Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto

WARNING: Character death, violence (both are in this chapter and will be used repeatedly), possible gore and blood by the gallon. Also, there may be future spoilers for those who aren't up to date with the manga, depending on how quickly the anime progresses... Though the spoilers won't be for a while, so there's still time. There will be an individual warning at that time, so please enjoy. Oh, and since Tenten appears so little there is a hanging risk of her being OOC; there isn't much evidence to base her character on.

Pairings: Background NejiTen, maybe. Other stuff that may be interpreted, but isn't supposed to be romantic. I don't mind if you read stuff into it, though. As long as you're having fun ^.^

LIA

Replacement, part 1

by Synaps

Rock Lee cursed to himself, they had him cornered. He had been there on a pure coincidence; as such he hadn't been carrying his gun. Tenten kept telling him to keep it on him at all times, despite the fact that his speciality was hand-to-hand combat, but now it seemed it was to late for any of that. The enemy was heavily armed, not to mention that Lee was hurt. He'd broken his legs in the explosion. A strong metallic taste was on his lips, gluing them together. He had no idea how injured he was. He had blacked out for a while and he was unsure how long. Maybe the police was outside already, that big explosion would have drawn them there.

As far as Lee knew he was the only one alive, save for the enemy. They were moving just next to his hiding place.

It was in situations like this that Lee asked himself "What would Gai do?" Unfortunately for him, though he didn't realise it, doing everything the way Gai did was what usually landed him in trouble.

In this situation, Lee decided, he needed to fight. It was what he always did, fighting without worrying about his life. What was important was stopping the enemy. The tiny chance that any others were still alive meant that he needed to risk everything to save them. Rock Lee moved his injured leg, causing the parts of wall that had been leaning over him to crash down.

"What was that?"

Lee cursed again, he was still stuck.

"There's someone still alive here"

Good, the police must have managed the situation when he passed out back there, they would help him. Lee moved again, to make sure they knew were he was.

"Kill him, un"

-l-

The sun was awfully bright on the summer's day that Shikamaru started his job.

Shikamaru had been the last person to expect the promotion. He had failed all of their exams on purpose, in hopes that something else would save him. It was all Asuma's fault, but since Shikamaru liked his mentor he wouldn't blame him too much. Either way Shikamaru was now stuck, with no way out. His fate was worse that death.

He was working at the LIA.

The LIA, the Leaf Intelligence Agency, was notorious for the amount of overtime its agents had to put down. Useless to mention, Shikamaru hated working overtime.

He guided himself through the grand entrance of the office building, to the lifts and up two floors. He wasn't really excited; rather, he was curious about his team. The LIA generally worked in teams of three or four, though these could be broken up and tossed around at any time, if necessary for the case.

Shikamaru had decided to not try all too hard to quit. For Asuma's sake, the older man had pulled a lot of strings to land Shikamaru with the position, Shikamaru ought to at least give it a try.

Hands in his pockets and looking rather bored; Shikamaru navigated himself to the designated room.

The office he had been ordered to the day before was relatively small and contained only three desks, two of which were occupied. The female sitting in the chair closest to the window got to her feet in greeting as he entered. The male merely looked up and gave a quiet nod.

"I'm Shikamaru. I'm the new agent."

"Hi. My name is Tenten, this is Neji." The girl replied with a relaxed smile.

Tenten immediately gave of the impression of being a good person, despite vibes of sarcasm, confidence and a lack of mercy. Neji on the other hand displayed over-confidence in the way he ignored both other agents in the room; he seemed to think he was better than everyone else. Shikamaru decided to not get in his way.

She sat down and waved for him to take the empty desk.

"What" Shikamaru cleared his throat "are we working on?"

"A week ago there was a bank robbery. 19 dead, 4 injured." Neji's tone was business-like. "Our partner, Rock Lee, ended up severely injured and is currently in the hospital."

Something about the casual way he spoke about it caused shivers to go down Shikamaru's spine. He had always been close to his friends and could not imagine talking about them being hurt in such an uncaring manner. It struck him that, since he was a replacement for their teammate, there was a risk they would dislike him just for that reason. How very troublesome.

On the other hand, Neji showed no signs of letting stuff like that affect him, and Tenten just seemed nice. However, as Shikamaru knew, first appearances can be deceiving. There was always a risk, he could not ignore it. Shikamaru took everything into account and prepared for 45 possible reactions, 20 steps ahead on each, just in case. If things went any other way... he'd just have to wing it. Troublesome, but reality was unlikely to go outside his predictions.

As such he took his desk and turned on the computer. Without so much as looking at him, Neji asked for his e-mail address to send the information gathered to. Thankfully nobody laughed as Shikamaru revealed his old and quite embarrassing (not that he bothered with embarrassment; that took too much energy) e-mail address; LazyCloudLover. Even though nobody even smirked, Neji's expression showed that he didn't particularly look forward to working with Shikamaru, now that he had revealed himself as a lover of lazy clouds… or just lazy.

Apparently the robbers had entered the bank during lunch hours. They had blown up the doors without anyone noticing them even going behind desks. The security cameras had shown a group of bankers no one had ever seen before, it was obvious they had posed as personnel.

"You should go down to the lab and meet Shino; after that you can work on identifying him." Neji spoke as he pointed out a blond guy with dangerously long hair (for posing as a banker, if he'd been pretending to be a rocker he'd fit right in) which the cameras had picked up quite clearly. "Computers are your area, right?" it wasn't as much of a question as it was supposed to be.

Shikamaru nodded anyway, it was his area of expertise.

"Shino's down in the cellar." Tenten added. "I'll show you."

Shikamaru shrugged and followed her, even while clearing his throat. "Why can't we just call him?"

"He'll feel forgotten and sulk about it for days if we don't talk to him face-to-face once in a while." Tenten's voice held a monotone which disguised whether she was serious or not. However, given the situation, it was likely she was being truthful. How troublesome.

"Besides" she added after they'd entered the elevator "Everyone wants to meet the new kid"

Shikamaru almost added that he wasn't a kid, but thought better off it. If he showed that it ticked him off she was sure to use it as a nickname.

"What is this Shino person working on?"

"Identifying the explosive and other things he bagged at the scene." she shrugged. "Most likely some bug. No matter what case he'll always get interesting information out of bugs. I just hope we can use the information this time." Tenten sighed silently and Shikamaru got a feeling she was the only sane person there beside himself. That if anything was bothersome. It seemed like she was being nice to him for that reason, the chance to be with someone rational.

"Afterwards we might head for the morgue" Tenten mused. "Not that there's likely to be anything new there, but Kabuto would want to see you too."

'Is there anyone here who doesn't want to meet me?' Shikamaru thought, not liking being passed around like a ping-pong ball.

"Kabuto is the coroner?"

"Yes, but you'll see him sooner or later anyway, no need to search him out right away."

She quieted as the lift stopped and the doors opened, displaying a similar white hall to the one they'd exited higher up. The only difference was the lack of windows on the western wall. This was natural, given that they were under ground level.

"There's no reason to be afraid of Shino, by the way." Tenten added before he had a chance to enter the corridors. "He's a bit odd, but he's actually nice."

Shikamaru nodded, not finding anything good to use as a response. As long as Shino didn't try to kill him or make him work harder (the latter one was surely the worst, though Shikamaru had never tried either one and didn't particularly care to test either one of them out) Shikamaru would be fine with him.

-l-

Neji looked at the face still displayed on his computer screen. He did not like the fact that someone had injured his teammate, as much as he did not care for said teammate. He was silently thankful for the time of quiet that the bank robber had lent him, even as he resented himself for it. However, if Lee got himself injured it was his own fault; it was nothing to think about. If he was too weak to manage in the world he shouldn't be in it. If destiny said that Rock Lee was supposed to die, that was what would happen, you couldn't fight destiny.

So why was he even concerned about it? Someone as weak as Lee was easily replaced. What did he care?

Why did he care?

-l-

Shikamaru let out a tiny grumble of displeasure. He had been passed around like a pair of shoes at a bowling alley, just like he'd suspected. He had met everyone, from Kiba at the dog squads to Ino at interrogation. It had taken him quite some time to actually get back to his office, at which point Neji started harassing him about doing his job. (That was where the centre of attention had lain, on "actually working, like he was being paid to do") The LIA was just as exhausting as Shikamaru had feared. In the end he'd found a good frame of the blonde's face and sent it through a computer program which matched it against known criminals. He had put down a lot of work, but Neji still would not allow him to go home. Not until the suspect was identified. Shikamaru had a nagging feeling that when that happened they would stir up a lot of noise over it. It was likely that, no matter who he was, he meant trouble. Putting a name to the face would only mean that they could take action against him easier. That meant more work.

Shikamaru shook his head to clear it, found that impossible, and decided to take a nap. He had worked hard enough as it was, no reason to go overboard. Not that anyone else ever agreed.

-l-

Neji stared at the new member of the team. Tenten was sure that Shikamaru felt the persistent action, yet ignored it. It would have been impossible not to notice the lavender orbs on you.

"The computer is running itself at this stage" she pointed out; cursing her position as the everlasting defender of the weak when Neji's stare moved on to her. It seemed like he was in a worse mood than usual. In order to satisfy his anger Tenten moved up behind Shikamaru and looked at the moving images on the screen, hoping for results. Still no luck, it seemed. In a window beside the first one fingerprints were being matched against the ones found in the bank. Tenten had no hopes that they had actually found the prints of the robbers in the mess the bank had been left in. They could have as easily been the prints of one of the many customers the bank handled every day, even though they had been taken from the inside of the safe and first off matched to make sure they did not belong to any bankers working there. Tenten had an irritating impression it would turn out to be another dead end.

"What do you think about him?" Neji unexpectedly asked, motioning at the sleeping Shikamaru.

"Well... he's no Lee." she confessed. "I miss him. Don't you?"

Neji snickered.

"We have been working together for years now" she pressed. "You've got to be worried about him."

"If he dies it's his destiny."

She gave up, knowing she wouldn't be able to push another view into Neji's mind. He was too cold-hearted.

-l-

When Shikamaru woke the results were in.

The only known alias of the bank robber with way to long hair to really pass off as a banker was Deidara, surname unknown, thanks to the bad recording procedures of the Earth Country. That was where he'd grown up, spending his first 20 years. He was 27 years old. He was also a noted terrorist.

Shikamaru stared at the results for a while, taking it in.

That noted terrorist and the organization he was currently working for had gotten their hands on a whole lot of money.

They were dealing with something more than just a bank robbery.

-l-

Upon hearing the news Neji had left to inform their boss, something that apparently needed to be done in person. It seemed like Maito Gai had a special place for Rock Lee in his heart. Or that was what Neji muttered, sounding annoyed.

Shikamaru was working on finding Deidara and the organization he was currently working for. Since Deidara switched employers often he was hard to track. However, there was a reason Shikamaru was considered a genius. Only, he wasn't. Only Asuma ever said that... Whatever.

Shikamaru placed his hands in his lap, finger to finger. He needed to clear his head.

They only knew that much. They didn't know who Deidara was working for, or what they were planning on using the money for. If he was unable to find which organization, perhaps he could follow the money? If he used his connections he would be able to see if any other government agency had tracked a terror organization which suddenly was spending a lot of money.

He should probably check if his government organization had any information like that first, though. Rather than run the risk of causing an international incident. The Secret Sand was notorious for being... a bit murderous. Same thing went for the Federal Bureau of Mist (commonly known as the Bloody Mist). Really, any other agency would try to get him killed if they found out about him hacking them. (Not that he usually got caught, but if it happened just once it would be enough. He had gotten caught in the past, so he wasn't invincible.)

Shikamaru sighed and cleared his head again. He needed to work, as bothersome as that was. If he didn't, he risked lives. How troublesome.

- To Be Continued -

Author's note: This "episode" was cut into at least 2 chapters, but I had originally intended it to be 1. Therefore the ending is… not that much of an ending. Sorry, but I think it worked.

As you might understand, I think of this fanfic as a TV-series. There are episodes, which are divided into such because of which antagonist appears, and there are chapters… which are chapters.