Ok, I think I lost him, Yumi thought as she hurried as fast as she could to Konoha, despite her aching legs, despite her exhaustion. Now I can focus on getting there quickly, she said to herself as she flew swiftly across the trees, careful not to make a sound, just in case she was still being followed; she didn’t want to risk anything, not in the sort of situation she had been placed in, the responsibility that she bore on her own self. I just hope I can get back in time. I don’t know what I’d do if-

Her thoughts were interrupted, when she was suddenly caught off guard by an unknown object that had sped by her; catching her long, flowing sleeve, pulling her to a branch, and sticking stubbornly to the wood of the tree she was on. As Yumi turned her head instinctively to see a kunai caught to the dark fabric, another flew by and caught to her skirt. Shoot, she thought heatedly as a ninja approached her, a smirk across his disgusting face, from his dark, narrow eyes to his pudgy nose. Guess I didn’t lose him after all. She struggled with the kunai, trying to free herself, but it was no use; they were stuck intractably in the tree, and there was no way she’d be able to get them out anytime soon, before she met her doom.

Trying to avoid the ninja’s sneer, she instead looked beyond him; though blinded by the sunlight facing her, she could just barely see the five Hokages in the stone. And I was so close too, she thought miserably as she did her best to hide her depression and gave the ninja a death glare, only to receive another smirk. This just made Yumi angry, and she clenched her fist until her nails cut her light skin, ignoring the pain she was putting on herself.

"So this was your plan?" he asked her, his eyes mocking her to a point of infinite anger as he got closer. He scoffed, his eyes narrowing. "Running away to get help, ha! I’d expect something like that from a small girl." Small?! I’m the same height as you! Yumi thought furiously as she struggled once more. He swiftly pulled out another kunai and held it by her neck; Yumi hid her fear with a scowl as she kept her neck as far from the weapon as she could, her angered eyes keeping a hold on his. "So...any last words?" he asked her.

Not changing her expression, Yumi continued glaring at the ninja for another few seconds, her dark eyes cold and unmoving. If she was going to die, she was going to at least do something that would redeem her, pathetic as her idea was; she was not going to die as a helpless, cowardly girl, even if no one else was watching and would know. Not taking her enraged eyes off of him, she spat in his face. He jumped a little in shock, then regained himself, that stupid smirk back on his face, his eyes with a look of arrogance staring at Yumi’s cold ones.

"Foolish brat, you don't know what you just got yourself into," he said, pulling his hand back, ready to thrust the kunai into Yumi. She closed her eyes, heart accelerating, getting ready for the excruciating pain she was expecting, not knowing how painful it’d be, having never experienced such pain before. Then she noticed that it wasn’t coming, and out of curiosity, she opened one eye to see him still standing there, his body, his face, frozen with fear.

Though she was confused, she did a good job of hiding it as she smirked and said tauntingly, "What a coward, you can’t even kill a small girl?" She wasn't expecting the reply, especially from someone else, someone other than the one in front of her, someone hiding in the trees.

"I’m sure if he could, he wouldn’t waste time in trying to, especially after what you just did."

Yumi quickly snapped her head in the direction of the aloof voice hidden in the shadows, and was able to make out a tall, dark-haired boy about her age holding his hands in a position that she assumed had something to do with why the guy in front of her was suddenly immobile. Upon closer look, she noticed that the shadows of him and the guy in front of her were connected, and that confirmed her assumption. She half smirked, half smiled at this new acquaintance. Thank goodness.

"Well what do you expect me to do, act as a damsel in distress?" Yumi said casually, trying to act indifferent, though inside relief was filling so fast she thought she’d explode.

"Looks to me like you already are." He calmly replied, shrugging his shoulders. Yumi narrowed her eyes slightly at this remark as he nodded to her, "Now free yourself, I can’t hold the jutsu forever."

Now knowing she didn’t have panic to lose her focus, Yumi was able to calmly reach over with her free hand and yank the kunai out of the tree after a few tries, only slightly ripping her sleeve, then got the one out of her skirt. Dropping the weapons, she sneered at the ninja in front of her as she gave him a solid, unmerciful kick.

“Ow!” the boy shouted. He growled, “Geez, don’t you know that until I let go of the jutsu, every attack directed toward him goes to me too?”

“Oh I’m sorry!” She called back showing little sympathy. “Couldn’t help myself.”

“Geez, that was pretty strong.” He muttered to himself, shaking his head in disbelief. “Such a troublesome girl. I can’t believe I dragged myself into this.” Then he called to her, "Alright, I guess I’ll tell you when to attack."

"Well hurry up then." Yumi shouted her reply. She smirked at the ninja, staring him down, getting ready for the boy's signal. Oh, you’re gonna wish you never even thought about messing with me. You’re…gonna…pay.

"Now!"

Yumi gave the ninja another hard kick in the abdomen; knocking him a few feet back, failing only in her attempt to make him fall off the branch they were on ten feet above the ground. Yumi made a dash after him, rapidly preparing a jutsu. She shot out a strong stream of water directly at the ninja; so strong that the force snapped the upper half of the tree they were on. When the water cleared, Yumi watched in anger as the targeted ninja transformed into part of another trunk.

"Substitution." Yumi muttered as she instinctively turned around, just in time to dodge the ninja's punch. She slid her leg swiftly under the ninja’s feet in an attempt to make him lose his footing, barely succeeding. He fell and grabbed the branch he had just been standing on, then swung back up to attack, unscratched.

"Ugh, where's that shadow boy?" Yumi growled as she blocked an attack with a barrier of water. "I could use some help right about now." She glanced around in between attacks to try and find him. This was a mistake; she didn’t see that there was an attack coming from her right for she was glancing to the left at the time. She fell out of the tree, landing on her left shoulder. The ninja hopped after her, gracefully landing a few feet away. He got up from his crouch and slowly stepped toward Yumi, who was straining to even sit up. Finally he was standing over her, meeting her eyes as he glared at her, his dark eyes staring down at Yumi’s carmine eyes.

"Now you know not to mess with me." He said to her kicking her abdomen; she winced in pain, trying not to show weakness, trying to hide how short her breath was getting. "Too bad it's too late for you," he said feigning sweetness as he pulled out a kunai. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the shadow boy appeared behind him, and caught him with a shadow, with his jutsu.

"You ok?" he asked her, his voice seemingly uncaring that she was in fact, not ok. Struggling as she got up, Yumi nevertheless nodded, her eyes still narrowed in anger. Not taking his eyes off of her, the boy replied, "This will only take a minute, just relax.”

Yumi watched in awe as the shadows appeared to take the form of hands, crawling up to the ninja's neck, and she stared astonished as the shadowed hands eventually choked him to death. As he fell to the ground, Yumi smirked proudly as she gave him one last kick before he hit the ground.

"And now you know not to mess with me." Yumi sneered at the limp and lifeless body. She looked up to face Shadow Boy, her smirk not leaving her face. “Where were you? We could’ve beaten him easily if you hadn’t been hiding doing whatever you were doing. I might not be feeling this pain in my shoulder if you had helped.”

“I did, I saved your butt twice.” He replied calmly, though Yumi could tell from his eyes he was getting annoyed.

“Well that wasn’t enough!” Yumi said glaring. “Why didn’t you fight?”

“Cuz I didn’t want to.” He said simply. Yumi’s jaw dropped in disbelief at this.

“Didn’t want to- what do you mean you didn’t want to?” What the heck? I thought he was a ninja, I can’t believe I actually thought that.

“Easy as that, I didn’t feel like it. It wasn't my fight; I only interfered when you needed me to.”

There was a pause in which Yumi was fuming with anger, then before she had a chance to blow off the steam he asked, “You said your shoulder hurt, should I take you to my village to get that fixed?”

Taken aback by this sudden change in subject, this change in tone, Yumi stammered, “Uh, yeah, that’d be nice. But wait!” She suddenly remembered why she was heading towards Konoha in the first place. “I need to speak to your Hokage; it’s pretty urgent.”

He didn’t ask questions, just merely nodded. “Then let’s get going,” he said, striding in the direction of Konoha, Yumi following.

"So back there, what took you?" she asked, trying to get back on the subject they were on before, to clear her head, to make this guy feel worse about not helping.

"I had to wait till he was fully distracted, and in a good position where I could attack, on the ground." He said. "So good job distracting."

Sure he was, Yumi scowled, she hated to be thought of as a distraction, like she didn’t do anything important, wasn’t the hero. Pretty cocky if you ask me.

"No problem." she muttered sarcastically as they reached the gates.

"This way." he said as he slightly quickened his steps toward a building, Yumi following hastily, only glancing around once in a while at the numerous buildings in the village. They entered the building, and after climbing a few staircases, reached a door. Shadow Boy knocked on the door rapidly, and entered. Facing them was a desk, occupied by a woman that Yumi guessed as the Hokage.

"Apparently there’s an emergency." He sounded almost bored when he said it, and nodded towards Yumi.

"What, what is it?" she asked him, only slightly alarmed. Geez, seems like everyone in this village is on the slow side today. Yumi cleared her throat as she began to explain for the first time the situation.

"My village has been under siege for three days and is now being attacked as we speak,” she said as calmly as she could, although she was panicking, as she feared for the villagers she had grown to love over the past years. "I don't know the details, but our leader seems to have betrayed our whole village for another enemy. I ran here as soon as I could to get help." I already wasted enough time trying to escape, she reminded herself.

The Hokage nodded quickly in agreement. "Right, we'll have to assist. However, unfortunately all of our advanced teams seem to be away on other missions, they may not come back for at least five days.”

"What?" Yumi asked alarmed. Just my luck!

"However, we still have Shikamaru."

"Well, where is he? Send for him right now!" Yumi said. “The sooner the better!”

"That would actually be me,” Shadow Boy said. Yumi snapped her head to him. “You can’t get any sooner than that,” he shrugged.

"You?!" She asked in disbelief.

He nodded slowly, then looked at the Hokage, his eyes once again displaying annoyance. "Do I have to?" he asked making a face.

"Him? You’re sending him?" Yumi cut in as she asked the Hokage, shooting her index finger in his direction, still in disbelief.

"Hey, what's wrong with me?"

"Oh, nothing, except the fact that you hide when in danger, leaving me to defend for myself!" Yumi said. Shikamaru scowled.

"Shikamaru, you have to go,” the Hokage said sharply. "There’s no one else, cuz they couldn't think up excuses to avoid other missions." Shikamaru glared in the Hokage’s direction. “You need to help this village.” There was a pause, silent other than the fact that Shikamaru sighed in defeat.

"So he's really coming?" Yumi asked bleakly.

"Don’t worry, there’s more to him than you think." The Hokage replied halfheartedly.

Yumi glanced at Shikamaru, his hands carelessly in his pockets, gazing distantly out the window in front of him, behind the Hokage, looking as if he wasn’t aware of the situation, his location, that he’d rather be anywhere else than where he was now. That’s hard to believe, she thought as she sighed, "Fine, let's go, the sooner we leave the better." She grabbed Shikamaru’s wrist and dragged him out the door, breaking him out of his trance, even receiving a startled yelp.

"Come on, hurry up!" Yumi said as they left the village, hopping on a branch, turning to see him a few feet behind.

"Ok ok, sheesh." Shikamaru shook his head as he followed her, thus starting their journey to Yumi’s little village.

"Ugh, I still can’t believe I got stuck with you to assist in this." Yumi said. "My village is doomed,” she groaned glumly.

"Will you stop already?" Shikamaru snapped. “I’m just as upset about this as you are!"

"Why, it interfered with your nap time? You had other things to hide from?" Yumi said whipping her head angrily in his direction.

"I already told you, that was just for strategy."

"Yes, cuz running away is the best strategy." Yumi muttered. So say the cowardly. I can’t believe this is happening.

"Why am I even bothering?" Shikamaru questioned, more to himself, with a discouraging tone. "You’re just a troublesome girl that obviously likes to argue."

Yumi glared at him as they flew through the forest. "I'd probably be less troublesome if I wasn’t stuck with a whiny boy that plays with shadows."

"Troublesome girl." Yumi heard Shikamaru mutter under his breath, just loud enough for her to hear. Yumi clenched her fist, taking a deep breath, the only thing that could prevent her from wanting to knock out the boy.

"Hey, I heard that." Yumi said. "If you're gonna keep calling me that, I’d prefer troublesome woman, thank you very much."

"I don’t think so."

"And why not?" Yumi snapped.

"Because,” he said calmly, "you're far from being a woman."

Yumi glared. "And what exactly do you mean by that?" She shouted. What was with this guy, he just met her and he's full of nothing but insults and derisions.

"You're just more girl-like than womanly." Shikamaru said shrugging. "Simple as that."

"And in what way?” she asked. “Because I swear, if you mean to say that in terms of a physical sense, then -"

"You’re also really annoying." Shikamaru said. “So really I mean it in terms of maturity.” Yumi scowled as she realized that Shikamaru didn’t even deny that she was ‘girl-like’ in a physical sense; in fact, he seemed like he affirmed it as he added the maturity factor too. Must. Not. Beat. Boy.

“So you’re saying if I were less annoying then you’d call me ‘troublesome woman’,” she said, trying to keep her temper. “But then would you have a reason to call me troublesome anyway?”

“Sure,” Shikamaru said. “You’ll still be annoying and troublesome, just to a lesser degree. All females tend to be troublesome anyway.”

“Oh yeah? Why do you say that?”

“Well for one thing, the things they say or do because of some guy. Girls that are boy crazy are the most annoying ones.”

"Oh sure," Yumi said sarcastically. "And I’m just crazy about the fact that I’m stuck with you for this mission." That got him, Yumi thought. Call me boy-crazy, I don’t think so!

"Tch." was all he said in response. Yumi smirked, but wasn’t fully satisfied; she decided to build with this offense.

"Plus, you're not even my type." Yumi said almost in a mocking tone, hoping this would get him irritated, waiting to once again see the annoyance in his eyes. But instead all she saw was a smirk completely covering his frustration.

"And I bet your type is annoying, stubborn, and just as troublesome as you are." He shot back almost easily.

Yumi scowled, angered that he seemed to be untouched by this, that he was able to make a comeback, though it was a bit weak. But she quickly regained herself as she replied all too calmly, just to irritate him, "Please, that would mean my type was someone like you!” she retorted. That was the best on yet, but she kept going; if she couldn’t beat him physically, this was the perfect outlet. “Actually, my kind of guy is strong, smart, would do anything for me, and doesn’t think only of himself." Yumi said turning her head away with smugness in her voice. "And, he's brave and courageous. The opposite of you." She smirked, watching out of the corner of her eye how he’d take this.

"The opposite of you as well,” he said.  “I don’t know where you're going to find a guy like that who'll fall for someone like you." He sounded like none of what she was saying was affecting him; she really hated that, that calm tone he always used, as if nothing else, including his mission, mattered. How could he do that? It was really annoying her, and who knows how long she’ll have to deal with this? For the time being, she gave up; she’d have plenty of time afterwards to get under his skin, but for now, she had to focus on helping her village. But still...

Yeah, and I’m sure that there's a girl who'll be interested in you, she thought in her head, finishing the argument.