The Yin Yang Twins

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Disclaimer: Naruto and its universe \ canon are property of Kishimoto… And whoever owns Kishimoto I guess.

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15. The Chunin Exams: The Finals

In which Shikamaru starts trouble, for once.

Shikamaru woke up at a reasonable hour. That was his first clue about how troublesome this day would be. He never woke at a reasonable hour, even for missions – he usually prepared in advance so that he could squeeze out every second of sleep that he could. Surely this day would go down as one of the most troublesome days in his career, if not his life. He showered, dressed, and made sure his gear still worked, before he headed to the kitchen. His father was already there, drinking tea. That was his second clue things were going to go horribly wrong today.

The Nara men looked at each other, figured the other had come to same conclusion, and muttered a curse in perfect synchrony.

"Can't I just go back to sleep?" he wondered out loud.

"If you could do that, I'd be right behind you," his father sighed. "Sometimes, I hate knowing too much." He observed his son. "What have you got?"

"I think it's an invasion, or something on that scale. But I don't know who besides the Village Hidden in the Sound ."

His father nodded. "Thought as much. Watch yourself during those matches, son. They'll probably launch their offensive around the climax."

Shikamaru sighed. "You be careful too, dad. Orochimaru is no joke."

Shikaku snorted. "I'll be far away from that monster if I can help it. Not that it'll change anything; your mother is going to kill us before the day ends."

His mom would be safe here. What ever happened would affect the arena, the hospital, and maybe the Hokage's building. When she did learn about the… something that would happen today, she would have a conniption. He would have to invite Otouto when that happened; if Naruto thought his Aniki was scary, he had never seen an angry Yoshino.

Shikamaru and his father hastily moved out before Yoshino found them. He found a spot where he could nap before the Chunin Exams tournament started and slept there until he could hear the crowd's growing excitement. He looked up and sighed – the weather was perfect for cloud gazing. He sighed, schooled his expression, and jumped from the roof of the small warehouse he was on. Landing in front of his destination, he walked through the main gate of the arena with his hands in his pockets.

With a look, he could tell that the terrain favored earth jutsu and wind jutsu users, that the trees had more decorative than strategic value, and that whoever was fighting Gaara was going to be in trouble. His musings stopped once his eye settled on the other Chunin candidates. Uchiha was missing, and he was certain Dosu would not make an appearance during the finals.

Shikamaru made a effort to stop his eye from twitching.

The same coughing proctor from before came to face the contestants.

"Kinata Dosu has forfeited, therefore Temari and Uzumaki will face each other in match 4. After the announcement… Uzumaki, where is your teammate?"

"Left to train with Kakashi."

He heard the young man mumble "This'll go well…" between coughs and Shikamaru had to snort in agreement.

"At any rate, once the announcement is over, the participants of match number 2 should remain while the others exit the arena. Make sure to remain in the vicinity; if you do not come forward once you are called, you will be disqualified."

They remained relaxed as the Hokage moved from his seat, and greeted everyone. Once the man sat down, Shikamaru and Naruto headed to the viewers stands where the rest of Team Ten was waiting for them.

Not one minute after they arrived they heard Gekkyo's voice. "The match between Uchiha Sasuke and Aburame Shino has been moved. Next match will be between Gaara and Kankuro."

"I forfeit the match."

Shikamaru frowned. He could hear the crowd's disapproval loud and clear. He had hoped he could fight Hinata in a simple and efficient manner, like he had done for her cousin. Oh well, it's not like he cared much for the audience. He sighed loudly and saw Otouto shiver.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm so fucking glad I'm not fighting you right now."

Shikamaru tried to understand the meaning of Naruto's answer, but decided to let it go once he heard the announcement for the next fight.

"Seeing Kankuro has declared forfeit, the next match between Nara Shikamaru and Hyuga Hinata will begin shortly."

With another audible sigh, Shikamaru walked towards the arena, accompanied by the jeers of the viewers. He turned at the end of a hallway to see an idiotic shinobi trying to intimidate Gaara and pay for his foolishness in a horrible fashion. Seeing he had no choice but to pass through here, he walked on, ignoring the red-haired psycho until he had to dodge the sand he had passed moments before. He leaned back and jumped backwards to evade two more attacks before he opened his mouth.

"Our match will come shortly; can't you wait until we fight to try and kill me? At least then you won't be disqualified."

"Not worth my time. I need more… to prove my existence."

Shikamaru carefully took step back. That kid wasn't talking to him just now. So Gaara was no psycho; he was just plain mad. Somehow dealing with a crazy Jinchuriki from the sand, while Konoha was dealing with an invasion featuring Jonin spies posing as Konoha doctors and former war heroes was… The Worst Case Scenario.

Did they know that Gaara was a Jinchuriki? That kind of information was usually well guarded from other shinobi villages; case in point – Naruto. He'd have to relay the message to his dad somehow.

In the mean time, Gaara was still muttering to himself. Shikamaru decided to leave before the guy acted on his murderous impulses. He almost power walked to the exit. Outside, Hinata, the proctor, and the angry audience waited. He had trouble deciding which of the three he was finding the least troublesome. It almost made want to go face Gaara instead – at least there were no political nuances about justified self-defense.

In the end he walked towards the proctor. "Any way I can be promoted based on my actions during the preliminaries?" The proctor gave him a look before coughing. A Genin could try, right? "Does the crowd affect my chances at promotion?"

Hayate coughed again. "I'd like to say no, but if the Daimyo or our more influential clients are impressed, you're pretty much guaranteed to become Chunin."

Shikamaru sighed. This only reinforced his views; fighting, crowds, and the shinobi system in particular, were a major pain in the ass. Unfortunately, he'd have to convince the right people if he wanted to further his goals. And, he had to do so without severely harming Hinata, since there was the maybe-invasion to think about.

He let out a deep sigh. "…Right. I guess I'll have to show off a bit, then." He eyed Hinata, who glared back. "You're going to go deaf, then blind, and after that, I'm going to end this fight by stopping you with the Shadow Cocoon Jutsu, before putting a knife at your throat." Both the proctor and Hinata blinked; surprised he had boldly announced his strategy.

"I will prevent you from doing that. I also won't fall for your tricks, like my cousin did."

"Match start!"

Shikamaru and his opponent jumped back. He jumped again when his senbon were deflected by precise kunai throws, giving Hinata enough time to activate her Byakugan. He took out a grenade but another kunai triggered the explosion before it could reach her.

"I already told you I wouldn't fall for your tricks, Nara."

Inwardly, he acknowledged that she did learn from Neji's mistakes. While that was good for Hinata, this pattern had no part in his actual plan to win the fight.

Hinata rapidly closed the distance, bursting through the smoke and flames. Shikamaru quickly jumped back clumsily dropping the grenade he was about to throw, but Hinata thoroughly kicked it away as she reached her target.

"You're within striking range," she announced triumphantly. Shikamaru showed no surprise, only intense concentration. As Hinata's hands aimed for his chest, he made a single hand seal and disappeared, replaced by a glowing grenade. The setup was so precise that the Hyuga didn't have time to blink before the grenade exploded in intense light and deafening noise.

Meanwhile, Shikamaru used this time to cast a genjutsu and sighed. He had won already. Hopefully he wouldn't make an enemy out of the Hyuga clan once this was over.

"If you still haven't noticed, you are deaf at the moment." Hinata faced him wide-eyed. Before he could explain more she aimed for his vitals again, but missed spectacularly. In fact, she nearly tripped. Shikamaru went through more hand seals. "Right, I forgot to mention you might lose your sense of balance with your hearing. Anyway, you remember what comes next, right?"

As he spoke, Shikamaru molded chakra as he went through the last hand seal. "Magen: [Demonic Illusion: Light stealer]". It looked like nothing happened, but he could see the panic beneath Hinata's Byakugan. He took one of his Shadow ball and threw it at her just as she was trying to dispel the genjutsu. Hinata fell to the side, barely trying to struggle. All that remained was to sit on her and put a kunai at her throat. She stilled once the metal touched her skin. After a few moments, she pronounced clearly, "I give up."

Shikamaru gave the proctor a look.

"The winner of match 4 between Nara Shikamaru and Hyuga Hinata is Nara Shikamaru."

"No sense in delaying the inevitable. I guess I'll see my way out." Two, two of his awesome one-liners were met with absolute silence. Damn it, he had worked hard on those puns; almost as hard as on this whole setup. With a sigh he started walking back to his spot near Team Ten. Maybe Choji could critique his humor. He would have asked Otouto, but his match was next. Was it the delivery, or maybe the tone?

He was still musing on the reaction of the viewers – or lack thereof; maybe the match was too short – when Naruto nearly tackled him. "I was right; I really don't want to fight you when you're annoyed. By the way, that was an awesome match, Aniki."

"Tell that to the audience," he mumbled back. His hand ruffled Otouto's hair on instinct, and he noticeably relaxed.

The blond slapped his hand away. "That's just because they don't understand what happened. The shinobi probably do, and they're probably surprised that the match ended so fast or maybe that you bested a Hyuga without using the Nara clan jutsu. Or, maybe because you can blind a Hyuga with genjutsu."

He had put on quite a show for those with a trained eye. He went through what Naruto just said again and frowned. "You really think the match was settled too fast?"

"Yes!" Shikamaru sighed when he heard the female voice. Somebody was angry. "You didn't give me enough time to land a single blow!"

He frowned in confusion as he faced Hinata. "Was I supposed to let you hit me?"

"I… N-no, I-I mean, you could have given me the opportunity to show what I'm capable of."

"I suppose I could have," he admitted, "But entertaining an audience is troublesome. Besides, if I managed to stop you with a flash bomb and some Genjutsu, there's nothing that you could have shown that would grant you a promotion."

Hinata's mouth moved for a second, before she turned towards Naruto. "N-Naruto-kun…" she complained while pointing at Shikamaru. Only to realize Otouto was failing to hide his laughter. "Y-you're b-both being m-meanies!" she declared with a pout, and with all the poise of the Hyuga, Hinata walked away.

Naruto chuckled, before he faced his brother. "Are you going to explain to her?"

Shikamaru shrugged. "Why she lost? Only if she asks – I can't be bothered to help everyone all the time. Speaking of Hinata, do you know why she lost?"

Naruto made a face. "Seriously? I'm about to fight and you're giving me fucking homework?" Shikamaru only raised an eyebrow in response. "Is there a point to this question?"

Shikamaru stared at his little brother seriously. "Just one; I fought her seriously back there."

Naruto blinked. "Huh, but you didn't… Oh! Oooh, right. Gotcha! I'll do my best too!"

Shikamaru hoped he did. He didn't want to tip their enemies too much about all of their abilities. Naruto fought Orochimaru before; surely they had plenty of info on him already. He only had to hope the Snake Sannin wasn't the sharing type.

"Oh, and Naruto? I know you wanted to experiment with your wind jutsu, but be extremely careful. You have to think about the rest of the tournament, after all."

Naruto smiled warmly. "Of course, Aniki! I'll be careful and kick lots of asses! See you!"

Shikamaru watched his little brother go with a bit of apprehension, before he resumed his walk. Now he had to warn his dad about the Sand Jinchuriki and somehow watch Otouto's match at the same time.

Nothing had happened yet, and still he felt the day was going to be a long one.

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Naruto was pumped. Shikamaru's match had been awesome. Boring, yes; he kept telling Aniki that he needed to add some flair, some flashiness when he fought. Unfortunately, Shikamaru never fought – well… more like he found struggle to be troublesome. That's how scary the guy was. Seriously, Hinata saw nothing coming and lost the moment that flash grenade went off. The ensuing genjutsu and binding process was so precise, so efficient, that one might as well call him a machine. It was like Aniki was one of those fucking cheap fighters in video games, with an infinite combo or something. He knew every shinobi had their own nindo and all that, but Shikamaru was something else.

He won against Hinata with a flash grenade and genjutsu. He won against Neji with a grenade and fucking sunglasses! Because yeah, Aniki told him sunglasses had been the most important part of the strategy. If he didn't push Shikamaru to use his strings or his bow when they fought, he'd count it as a personal loss.

At any rate, Naruto shook his head and grinned at his opponent. She frowned.

"What's so funny, pipsqueak?"

He ignored the insult; he was as tall as the other boys in his age group and still waited for his growth spurt, thank you fucking much! "You're a wind jutsu user right? And you think you're some hot shit too. I'm going to enjoying wiping the floor with you at your own fucking game."

It was Temari's turn to smirk "Just because you beat some bushy-eyed freak, doesn't mean you're ready for the big leagues, pipsqueak."

Naruto's grin didn't waver. He really was going to enjoy this. "Call the match, sick proctor-sempai."

The young man glared at him, before shouting for the match to begin. While the Suna kunoichi jumped back, Naruto dashed forward. The girl's eyes widened for a moment, before she took out her giant war fan and aimed to crush Naruto with an overhand smash. Naruto saw her move like it was fucking slow-motion – he'd have to thank Sanosuke for that. He stopped the momentum of the swing with a double roundhouse kick aimed at the base of the weapon, and finished with a jumping spinning hook kick. The metal fan flew out of Temari's hands and landed a few meters behind her.

Naruto snorted. "You really shouldn't make fun of Rock Lee if you can't even handle my Taijutsu." And to add insult to injury, he waited for her to fetch her weapon and try again.

Temari sneered as she picked up her weapon. "I'm going to going to make you suffer." She tried to open her fan, but it was stuck; Naruto's last kick had bent the metal weapon in a way that she couldn't open it anymore. Naruto sincerely wished that it wasn't her only fan, because then this match was pretty much over. Fortunately, the pig-tailed kunoichi took out a weapon scroll and unsealed a second war fan. He was pretty sure she would take him seriously from now on.

Naruto crossed his arms and taped his foot. "Normally, I would have taken the time to beat the shit out of you, but I really want crush your spirit, so do your worst, weakling."

The blond had to admit, he was laying it a bit thick here, but he could see the tick marks on Temari's face. He wasn't pushing her into losing control; just enough to get her blood pumping and attack with excessive force. She did that a moment later, and that's when he started to center himself and mold some wind chakra. He rolled out of the way of a few cutting whirlwinds, and started running circles around his opponent. He managed to jump over a cutting wind before diving under a whirlwind, and then jumped away from a localized tornado. It took some more dodging, but finally he was able to turn his wind chakra into wind.

That was the essence of his jutsu; manipulating wind instead of wind chakra. Aniki had him tested for his element in his second year at the Academy and he had tried to master wind chakra recomposition ever since. In the first two years, he had never managed to recompose wind chakra properly; he could do it from inside, but he could never draw it out like he could for regular chakra. All that happened was that wind got out. He actually managed to use wind element chakra last year. Meanwhile, he had tried to find something useful about the wind he created and found out he could sense it at first, and then manipulate it is he focused enough. It was odd how his failure to master elemental chakra recomposition had turn into such a versatile and powerful Jutsu.

Now it was time to put that jutsu to the ultimate test – and see how it could fare against another wind jutsu user.

"[Cutting Whirlwind]!"

Naruto did not move immediately this time he let the jutsu graze him, feeling the difference between his and her wind. He could feel the wind type chakra in her attack, in fact the jutsu had so much chakra he wondered if it wasn't the wind that was guiding her chakra. He frowned as the Jutsu managed to rip the sleeve of his jacket, leaving small cuts on his arm. He had managed to reduce the damage tremendously, but he had failed to stop the attack entirely. The jutsu passed too fast; he needed more time.

"Is that all you got? Shit, I barely felt that! Maybe I should stand still, make it easier for you. Or maybe I should end the fight already if this is all you got." He said it in way to mean he looked down on all of Suna, not just her.

"Maybe I really should kill you," she sneered. She waived her fan in complicated patterns and multiple gusts of winds darted in every direction. Naruto moved as he had before, but this time he could see that the seemingly random wind attacks were actually cornering him against the arena wall. To his left and right, he could see to huge tornadoes that would surely rip him to shreds if he made a stupid move.

"Any last words, pipsqueak?"

Naruto returned her cruel smile two-folds. "Do your worst, bitch!"

Temari answered by violently waving he weapon. The next attack looked like the tornado that she used during the preliminaries.

"Sora no Tetsu!"

Naruto could feel the power behind Temari's attack, even from behind his shield made of air; that's exactly what he wanted. Now this was much better! He could tell how the wind chakra concentration spiked at certain intervals from his sensor ability - those were the parts of the attack where the wind cut. It also changed the wind itself – that's why it was so fucking hard to do anything to Temari's attacks. That's how wind justu shinobi used their element.

Huh.

"I'm pretty sure your wind barrier doesn't protect you on all sides."

Temari waved her fan again. The two small tornadoes at his side were attempting to crush him while Temari was sending wave after wave of wind attacks to pin him there. Of course, there was the fucking wall behind him. Right – do or die, then. The least that could happen was him dying. If he somehow lost this fight and survived, Sanosuke and the Kyubi would mock him until the day he keeled over, and Shikamaru would make him wish he was dead at least once a day for the rest of his life. No problem – he always excelled under pressure anyway.

Back to trying to figure out become a fucking wind deity.

Well, he could still control his wind anyway. Maybe there was a clue in that and… hello… What the fucking hell was that!? How had he never even noticed before? That explained… a lot of shit, if he was honest. Well shit! Aniki was right about his 'understanding your jutsu' bullshit. Now, he'd never hear the end of it. At least he knew what to do about his challenge now – simply insert his wind like so, put some chakra into—

There we go. Naruto felt it – the moment Temari's wind suddenly shifted and fell under his control. His chakra had replaced hers, and since he had no fucking clue how to sustain her attacks they simply stopped. Temari's face was fucking priceless.

"What!? What the hell did you do?"

He grinned evilly. "What does it look like, pigtails? I'm just fucking awesome! Or maybe you just suck." He watched as she tried to send another whirlwind at him. He could feel it coming from further away now since absorbing Temari's wind attacks. He repeated the process, this time much faster, and the wind died down before it reached him. While it was fun seeing Temari's dumbfounded face, it was time to end this before she got her bearings back and tried to attack with a fire jutsu or something.

"Here's what a wind attack should be like." Naruto ran. He had crossed half the distance before he jumped, with a triple summersault and aimed an axe kick at Temari.

"Bokun no assei [Tyrant's Pressure]!"

There was no warning. One moment, Naruto's foot had missed Temari by a mile; the next, there was a twenty meter wide crater, with the same foot at the center. The Sand kunoichi was unconscious on the ground nearby. Meanwhile Naruto was completely unaffected and looked at the results of his jutsu with satisfaction. There was no way around it; he was just that fucking awesome. He looked towards Temari and hid a smile. That last attack had probably broken a couple of bones.

Good.

Aniki had told him to be extremely careful, which of course meant he had to attack with extreme prejudice – he was ready to bet his savings that Suna would be involved in today's… whatever the fuck it was supposed to be. Just look at Gaara; that fucked up kid was a time bomb.

"Temari of the Sand is unable to fight; the winner of match 5 is Uzumaki Naruto."

"Hell Yeah!"

Naruto cheered and the crowd roared with approval. What a bunch of fucking hypocrites. Besides his friends, none of these assholes gave a shit about him. In fact they reveled in making his life as miserable as possible. Meanwhile, Choji and Ino were cheering for him, and so was Hinata, reminding him that at least a few people in Konoha acknowledged him. This only served to remind him how much he owed Aniki. Speaking of which, he could see the boy looking at the audience with a thoughtful frown. Something was up.

No matter. His blood was pumping. He and Aniki were having a fight soon, and that got him excited.

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His Otouto was so great! No wonder people wanted him to be Hokage; he had the potential, the charisma, and above all that the heart to become Konoha's greatest leader

It was a pity that Konoha didn't deserve him.

On the other hand, Shikamaru, under that nonchalance and second layer of hidden fanboyism, was about ready to strangle the foolishness out of his troublesome trouble of a troubling little brother. Why did that blond need fight Temari like that? He had already shown he could beat her with his taijutsu – no need to goad her into those last attacks. So much could have gone wrong. Was that how a parent felt when his child pulled a reckless stunt? If so, he didn't understand how parents could let their children attend the shinobi academy. He didn't know how normal parents coped with the worry. His first thought was to beat the foolishness out of his troublesome brother, but that sounded really counterproductive – if not a bit hypocritical.

"So, Aniki... did you enjoy my show?"

Otouto's timid tone made it hard to stay upset. On top of that, he felt that now was not the time to upset Naruto.

"Shikamaru."

Troublesome. He knew that tone; Naruto was already upset. That fool was upset because he knew Shikamaru was as well.

"Another time. The tournament isn't over yet; you should focus on that instead."

"No. Everybody else thought I was awesome, and you're fucking pissed. I want to know why."

Shikamaru's eyebrow twitched. He noticed and pinched the bridge of his nose to regain some composure.

"That's too bad, because I'm not changing my mind. You can keep on sulking if you want; if you're distracted like that, Gaara is going to kick your ass."

"I'm fighting you in the finals." Naruto's remark was innocent enough, but his stare was so chilling that the people nearby flinched.

Shikmaru sighed. He was going to get his brother killed at this rate. "…You're not in the state of mind to fight me right now."

Naruto's eyes went through three or four emotions before he closed them. "Alright. I'll focus on the tournament," in a tone that promised hell later.

Shikamaru nodded to what Naruto said, and what he hadn't. He turned back to the arena and he frowned. "When did Uchiha come back?" Not only that, he was currently fighting against Aburame. At his question, Naruto rushed to the rails and cussed.

"What the fuck!? He wasn't even on time and he still gets to fight? What fucking bullshit!"

Shikamaru's question remained unanswered, to the point that he had no idea when the fight even started. It must have been for a while at least, because a couple of smoke bombs and fireballs later, Uchiha had the bug user at his mercy.

"Aburame Shino is unable to fight; the winner of match 3 is Uchiha Sasuke. Considering the order of the first matches, we will continue with match 7; Nara Shikamaru vs. Gaara of the Sand."

Of course it would be his turn next. Uchiha wouldn't get his beauty sleep otherwise. If Konoha wanted to pamper their little prodigy, might as well go all the way, right?

"What did you do?" startled out of his thoughts, Shikamaru gave his Otouto a confused look. "Sasuke doesn't use smoke bombs – ever."

"Have you ever thought this might have to do with Uchiha's training? Anyway, I'll see you later."

That said he waited for his teammates to wish him luck, before he set out to face the most dangerous Genin he had ever met. At least this time Gaara would be within his rights to brutally kill him. Shikamaru chuckled to himself and reviewed his strategy against the Jinchuriki. Unlike most opponents, he only had a few plans that he thought would work. Unfortunately most of those plans relied on the use of his bow. So far, he had managed to limit his use of the weapon in such a way that only Naruto, Ino, and maybe Mitarashi knew about it. He definitely did not need people to get ideas about long distance weapons and lightning chakra. That left his shadow techniques, his grenades, Genjutsu, and poison.

That was some challenge.

"Nara Shikamaru vs. Sabaku no Gaara – begin!"

Shikamaru jumped back and immediately rolled to his left to dodge the wave of sand. He didn't bother wasting his time with simple kunai, and instead threw one with an exploding tag. The paper exploded before the sand could smoother it completely. Gaara slid back a meter or two, but was otherwise unarmed.

The red-haired teen did frown, though. "You are an annoying insect. Mother won't enjoy your blood, but I will enjoy spilling it."

Well, that certainly was the beginning of a fruitful and everlasting friendship. Naruto will be jealous. Coughing to hide a snort, he tried a second shot, with three tagged kunai. This time, Gaara responded with denser, but slower sand, and the explosions were completely nullified. In other words, the sand traded speed for power. Shikamaru pondered on that as he evaded Gaara's deadly sand attacks. Another thing to note was that the sand was less precise, the farther he was from Gaara. Not enough to actually make a difference, but it was interesting. He threw some kunai in a very high arc and noticed that the sand still defended Gaara while the boy attacked. Well he probably enough information to wo— he twisted his body while kneeling and barely missed the sand spear coming from behind. That was close; his only warning had come from his ears. It was no easy feat to hear grains of sand in the midst of all that chaos.

Shikamaru jumped from his kneeling position, and jumped again to the side. He ducked, rolled and jumped over several whips of sand. He skidded to a halt and disappeared before two waves of sand crashed into one another. A few more meters away from the sand using shinobi, Shikamaru appeared to lob more tagged kunai over Gaara. His opponent instantly surrounded himself with sand. The tags went off, obscuring the arena in a mix of fire, smoke and sand. Shikamaru took advantage of moment of safety to make some clones and dash into the smokescreen.

When the arena cleared, half a dozen Shikamarus surrounded Gaara. "You're keeping me from worthier foes, insect. Mother needs blood, and I need to prove my existence."

Shikamaru blinked. "Maybe you should focus on defeating him first; or the results may shock you."

Before Gaara could retort, a blinding flash followed by thunderclap hushed the audience. Shikamaru uncovered his ears and slowly opened his eyes. The Genin he had been talking to turned to sand, while the real Gaara struggled to rise not far from his sand clone, glaring at him with ferocity.

"Careful now; the tide of a battle can turn in a flash."

The Jinchuriki tried to stand, but Shikamaru wasn't one to let his opponent any kind of opportunity. He walked towards Gaara while the boy was still struggling to get himself off the ground. If he hadn't known about the demon inside the boy, the young Nara would have been surprised Gaara was even conscious. As it was, he found Naruto the more resilient of the two; both Jinchuriki had incredible defenses, but Otouto could actually take some hits.

"You... What have you done to mother? Why isn't she protecting me?"

Shikamaru patted the red-haired boy on the head. "From whom? Me? Don't be ridiculous; I'm harmless." It was the first time Shikamaru found something other than apathy, anger, or murderous glee on Gaara's face. Was it shock or fear? "I'm just going to drop this gas bomb here and walk away," he added, to the other boy's growing horror.

Seconds later, you could hear the sound of air exhaling from the grenade, but the dubious looking smoke was nowhere to be found. Still, the teen from Suna eventually stopped struggling and closed his eyes.

Shikamaru waited. The proctor looked at the sleeping boy before he coughed.

"Sabaku no Gaara is unable to fight; the winner of match 7—"

His announcement was drowned in Biju chakra mixed with killing intent. Shikamaru shivered, before turning towards Sand's Jinchuriki. It never occurred to him that sleep could trigger Gaara's transformation. Just then, he felt a wave of drowsiness and immediately made the hand seal to cancel Genjutsu and groaned. Gaara was to be the trigger for whatever was supposed to happen, wasn't he?

He was.

Shikamaru had just kick-started an invasion.

"Troublesome."

Naruto was never going to let him live this down.

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A/N: Hey all! I wish you all a happy summer. Still no OMAKE, I'm afraid. I guess they'll be on a chapter by chapter basis for a while. Still, of you want me to had something to the author notes, feel free to let me know.

In the mean time, I'll answer some of your reviews.

About Kurama; Yes, he's jerk; he has been a prisoner / scorned / brainwahsed for a while though; I'd be a jerk to given the circumstances. As for his relationship with out Twins... well, that would be spoiling, wouldn't it? And yes, he is very smart, but also emotionally stunted.

About Jiraiya; believe it or not, Jiraiya is one of my favorite Naruto characters, and I always thought it was a shame he died since everybondy else just couldn't die. Anyway, Naruto'll get over it... I think.

About Shadow and Wind: still in block, I'm afraid. I'll update when I can, promise.

And with that, See you around