Title: Troublesome Silhouettes

Characters: Shikamaru, Temari

Setting: post-Shippuden time skip, Konoha

Warnings: nudity, closet perverts

There was only one way to describe a kunoichi like her: troublesome.

Temari gave a cheeky smile. "Well, how 'bout it? You'll have a rematch with me, right, Nara?"

"Mendokuse," her escort muttered. "But fine."

"Arigato, you're a good guide, even if all you do is watch clouds all day," Temari complimented, adjusting her forehead protector.

"Well, you're pretty easy to please, for a girl. All you do is eat, sleep, and act upon your violent tendencies. Pretty predictable," he muttered, rising from his seat in the grass.

"Wait, where're you going?" the kunoichi growled, obviously offended at his comment (the girl comment, of course; Temari would be one of the first to admit that yes, she did have violent tendencies, no, she did not need therapy thank you very much, and yes, that fan she was currently holding above your head could quite easily put you in a permanent state of coma).

"To the training grounds. On your request." He glanced over his shoulder at the woman who was still lying in the grass, staring at the clouds. "Aren't you coming?"

Temari's sharp eyes gazed at the horizon, reflecting the blood-red sunset on Konoha's horizon. "No. Later, Nara. The shadows are too much to your advantage right now. We can meet at midnight."

"And interrupt my sleep?" Shikamaru grumbled. "Mendokuse. What are you plotting, woman?" But the thought of Tsunade's rage if he demonstrated poor manners towards Konoha's guests made him acquiesce. Temari's eyes glinted wickedly before returning to contemplate the clouds.

The sliver of crescent moon cast a weak glow on the training grounds as Shikamaru landed almost silently in front of the three posts. He idly yawned, looking for his opponent. Temari, forehead protector glinting in the faint light, stood on top of the middle of the three posts, fan already open in front of her. Something is off about this situation, he mused, and frowned at her silhouette temporarily imprinted on the white silk of her fan.

"Ano, Temari, are you--?" he began.

"Nara, quit babbling and start fighting," she commanded, leaping off the post backwards to land outside the range of his shadow possession jutsu. With no warning, she turned her fan sideways and casually swung it, lithely curving to hide (most of) herself behind the fan. A slender, shoeless ankle peeked from under the fan.

The other shinobi took her previous place atop the post to dodge the slicing winds and hurl several kunai at her.

She danced aside, always keeping the fan positioned in front of herself as she twisted out of the way. A flash of bare arm, a naked shoulder blade, a glance of smooth and toned thigh, all quickly and modestly retracted behind the fan.

Shikamaru began to sweat. "Temari…why are you naked?"

"I'm not," she replied airily, flinging four shuriken back at him. He was too stunned to dodge and managed to topple backwards off the pole instead.

As she darted across the field, Shikamaru caught a flash of scarlet cloth fluttering behind her. "Why are you mostly naked?" he hissed, feeling both a headache and a nosebleed coming on.

She replied by hiding behind the furthest post to heave an enormous bullet of air at him.

He could see part of her obi's neat bow from behind the post, as well as the saucy curve of her left buttock. The question of where she pulled the shuriken from answered, not that his racing mind cared much about the weapons the obi hid. It was too busy churning out dozens of (mostly) unwanted images about what else was under there; Shikamaru's IQ may have been over 200, but he was still a virile (and sane) teenage boy. He wiped the sweat off his upper lip. "Troublesome women," he groused. "Always employing underhanded tactics."

"Well, Nara, if you weren't such a lecher, it wouldn't be a problem, would it?" she taunted. Shikamaru's sixteen-year-old libido couldn't help but scream in agreement. A kunai sailed lazily through the air, piercing the inseam of his pants about four centimeters below his privates. It was really quite fortunate that Temari had excellent aim.

"Okay, that's it," he growled, scrambling up and leaving any thoughts of honorable fighting behind. A kunoichi is nothing without her weapons, he deduced. He had to get rid of her fan (the perverted voice inside his head of course, had nothing to do with this decision; it was the decision made by his logical mind, and his logical mind alone). Reaching into his belt pouch, he withdrew a light bomb, a kunai, and a thin wire, all whilst dodging another barrage of shuriken.

Wary of her opponent, Temari danced backwards to stand on top of the river. The water didn't even ripple, casting a perfect reflection of her in her fighting stance, shoulders bared to the night. The first thing Shikamaru threw at her was a light bomb; he knew she was too far for his shadow possession jutsu, but the intense burst of light would cause her to close her eyes to avoid ruining her night vision. The bright light threw Temari's silhouette in sharp relief, allowing Shikamaru a rapid glance at her form (he could see every detail, down to the outline of her breasts, perfect with a small bud of a nipple on the tip) as he strung the wire through the kunai's loop, slammed the kunai into a tree crookedly, and flung the knife at her.

The kunoichi opened her eyes after the flash of light had passed and barely managed to use her fan to block the knife. It pierced the silk, and the bent tip of the kunai hooked around one of the ribs of the fan. With a good pull, Shikamaru managed to wrench the fan from Temari's hands, allowing it to sink to the bottom of the river. He charged, hoping to get close enough to cast a shadow possession jutsu, initiate some hand-to-hand combat, put some clothes on her, something, anything that could distract him from trying to sneak a peek at her (very beautiful, very deadly, very enchanting, very naked) body.

A small splash. Droplets of water shimmered in the air as Temari took cover in the water, and just as quickly burst out again. "I knew you were going to try a dirty trick like that, Nara, you pervert," she smirked. Dripping, she stood confidently poised for action, with a crimson obi wrapped around her slim waist, and two smaller fans held in her hands to hide her breasts and hips.

Shikamaru's eyes couldn't help but follow a naughty drop of water that traveled from the dip below Temari's throat to disappear behind the top fan, only to reappear below the fan moments later. He groaned, dodging a few more shuriken. He was losing to a girl who had nothing on. The flashes of pale skin were a form of torture more effective than Ibiki's mental brainwashing.

An exploding tag she had laid near the riverbank nearly blew off the toes on his right foot. An unmanly yelp managed to wrest itself from his throat as he leapt away from the riverbank.

Boom. Another tag, and he could see them all along the riverbank, so he chose instead to leap onto the river. This entire time, he could see her jauntily standing just out of his jutsu's range near the training posts, literally wearing nothing but a smirk, a Suna forehead protector and a scarlet obi.

He barely had time to grit his teeth in frustration before a hand grabbed him from under the water, latching onto his ankle, and Temari's second shadow clone hurled both of her razor-edged fans at him, modestly disappearing in a poof of smoke before he even had a chance to look at her assets. He managed to evade the two fans by ducking hastily, wincing as he heard the edges bury themselves deep into a tree trunk behind him. With an almighty jerk, his foot managed to free itself from the grip the first clone had on his ankle.

"Forget troublesome, you're just crazy," he shouted, scowling at her.

"You're just sore because you're losing. To a girl," she replied sweetly.

He charged, lengthening his shadow towards her, forcing Temari to skip left. A shuriken hurled at her left side forced her to leap high upwards to avoid both it and Shikamaru's shadow, and a last kunai thrown at her pinned the edge of her obi high up on the training post behind her. As she landed, the obi's bow untied, scattering her throwing weapons around her feet.

"Heh," Shikamaru grinned. "Finally." He ignored the voice in his head telling him that the water droplets resting in the dips of her lower back looked beautiful and stretched his shadow towards her again.

Temari smiled innocently at him, turned sideways so he could see only the outline of her ass, and used her free fan to launch him backwards several hundred meters with a wind jutsu. His shadow only managed to latch onto the edge of her fan, which she willingly released before dancing away again. By the time the dust from his impact cleared, she was standing gleefully at the top of the middle post again, two fans modestly covering her. "Do you give up yet, Nara?"

"What? I had your second fan, and your obi's gone, how could you have another one?" he griped, slowly rising to his feet.

"The first move in shogi is always a bluff, Nara," she retorted.

He narrowed his eyes at her, making a subtle hand sign. The trap he placed on top of the post activated, shadows reaching for her. The kunoichi laughed, leaping agilely to the top of another post. "Too slow," she taunted.

"No, I'm not." The shadow's fingers gripped Temari's headband, tearing it off. A slim weapons summoning scroll that had previously been tucked in the forehead protector rolled to the ground.

The girl was momentarily stumped and hesitant. "Hmph. How'd you figure that one out?"

"There's a reason you weren't totally naked." But now she is! his traitorous brain reminded him. Gloriously naked. Breathtakingly, mind-blowingly—

"Not as dumb as you look, huh?" she goaded, regaining confidence. Rapidly, she uncovered her chest, and just as quickly hurled the razor-edged fan at him. Unfortunately, Shikamaru's mind was too stuck on her first action to register the second, and the only reason he wasn't decapitated was that she hadn't aimed for his head. The fan instead sliced eight centimeters into the ground just in front of his feet, even as she darted behind him. Soft breasts pressed against the flak jacket on his back, and the sharply cold edge of a fan pressed against the skin on his throat. "But I still win, Nara."

He swallowed, a very thin trickle of blood staining the collar on his shirt. His inner chauvinist jeered at him while his inner pervert moaned that she had been too quick for him to catch a glimpse of her breasts. All his mouth could say was, "Mendokuse."

"Better to be troublesome than a filthy, dirty lecher," Temari replied, a smirk saturating the honey sweet tone in her voice.

A thought suddenly occurred to him. "I may be a lecher, but at least I won't have to walk home naked," he said smugly.

"Wrong again," Temari replied, almost a little too gleefully. "Strip."

"No!"

She lowered the edge of her fan to brush the front of his pants lovingly. "Is it true that men only need one testicle to reproduce?" she asked conversationally.

Minutes later, Temari, dressed in a fishnet shirt, dark pants, and a chuunin's vest (all about two sizes too large for her), sauntered happily towards her temporary apartment in Konoha. Shikamaru skulked beside her, with only a white silk fan with three purple moons on it to cover himself.

"Why were you naked?" he questioned, ignoring the cool breeze caressing his ass.

For the first time that night, she actually blushed. "Oh, well…I…just because I was tired of being predictable?" she finished feebly, more of a question than an answer.

Shikamaru's inner pervert perked up again. Perhaps he did have a chance after all.

A/N: Was Tobi a good boy?