Shall I leave this burning house of ceaseless thought

and taste the pure rain's single truth

falling upon my skin?

-Izumi Shikibu

Even as her body ached like the sting of angry fire ants, the bee user kept running.

It was only a matter of time before Aburame regained consciousness, and by then, she'd be gone.

So close to taking back her own freedom now, that her only thing left to do was to beat Shino in finding a way out of this bamboo grove. Finally putting an end to her humiliating arrest, when she found herself taken against her will as Shino's prisoner.

'He mentioned a 'Beekeeper',' she remembered. 'If there really is a honey farm around here somewhere, I can find this so-called Beekeeper and ask him about the way out of this creepy place...Wait, what was that noise?'

Even when she stopped running, her heart raced on.

Throwing a glance over her shoulder back into the eerily silent fog behind her, knowing somehow that she wasn't alone in this bamboo forest, but not willing to find out who, or what, had come to challenge her Aburame captor in possessing her.

"Is someone there?"

All she heard was the sound of her own breathing.

Blindfolded by the fog, and left only to guessing games, she pushed herself to keep going.

But where?

There were no recognizable landmarks in this grove. No paths that made any sense to her or led to any destination. No sign of this would-be Beekeeper anywhere.

'Hang on,' she tilted her head suspiciously at a familiar pile of rocks nearby. 'I know I've been here before."

She turned this way and that, trying to retrace her steps back to some tangible reference point. Any logical and dependable path that would take her out of Sora-Ku.

Was it just her...or did these paths seem to be going nowhere?

Like the funnel-web spider, who used venom to disorient its prey, it was like the bamboo grove had a mission of its own when it lured her here.

To confuse and then slowly consume its unsuspecting prey.

Subtly changing the direction of paths and looping her back around to the same clearing, with the same pile of rocks, at the same fork in the road.

Was she going crazy?

It'd been hours since she left bug boy behind.

How could it be that she still hadn't made any progress in finding her way out?

Maybe it was a trick of genjutsu.

"Release!"

She waited...

...and then...

Absolutely nothing happened.

The disorienting unbeatable mist bringing her to the damning reality of her little predicament, as she gazed up at the never-ending liminal stretch of bamboo trees and endless fog.

It couldn't be...that she was trapped here forever?

"Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic," she began panicking. "I'm not lost. I just like a challenge, that's all."

And there had to be a way out.

Honeydukes! There damn well had better be a way out!

Because there was no way she'd take another night in bed, subjected to the torment of rubbing up against Aburame's hungry and twitching-

Insects!

"Found you," Shino murmured into her ear, the buzzing warmth of his body curving tantalizingly with the small of her back. His hardened core pushing against the cute perk of her honey-bum, with a satisfying bit of pressure that made her reflexively lean back into him.

The silkworming way his breath crawled along her tingling earlobe, ripping the very soul from her shinigami eyes.

"Son of a spider monkey," the honeyed onna cursed in breathy undertones. "I knew it was a mistake to underestimate you."

"If you're plan was to leave me for dead, you should've done it more quietly," he told her. "The reason is because the insects in this bamboo grove can still hear you."

"But how did you...you were...I was so sure...how did you catch up to me so fast..."

"I wish I could take credit for that, but the truth is, it wasn't ever a challenge for me," he told her. "Why, you ask?...That's because you never left. I've been watching you run around in circles in this bamboo grove for hours now."

"What do you mean circles?" she questioned him. "Stop playing mind games with me. I can't be this crazy."

How did he always make her this crazy?

There was no way she'd been running in circles. Not with at least half a day put between her and his lifeless body.

"If I really did leave you for dead, how is it you walked away without a scratch?"

"Surprised?" Shino's brow perked with his question. "I'll admit, it was kind of you to drag my bug clone all the way back to camp. It would be ungrateful of me to let you leave this place without showing you my gratitude."

"A bug clone?" she whispered in disbelief. "You mean I went through all that...to save a bug clone?!"

And knowing that having to drag this said 'bug clone' from their battlefield, all the way through the bamboo grove was the reason why her body hurt so damn much, she nearly tore him apart then and there with her raw raging and aching fingernails.

'No, no, this is actually perfect,' she chose to see the bright side instead, as she tightened her fist. 'It's a good thing he's still alive...Because now I can kill him!'

But before she could act on her chronic homicidal urges to make nigiri out of his face, Shino's agile reflexes caught her avenging wrist without even a twitch in his maddeningly stoic expression.

"The only thing I underestimated about you was that you'd be into this kind of thing," Shino said, as if it were her idea to turn this spider-and-fly tango of theirs into some kind of BDSM kink between them. "We can play this game with each other for as long as you want it."

"Stop distracting me," she ordered him. "I'm trying to kill you."

"I'm curious how many times you'll try before you give up on catching the real me."

"As many bug clones as it takes," she muttered through gritted teeth.

"If you really wanted to kill me, why hesitate?" he asked her, as his nose dragged through her silvery hair, breathing in her irresistibly mesmeric nectar scent. "It seems there's something holding you back...Until you master that...You will never be my equal in battle."

Because as far as Shino was concerned, the score between them would never be even.

Why, you ask?

Because Shino would always be one step ahead of her.

"Before you go,"he said, as his hand slid across her waist from her back to her navel, and his fingers slowly spidered down, down, down the sensuous curve of her hip...Until he fondled with the icy hilt of his stolen kunai wrapped in the sheath around her thigh. Taking back once again that which was always his. "There's one last thing I should tell you about yourself."

"Bloody Mosquito, aren't you done talking yet?"

"I lost you before, Firefly, but I will not make that mistake a second time...And so...No matter where you go now, I won't ever lose you again," Shino murmured to the fuming bee mistress. "That's why you can't ever run from me."

And then he took his sweet time to withdraw away from her.

Denying her once again any satisfaction for her primal and unsatisfied urge to fight him.

Leaving her insatiable need frustrated by his indomitable restraint that had so decided today would not be the day she'd take on his kikaichū in battle.

Instead, Shino's index finger pointed at her shoulder.

That same tender spot buzzing around her ear, where he'd breathed in the scent of her honey-perfumed hair.

"Why?" he continued. "The reason is because I planted a bug on you. So, no matter where you go in this fog, I will always find you."

And then Shino walked ahead of her, on one of the many paths that led to nowhere in this bamboo grove, with his hands snug in his jacket pockets.

Because she was not just an enemy ninja to him now, but an insect.

One who had too long eluded the bug master's capture, and aggravated his obsession for the arduous hunt of her, since that day she first aroused his fascination in the Leaf.

With the endurance and skill of a true insect lord, he had finally coaxed her into his waiting bug jar.

And like all of his captured insects, Firefly was ever his to keep.