faster than Kakashi. Faster than Sakura. He's supercharged on stolen chakra, power practically radiating off him. His killing intent stains the air around her, rippling like an oil slick.

But Shikamaru needs time, so Sakura's going to buy it for him with distance.

'Any rookie can block a strike with a Kunai, but only a master can disappear into thin air.'

When she sees the opening, she takes it. She careens into a hard right turn, angling uphill through the trees.

Utsuho doesn't miss step, changing direction on a dime. She cuts through another zig-zag, taking an open trail running up the mountain side. Gravel spits beneath her boots as she pumps her legs for all she's worth. All those hill sprint drills with Kakashi save her life in this definitive moment. She floods her legs with emerald chakra, circulating away the lactic acid building in her quads.

Utsuho keeps their pace at a dead lock, neither of them gaining or losing ground. Up ahead, she spots a clearing. She pulls a Kunai from her hip holster, readying to execute a 180 turn.

She hits the open plateau and spins on her heels. She lifts her kunai to catch Utsuho at full speed-

But Utsuho has disappeared. He is the one who has vanished into thin air, not a whisper of him in sight.

Sakura gulps down erratic breath, searching for her attacker while she hyperventilates. She stands exposed in the middle of the clearing, swiveling her gaze left and right.

Where did he go? Where did he go?

Something stalks the perimeter of the clearing. It watches her, biding its time. There is only Tayuya's haunting melody echoing among the rocks.

A twig snaps, dead ahead. Then another along her right.

'On your 5!' Yume screams.

Sakura spins, looking for her attacker. She finds him when Utsuho's fist collides with her face.

The blow shatters the bridge of her nose, rocking her head back hard. Her memories flicker into last week, spinning her vision in and out. Her hands fly up, protecting her face. It's all the opportunity Utsuho needs to sweep her legs out from under her.

A hand catches her by the vest in mid air and slams her to the ground with sickening crack. The back of her head splits on a slab of limestone, jarring her in and out of consciousness.

Her nose is blocked up. She breathes from her mouth. She wants to inhale, and yet can't. She's too busy screaming as the hand over her heart rakes the chakra from her limbs. It starts like a chill and becomes a dagger. Someone fills her insides with razorblades. They're dragging her intestines over hot coals-

If Shikamaru alive had made her feel immortal, Utsuho's iron grip makes her want to die. She struggles in vain against his terrible hold. She clears her vision just enough to find Utsuho's face only inches from hers.

He parts his lips as if to scream, but when he does she sees no tongue. Instead, two centipedes of inky smoke crawl chakra slick bodies up his esophagus. They spindle from the lining of his mouth, reaching for her through the dark.

In her panic, she tries to throw a punch, to shove him off her, anything-

But he catches her hurled fist between his fingers, no power behind her desperate strike. When her wrist goes numb, she understands. Tayuya's demons are disrupting her chakra current, syphoning it before it can even be formed.

They pull and sip and steal her chakra. It is agony unrelenting. She grips the useless kunai in her hand. She doesn't want to attack Utsuho, but it hurts, it hurts so much-

Her attacker releases his grip on her sternum, lifts his smoke filled mouth from her face. He wrenches the kunai from her limp hand, angling her blade into an overhead strike. She watches in terror as he points the tip directly into her eye.

"….No-"

A scream reverberates through rock and forest, a cacophony of cries rising to join the first.

"NO!"

But it's not Yume's voice ringing through her head.

It's Utsuho's.

He screams above her in pain and rage. It echoes in her lungs and between her ribs. He pulls her kunai back even further, then drives the tip down through the meat of his own hand. He imbeds it through sinew and into rock.

But his scream isn't agony, it's madness and victory. It's victory over the creatures inside him that battle for his very soul. His grip trembles on the pommel of her kunai, driving it deeper into his palm.

Sakura reacts on muscle memory, slamming her hand over his gushing wound. Her palm flares a molten green light, cauterizes his wound around the blade. It's a futile attempt to stop his bleeding, but she tries anyway. She's almost finished when Utsuho takes her by the wrist. He's not attacking her, he's just desperate.

"Just…. Run Sakura…" The words slip through gritted teeth, begging her to leave before he loses control.

She struggles to get out from beneath his body, but she feels so weak against his leaden weight. Her chakra hasn't fully reoriented yet. It's thin as vapors in winter air.

She chokes when Utsuho's hand grips at her throat. He's about to drain the rest of her dry. She hates what she has to do next, it violates every ounce of the doctor within her.

But she has to do something or she's going to die. She watches Utsuho's eyes roll back, his voice becoming a choked gurgle. She digs deeper into her well of chakra, feeling it snap with tension once more.

She brings a hand up to her ear, throwing her elbow across her body. She puts just enough chakra behind the blow to shatter utsuho's forearm from elbow to wrist. The monsters within him shriek from their many mouths and his fingers go slack around her neck.

She stomps her foot against the ground, sacrificing most of her remaining chakra with it.

The earth beneath her becomes a pit, splintering at her back as if it were glass. Utsuho's body pitches sideways, falling towards his trapped hand. She rolls out from under him at the last second, rolling away from the collapsing sinkhole.

Utsuho's hand drags him down into the crater where he vanishes into the dark.

She rolls and rolls away from the fissure, dizzy when she finally comes to a stop. She lays there, face buried in her arms and eventually finds which way is up.

Her heart sinks like a stone through water. She…had almost no chakra left now.

She'd failed.

Down in the pit, Utsuho's voice screams out. He snarls and whines like a wounded animal. Oh god, what if he was really hurt?

But Utsuho's body is mercifully untouched by fallen rock. Her kunai still fixes Utsuho in place, preventing him from clawing his way out. At his side, his other arm hangs limp like a waterskin. His forearm bends in a liquid way that arms never should. The smoke demons whip his body left and right, straining against the tendons of his hand.

Her cauterization has been for nothing. As Utsuho strains, his wound opens up anew. He bleeds heavily over earth and stone.

"I'm…I'm so sorry." She cries out. But Utsuho can not reply. He is Tayuya's puppet once more. She steps back from the pits edge, ashamed that she has to leave him.

But off in the distance, there are new sounds. Sounds of screaming and the absence of music. Shikamaru's voice rings out in pain, washing the mountainside with his cries.

Sakura takes off on trembling legs, cursing her stupidity. She'd let Utsuho catch her unaware. She'd let Tayuya's demons consume her power. She'd had to hurt Utsuho because of her mistakes. She'd fucking failed.

And now…what good would she be? She'd bought time, but at the cost of everything. She was very nearly drained of chakra and her broken nose felt two inches left of where it should be.

She thinks about Utsuho's shattered forearm and the potentially irreversible damage to his hand.

For all her big feelings and deepest hopes, it was Utsuho who had bought Shikamaru his time. He'd paid the cost with both his arms. Even if they survived, he might never write again.

There are only embers now where the bonfire of her power use to burn. Even still, she runs for SHikamaru, hoping he will know how to wield her. She takes a shaking step, and then another.

All she can do now was try and make sure Utsuho hadn't paid for their time in vain.

- Bomb Eater -

Shikamaru weaves threads of shadow across Tayuya's frozen body. He strains against her unyielding power, then watches in horror as she casts his shadows off like they are nothing more than spider silk.

He feels like he has a megaton of power coursing riptides through his muscles. All his earlier fatigue has finished. Even still, it's not enough.

Had it been full daylight, he would have been unstoppable. He would have bound Tayuya by the throat and snapped her neck. He would wrap her limbs from head to toe and shatter her bones like bits of chalk. But the midnight sun above is far from true daylight. It sputters in and out, unreliable. Even when he can make his Jutsu stick, at best he's only able to slow her down.

He lunges for her with his raised blade, slicing for her throat before she can run. Tayuya slips his strike and makes him pay for it. Her shin bone makes brutal contact with his floating rib, reminding him that it's definitely still broken.

But Shikamaru isn't a genius for nothing. He knows how to make use of a failed play just as much as a successful one. When her blow lands, he binds her again, wrapping shadows up her hip. She staggers back in step with him, their movements once more a perfect mirror.

She strains her limbs against his hold, the onrush of her strength making his breath hitch. He squeezes his hand seals tighter, forcefully willing his shadows to bind. He nearly breaks his own fingers struggling to keep his Jutsu intact.

But the unreliable light flickers again. It steals his victory and weakens his hold.

Tayuya smiles her wicked grin, ripping herself free as his shadows unwind. She drops into a low spin kick, her heel connecting hard with the side of his knee.

His leg folds in in a nasty way, buckling his stance and sending him staggering. His shadows smear across her body no more dangerous than finger-paint.

"God damnit!" He yells, forcing himself back upright. The soldier pill dulls the pain in his leg, but he knows he can't keep doing this forever.

Because all things come at a cost. Soldier pills are a curse as much as a boon. They numb away pain that could slow you down or keep you from making bad decisions. But pain serves a purpose, even it battle. It keeps you from further injuring yourself, from walking on broken bones and breaking them further.

Tayuya leaps away from his shadows, once more evading his attacks. He tests his weight on his injured leg, cringing at the way his kneecap slips around. She's just dealt him a lethal blow, and it's only minutes into their fight.

He gives into her chase anyway. If he lets her go now, a broken leg won't matter.

She runs for the trees, abandoning the clearing for the deeper forest beyond. As Shikamaru follows, he understands why. He curses her as he pants through his pain.

Outside the clearing, the flash bomb light grows thin. Trees throw shadows in larger pockets, weakening any hold he might get on her. He watches Tayuya launch herself from branch to branch. She knows exactly what she's doing.

She isn't just strong, she's cunning and clever. She knows that all she has to do is run out the clock on his temporary sun. All she has to do is stay out of reach, letting time dismantle his one advantage.

Why would she fight him when he's full of soldier pill chakra and hungry for his chance at revenge?

Ten minutes. He has maybe ten minutes until the flares finally go out for good. Already, burnt up tags peel away from his synthetic sun. He has limited time and now a broken fucking knee. What the fuck was he going to do?

Up ahead, Tayuya dances just out of reach, dodging each shadow he sends after her. He needs to draw her back into the clearing. He needs her to chase him instead of the other way around.

A bad idea offers itself up, as double edged as the soldier pill chewing on his insides. It's absolutely reckless. It's so, so stupid…

But he doesn't have the luxury of good ideas right now. There's only the inevitable ticking clock and the fight-or-flight adrenaline clouding his judgement. Being stupid might be for the best though. Only someone absolutely suicidal would even consider what he's about to do next.

He follows Tayuya into the air, landing clumsily on a tree branch overhead. Tayuya is about to take off into the woods. She smiles at their new game of keep away.

"What a fucking coward." He says, dropping his voice low. He says it just loud enough for her to hear it.

Tayuya stops. Slowly, she turns. She rests an elbow against her tree for balance, the smile now vanished from her face.

The word coward rings through the air between them. He has her attention now.

He is such an idiot.

"Come again?" She asks.

"You really had me fooled." He presses on, signing his death warrant with every word. "I thought you'd actually become dangerous. But you haven't changed at all, have you. You were too weak to win seven years ago, and all you want to do now is run. What a fucking joke."

Tayuya drops her chin. She doesn't move. She plays at disinterest and disregard. Even still, he clocks the way her shoulders tense. They pop like tensile wire beneath her hair.

"You can talk all you want. You're still going to die tonight." She says. Her voice just touches the dangerous thing inside her. The thing Shikamaru needs her to let out.

He looks away in disinterest, his body language saying she's no threat. "You're the one who was mouthing off about fighting for real. And yet, all you do is run. Did you mouth off to the guards who broke your hands too? Or did you just…cry."

Stupid stupid stupid stupid…

Tayuya takes a step towards him. Chakra seeps off her in visible bands. It shimmers in the air like a desert mirage, triggering something primal deep in his gut. Every nerve in his body sings for him to run, but his kneecap screams that retreat is pointless. All he would do is expose his back, making it easier for her to slaughter him.

Tayuya steps through a bank of shadows until a ribbon of light splits her face. Her eyes are bloodshot in the flickering light.

"I only had you running for six hours before you curled up in the dirt and begged like a bitch. That's how little it took to break you. Not six year. Six. Hours." Her words drag like sand paper over an open wound. Again, she steps forward. He steps back.

"You begged for your death like a fucking coward, and I didn't even have to lift a finger. I spent seven years in the dark, but not once did they make me beg. They broke my hands. They took my agency. But I never once surrendered my dignity."

His gut twists over with every word. It roils with fear and knots with sickness. He keeps stepping back and she keeps following. But he needs her to commit. He needs her to snap.

He thinks back to her story. He reaches deeper.

"What was it like to be defeated by someone as weak as me? It's no wonder…" He hesitates over his last words, knowing she will make him pay dearly for them.

"What!" She barks, daring him to speak. To say the dangerous thing he knows he must.

"No wonder Orochimaru didn't fucking want you."

One second, Tayuya is in the trees. The next, her lips brush against his missing ear.

"I'm going to take my time making you scream." She purrs.

Then, she sinks her teeth into his face.

Shikamaru cries out, staggering back. His busted knee saves him from the worst of her attack because it slips out beneath him and sends him tumbling. By some miracle he lands mostly upright, buckling to all fours as he hits the dirt.

He doesn't need to look for Tayuya. She's already there, standing over him. She attacks him with a brutality she shouldn't have after seven years in a prison cell.

She doesn't throw punches. She doesn't need to. She uses a fighting style he's only seen used by Rock lee, each blow powerful and unrelenting, She extends her hands only to measure distance. She batters him with elbows and devastating knees. Her shin cracks him like a whip in rapid succession as she unleashes every ounce of her cursed strength against him.

She collapses his knee, then batters it again. She hammers his existing wounds, uninterested in inflicting new ones.

Shikamaru hits the dirt, knowing it's now or never. He's got one good shot and he'd better make it count. His soldier pill is still suppressing the unrelenting pain that will absolutely cripple him later, but all his punishment hasn't been for nothing.

With every blow, he's walked Tayuya backwards into strip of light just big enough to hold them both.

He dumps molten chakra into his arm, enough to shatter through a metal door. Launching from his knees, he sends his fist flying. He hurls his uppercut between her arms, sinking metal knuckles into Tayuya's jaw.

He feels the recoil up through his teeth as he drives through his whiplash blow. The edge of his knuckle knife connects hard, dragging the blade across her cheek…

For all the fucking bloody good it does him.

All Shikamaru succeeds in doing is making her head spin and snap right back. She bares her fangs in a savage snarl-

Because of course his fists were going to fail, even with his soldier pill. Tayuya eats bombs and they taste like nothing. Hope turns into iron anchors in his gut.

He'd poured everything into that punch.

The light flickers and his shadow clutch unravels. Tayuya boxes his ears with her bandages fists, leaving him stunned and disoriented. She spits in his face as his head swims. He doesn't see her next blow coming.

She doesn't just stomp his chest, she stomps through it. She collapses his diaphragm so hard, his limbs nearly wrap around her leg.

Airborne once more, his body careens down the mountain side. Rocks rush up to catch him with their jagged fingers. His head bounces hard. He bites his tongue when he lands.

But…Not hard. Soft. Soft.

"What did I say about being safe, Shika." Sakura growls. Her arms tremble as she lifts him up, his face inches from the serrated ground.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Shikamaru tries not to think about how his life just flashed before his eyes. Instead, he looks up at his once again savior, wondering if she intentionally times her rescues. The heroic effect of her words is ruined by the fact that she's mouth breathing because her Nose Is Broken What-

He doesn't say thank you as she helps him up. Instead, Yoshino astral projects her voice into his mouth all the way from Konoha.

"Oh god, your Nose! What do I do!?" He cringes. Not because her face is seriously busted, but because he sounds exactly like his nagging mother. He moves his hands in a useless 'do something' gesture. "Is your head bleeding too? Why haven't you done the chakra thing yet!? "

Rolling her eyes, Sakura sets him on his feet. Taking a deep breath, she presses the pads of her palms against bridge of her crooked nose. But instead of washing her sinuses with chakra, she pops her hands out away from her face. The motion resets the cartilage back upright, making her eyes burn with fiery tears. She scrunches up her face, coughing through the pain.

"I need to conserve the chakra I have." She says, wiping at the smear of blood on her lip.

Monsters. Team 7, every last one of them were monsters.

The flash bombs overhead flicker in and out, yelling at him to get his shit together. They don't have time for him to be fussing over Sakura, and she doesn't need him to anyway.

"We're running out of light." He says, taking her hand. He interlaces their fingers, steering them towards the clearing. He prays that Tayuya is still mad enough to follow. That his stupid idiot plan was stupid enough.

Away from the trees, Sakura notices him limping. They hover small touches over each others injuries. It feels like he hasn't seen her for hours, not minutes. They have only a second to assess each other's condition and calculate their odds of survival. They look up, locking eyes in mutual dread. They don't have to say what they are thinking to know that they are probably doomed.

"Shika, I've got maybe one good punch left in me-" She croaks, voice breaking over her dry throat.

Just then, Utsuho staggers out of the tree line. Shikamaru flinches at what he sees. The mangled remains of his Captains hand dangles, bleeding rivers down his side. He hadn't pulled a blade from his hand, he'd pulled his hand away from a blade. His palm is split from wrist to knuckle, gruesomely rent down the middle. His other arm bounced like a water balloon, boneless in his shirt sleeve.

But even with these injuries, Utsuho is still Tayuya's monster. He could have no arms at all and still be dangerous. As Utsuho approaches, serpents of smoke curl out from his peeled back lips. Shikamaru counts two smoke demons and dozens of tiny, chittering mouths.

Sakura follows his gaze, staring down her opponent. She maneuvers herself against his back, pressing their shoulder blades together. There's real fear in her voice when she speaks. He's...he's never heard her afraid like this before.

"Tell me you have a new plan." She begs.

He doesn't have the heart to tell her they're about to die. So instead, he squeezes the hand at her side. "Yeah. We wing it."

On the other side of the field, Tayuya stalks calmly out of the woods. She shakes out her arms like she's just warming up, not even hungry for breath.

"Im about to rip you apart with my teeth." She says, looking him up and down like she's deciding where to begin. "I think I'm going to start by taking your fingers."

Sakura leans harder into his back. "Shika?!"

The light flares overhead, suddenly violent. A pocket of untouched flares ignite at once. He watches everything like it's happening in slow motion, finally finding his hope.

Behind him, he can hear Utsuho take a running start. His boots pound the ground like the pulse in his ears. Ahead, Tayuya grins her yellow teeth. The song she whistles isn't a spell. It's a funeral march meant just for him.

He rolls his shoulders and prepares to step. He feels Sakura mirror him like she's reading his mind.

They don't need a plan. They have body language. They have years of shared history and they have trust. They have his genius mind and her unsinkable heart. This fight is their love letter composed with their fists. He was the words and she the delivery.

Tayuya launches into her final assault, crossing the clearing with her inhuman speed. He stares her down, chakra flooding his blade.

He times his movement to the pounding of feet. He bets everything they have on a hail mary plan and tethers his shadow to Sakura's below. Tayuya is feet from him. Inches now-

"Cross!"

Shikamaru pulls his fingers from the grip of his knife, reorienting their world as he spins them wide. Sakura's shoulders trade places with his in mid air. He hurls his blade at Utsuho's shadow just as Sakura turns her hips to follows through. She loads all of her chakra into the chamber of her shoulder and sends it down the barrel of her good arm.

Her fist obliterates the side of Tayuya's face, sending her flying.

In the moment she makes impact, so does he. His blade explodes shadows around Utsuho's body, tethering his Captains limbs to his side. Overhead, the flares burn brighter. It's the final light show of a festival parade. With its force, he likewise binds Tayuya's limbs, razor wire shadows biting deep into her skin.

He reaches for his chakra to find he has oceans. He holds back one threat while strangling the other. It is the twin reveal check of a perfect game he will never be able to replicate again.

"Shadow clutch achieved."

Behind him, Sakura is on Tayuya in an instant, once more an animal of invincible might. Shikamaru binds Tayuya's limbs while Sakura covers her mouth with a hand. Together, they hold the monster at bay as Tayuya tries to eat her way out through Sakura's palm.

He spins more shadow. He refines his threads.

"Sakura, I can end this, but I need more time!" He throws his voice over the scream of the flares. His eyes are on Utsuho but his mind is on Tayuya. He feels his gut wrench every time she flails. Even now, held down by the both of them, Tayuya fights his Jutsu tooth and nail.

"How much time?!" Sakura yells, then she yelps. Tayuya's sharp teeth sink into the meat of her hand.

"She's fighting too hard! I need her to stop resisting!"

Shit shit shit-

The flares overhead won't last forever. He needs to finish this as fast as he can. Desperately, he wraps shadows around Tayuya's neck, preparing to cut her to pieces like an apple .

"Sakura?"

But his teammate is silent behind him. She's watching what he's preparing to do, taking in the way his shadows bite into the flesh Tayuya's neck like razor wire.

He can't take the silence a second longer. He turns his shoulder just enough to look.

Sakura stares into Tayuya's eyes, gripping her with strength that doesn't reach her face. He can feel it when Sakura's hold begins to slip. He can feel the second Tayuya struggles harder, battering him with her unchecked rage.

"Sakura, what are you doing?!" He screams. She hasn't let go, but she isn't really fighting. She just keeps smothering Tayuya's mouth with her bleeding hand, staring into those savage eyes.

"I think…I think I can try something-" She yells back. Her mind is racing. She's calculating something he can't understand.

"I can't hold her down if you let go!"

"I'm not going to let go!" She calls back. Finally, she looks over her shoulder, pinning him to place with her penetrating stare.

His heart sinks. He knows that look. It's the look she gets when she'd become determined. When she's about to do something stupid and no one can stop her.

"Do you trust me?" She asks.

"What are you doing Sakura?!"

"Do. You. Trust. Me?" She calls it out slower. Louder. Resolved.

Utsuho's body wrenches out another step. The smoke in his lungs peel fully from his body, straining to close the distance between their host and their next meal. Sakura is distracting him. She's going to get them both killed.

But… he watches the way she squares her shoulders. She digs her heels into the ground in the unrelenting way she does everything. She squeezes Tayuya with the strength she has left, even as she's running on fumes.

Even now, with their lives on the line… she's about to swing for broke.

He doesn't flinch. He doesn't question her. He just…holds her gaze as Tayuya continues to fight her way out of Sakura's arms.

Because this wasn't a question of if they were going to live and die. It was a question of who he wanted to be before death came and possibly took them both. With all his patience, and all his hope…Shikamaru decides which kind of man he wants to be.

"I trust you." He finally says.

"Just…give me a chance to try something."

He doesn't get a chance to answer. Tayuya's mouth buckles free. She sinks teeth into the side of Sakura's hand, nearly taking her finger off. It's all the room Tayuya needs to purse her lips, about to send them all to their deaths.

But Sakura pulls Tayuya in. It's almost as if she's about to kiss her. Instead, she brings their foreheads together, pressing her brow to that of her enemy.

Shikamaru feels them go slack in his hold as Sakura slips their monster into a trance.