FicWad

Chapter Two: Binding

The next three days were occupied with paperwork and helping Temari out with odds and ends, not to mention mundane things like rotating Suna security squads and diplomatic delegations out of Sunagakure proper and into Konoha. They were making a military alliance, as Baki was fond of reminding Kankuro, not going to bed with the other two villages, and besides, Sand trusted Uchiha Sasuke and his higher-ups about as far as they could throw them (not very far in the case of Jiroubou of the Southern Gate, as Kankuro remarked to his old teacher, earning himself a glower in response).

This meant he couldn't meet with Shikamaru, but it also meant postponing his informal grudge match with Kidoumaru until his own convenience, which Kankuro preferred to do. He wouldn't be seen as a coward by balking from a fight, but he also liked to choose his own time and place to do battle, and the extra work afforded him the luxury of being busy should Kidoumaru call him out.

Or so he thought, until late on the morning of the fourth day, when he pushed aside the last of the detail forms and found a small, furry spider perched on the desk under the paper, staring up at him.

"Kidoumaru-sama wishes to remind you of your engagement with him, at your convenience of course," the tiny creature crackled up at him.

Kankuro sighed. "I should drop a folder on you."

"You may try," the spider said primly. "I shall one day be his god-summons; I am not to be done in by a mere kugutsu-user."

"You're almost as annoying as he is," Kankuro growled, getting up creakily from his chair to grab his hood and puppet scrolls. "Complete bastard had a bug on me the whole time..."

"So you say, but I assure you that neither I nor any of my brothers and sisters have taken any interest in your doings these past few days. My timing is merely fortuitous. I fail to see why Kidoumaru-sama has taken such a strong interest in you, but then my mother has always said that our master has strange whims."

"Fascinating," Kankuro growled at his uninvited visitor. "And you can call it fortuitous timing, but where I come from, it's called "spying", and we take a very dim view of that in Suna during the treaty process. So go crawl up a waterspout or something."

"Dreadful manners," muttered the spider as it made a quick jump from the desk to the windowsill, and then it was gone. Kankuro sighed and strapped his five finished scrolls to his back; scroll number six lay untouched in the corner of the office, still in the experimental stages. He caught up his equipment bag and checked inside carefully, nodding in satisfaction; everything was as he had prepared it.

Temari's voice made him pause on his way out. "So where are you off to, then?"

"I'm going to swat a pesky bug."

"Heh. If you're not back by late evening, I'll assume you're dead and take your stuff, just so you know."

"Love you too, big sis," he said snidely, avoiding the half-hearted little whirlwind that pursued him out the door. Temari was obviously stuck with another day of diplomatic garbage, and envied him his brief freedom. Well, he wouldn't be much of a little brother if he didn't rub her nose in it later on.

= = = = =

Just getting into the Forest of Death turned out to be a huge bitch.

For one thing, half the perimeter appeared to be laced with in-training special jounin or Ninja Academy ichinensei classes full of squealing kids; Kankuro had to apply a complex series of illusions to get past them, and by far the Academy brats were the worst, since the jounin were not prone to sneaking live shuriken and throwing them at random objects for fun (a Kankuro-tree only narrowly avoided castration at one point, reminding him exactly why he was none too fond of kids). On top of that, there was the fence proper to get around, and the entire thing was laced with nonlethal traps designed to prevent idiots, civilians, and children from wandering in as they pleased; Kankuro had no desire whatsoever to be found dangling from an ankle-snag by the ANBU corps, and thus had to employ catlike agility and the judicious use of wire-trips to avoid ending up as such.

Then there were the charming denizens of the muggy, oppressive forest itself. Swatting killer slugs aside and avoiding what appeared to be extra-large tigers got old fast, but what really made Kankuro twitch was the presence of thousands of midges, all of which appeared to be trying to crawl into his eyes and nose.

On the plus side, he was alerted to what he was looking for when his tiny tormentors thinned out and then vanished completely. Even bugs weren't stupid enough to hang around the vicinity of a natural predator. So Kidoumaru was already here.

As soon as the sound of birdsong and chirping insects began to dim, Kankuro began paying extra attention to his surroundings, looking for traps of the unnatural sort. He was rewarded; tree by tree, the number of carefully camouflaged tripwires and tiny detonators increased, each one avoided or disabled as Kankuro got closer to their source.

Not bad, but he's made them just a little too obvious. I guess he doesn't want the game to end before he's had a chance to have some real fun; he's just trying to tire me out a bit and distract me. Kankuro smiled. It was cliché, but 'two can play at that' was what sprang to mind. After checking and clearing the next tree, he started adding a few surprises of his own as he went.

Fifteen minutes later, he rounded the trunk of a particularly huge moss-covered tree for a landing on the forest floor and discovered Kidoumaru leaning casually against the other side, all six arms crossed, the very picture of serene patience. Well, obviously, Kankuro thought as he used chakra threads to change his course as he swung, the son of a bitch had laced this whole damn chunk of the forest with enough explosives and tripwires to take out Suna's entire ANBU contingent, much less one guy. Kankuro landed about seven feet in front of the other man, allowing himself that much space to avoid the series of wires Kidoumaru had laid out at foot height around where he stood.

The spider-nin made a show of checking his watch. "You're late, but I was expecting that."

"There was no set time for this junket, you little shit," Kankuro retorted.

Kidoumaru just shrugged. "Still, I thought you'd make better time than you did. But then you're always over-cautious until you're driven out of cover, right? I bet you checked every damn tree you went past as soon as the flies thinned out."

Kankuro bit back a reply and instead took stock of the surrounding area. Green filtered light and abundant, slippery moss coloured a forest with trees so ancient and thick that their branches grew and twisted around one another. It was fantastically different from the clear, merciless light and endless hot expanses of Kankuro's desert home...and probably closer to what Kidoumaru was used to in Sound. So he'd practically handed the spider-nin an advantage by selecting this location. Fine. Kankuro had spent a fair bit of time in Leaf's forests himself, and his experience in fighting Iwa intruders within the closer confines of Sunagakure proper would work to his own ends.

Kidoumaru grinned at his opponent's silence. "Of course, that was probably the best thing to do, considering I set up traps in every tree in the first place."

Kankuro rolled his eyes. "How about we just get this over with? Unless you'd prefer to spend all day exchanging clever banter."

Kidoumaru's eyes narrowed. "'Get this over with'? That's a crummy attitude to bring to a fight. I was hoping to have a bit of fun today."

"Spending my day off teaching you to keep your big mouth shut isn't my idea of entertainment."

"Really? I think this'll be very entertaining..."

Kankuro saw Kidoumaru's finger twitch, heard the soft hiss of metal shooting past leaves, and channeled his chakra into a twisting dodge ten feet to the right; he only narrowly escaped the rain of golden kunai that thudded into the ground where he'd been standing a bare second before. Without even having to think, he pulled out his two primary scrolls and uttered the summoning spell: Karasu and Kuro-ari appeared in identical puffs of smoke on either side of him, wooden limbs rattling softly.

Kidoumaru smirked and uncrossed his arms into a ready stance, brow furrowing slightly. "Ready now?"

Karasu twitched convulsively as Kankuro clenched his fist. "Come on."

An instant later, the floor of the clearing was empty, as if two shinobi had never been there in the first place.

= = = = =

Shikamaru took a deep breath and let it out slowly, along with all the nuisances and stresses of his day. Class was finally over, the urchins on their way home with their assignments for the upcoming double holiday weeks of the First Hokage's Birthday and the Founding of Konoha, and he for his part could go snag some tea from the staff room and head home for a bit of relaxation. He couldn't deny that he was looking forward to the vacation almost as much as some of his kids, although not quite so vocally. And while their idea of free time would be taken up tearing around the village playing games, attending festivals with their families, setting off fireworks, and stuffing themselves with sweets, his own plans were a little more sedate.

Need to catch up on my cloud-watching, for one thing. For another, these are the last two weeks of Chouji's life as a bachelor, and I wouldn't mind spending some time hanging out with him before he ends up under Ino's thumb.

Alright, so that wasn't fair: Ino could be loud and obstreperous, but she'd been a friend to them both for years, and she'd always respected his bond with Chouji. Doubtful that she'd suddenly get possessive of her lover's time when he officially became her husband, especially considering how she made time for her own friendship with Sakura, at least whenever Konohagakure's chief surgeon and co-head of its busy hospital could manage to get a break.

But it's like I told Kankuro...their priorities will be different once they're married. They're both already talking about having children. Ino's father is getting tired; he's probably going to pass the ownership of the flower shop on to her, so either she or Chouji can have that as a source of income while they're raising kids, so both of them don't have to take missions. And Chouza's going to retire soon...

They won't have much time to spend, anchoring a guy who's drifting through life as aimlessly as a cloud.

Was he drifting? Well, yes, so to speak. He went on missions occasionally, he didn't really distinguish himself. His goal of living a mediocre life seemed to be coming along nicely, albeit having finally realized that he wasn't husband-and-father material. He still hadn't worked up the guts to tell his own mother and father that particular piece of news. The disappointment in their faces would be too much to bear; and he was nothing if not a coward, after all.

But then, he'd realized he wouldn't succeed at living quietly since he was thirteen years old, sitting across from Temari in the hospital outlining the wreckage of his first team in his mind. Inuzuka Kiba, hypothermia and internal hemorrhaging due to injuries inflicted in the extraction of an enemy; Hyuuga Neji, repeated knife wounds and through-and-through penetrations coupled with almost total chakra exhaustion; Nara Shikamaru...got off too easily. Uzumaki Naruto, massive internal and external injuries, chakra exhaustion, concussion, contusions, hypothermia; Akimichi Chouji...complete metabolism overload, internal damage due to enormous pressure exerted, sudden weight loss exacerbating symptoms of... At about that point, Shikamaru had realized that he couldn't fall back on his laziness and let others do the hard work: his intellect had saddled him with a huge responsibility, and while he didn't like it, he had made a promise that day to himself and any listening higher power that if Chouji survived, Shikamaru would work hard to make sure that this kind of disaster never happened on his watch again. He would protect the people who were important to him, and even the ones who weren't personally, with every breath in his body.

And now the distinct reminder of that same disaster was back and staring him in the face. Kankuro of the Sand, who'd rescued Kiba when Shikamaru hadn't been able to, and Kidoumaru of the Sound, who had almost killed Neji.

He wasn't sure of what to think. Kankuro was alright; the Sand ninja had a sense of humour and was more relaxed than Temari or Gaara (although Shikamaru felt rather smug on learning that Temari had finally taken his advice on those afternoon naps), and seemed like someone that Shikamaru could get to like. Kidoumaru...

He hadn't been lying to Kankuro that day weeks ago. It was hard to hate Kidoumaru. Shikamaru should know: he'd been trying to. He certainly didn't like the Sound nin yet; those piercing dark eyes, that perpetual knowing grin as if he could see into Shikamaru's heart and was amused by what he found there. The memory of him pointedly and efficiently capturing every member of Shikamaru's squad, toying with them and raining down death on Naruto's clones one by one until it seemed like one of their team would die right before his helpless eyes...

Kidoumaru had told him that there was a monster inside of Shikamaru as well. The statement hadn't sat well with the Leaf chuunin. Mostly because at that time, when Kidoumaru had thrown the last spike at the last remaining "Naruto" in his web, Shikamaru would have gladly, in that moment, sold his soul to Orochimaru himself to be able to save his squad from this chuckling fiend with no conscience.

That's a good question, actually...does Kidoumaru have a conscience, or did he ever? And what does that make me, then?

Shaking his head, Shikamaru got up from his chair and made his way out of the empty classroom and down the hall towards the staff room. Why was he burdening himself with these ideas, anyways? All he'd done was play shougi with these guys. They were interesting, and Kankuro was easier than expected to talk to, collected and funny and relaxed, and Kidoumaru was...Kidoumaru made him think of broad smiles and single-minded determination to find joy in life. And then that peculiar intellectual malevolence in the Sound ninja's makeup would make itself known, and Shikamaru would be back in the realm of nightmares and regret again, and shut down.

Kankuro must have fought him once or twice too, but Kankuro's not even a little bit afraid of him. So why can't you get past the concept that he's just toying with you to have some fun before he hurts you, just like in that fight?

Shikamaru shook his head again, firmly, as he entered the staff room. So many troublesome thoughts. That settled it: he was going home to cloud-watch on the roof of his apartment building until sunset, and then he'd go over to Chouji and Ino's for dinner. Thank providence they'd invited him, since he didn't have anything in his fridge at home except some Asahi. Shikamaru stifled a grin: if their team's dynamic would change somewhat with Chouji's marriage, Chouji had been firm on the point that the three of them were bloody well going to have dinner together at least once a week no matter what, and that was one anchor Shikamaru would gladly hold on to.

The staff room was empty when he got there except for Suzume, the Kunoichi Studies' specialist. Wordlessly she offered him the teapot; by now, the other staff members knew that getting any coherent remarks out of Shikamaru post-class and pre-tea was impossible.

As soon as he was finished his tea, she pushed her glasses up to her nose and looked at him seriously. "You seem quite distracted of late."

"I'm alright."

Suzume continued to eye him a moment or two longer, before sighing. "Men can be so uncommunicative." She carried on over Shikamaru's derisive grunt. "The training areas were simply packed with those funny brown Forest squirrels this afternoon, by the way. I took the girls out for flower-arranging and you couldn't go two feet for stepping on a squirrel. I told the blasted things to go away-they're that nice young Lee's acquaintances, you know, so I wouldn't do anything more drastic than that-but they kept hanging about fussing and chittering and dropping dead spiders at my feet, can you imagine? How unpleasant. The girls seemed to find it fun, so it wasn't a total loss, although some of the clever ones insisted on making squirrel-based ikebana...Shikamaru-kun, you've gone completely pale. I knew it. You're ill. Get yourself home immediately and take the first holiday week to rest, do you hear me?"

Shikamaru set his teacup down carefully, keeping his expression as neutral as possible. "Uh...yeah. Rest. Right. See you around, Suzume." He rose and left the staff room at what he hoped was a casual saunter; as soon as he judged himself out of visual-audial range, he broke into a run, out the door and towards the training areas.

Spiders. Spiders in the Forest of Death driving out Lee's squirrels, who are tough enough to avoid slugs and all kinds of other crap in there. Spiders that weren't there yesterday. What's he doing? What the HELL does he think he's doing?

= = = = =

A spike hit Kankuro in the centre of his back. His flesh splintered into wood as the back of his shirt cracked and fell off.

Karasu's head spun around, mouth dropping open as a stiletto flashed out of its throat and directly towards the originating place of the spike. It struck tree trunk, poison spreading purple from the embedded point as the initial attacker dodged with a scant rustle of leaves.

Kuro-ari clattered up in pursuit of the sound, jumping from branch to branch after the dark figure that moved as easily among the trees as a spider among its webs. Kankuro, from his temporary hiding place, smiled grimly. This fight had already gone on for over an hour; he was sweating, his makeup smudged across his face, and to his own mild chagrin, he was enjoying himself. It probably made him a sick bastard, considering he and Kidoumaru weren't holding back. Mistakes meant death in this fight.

Going up against another mid- to long-range fighter in this kind of situation was what made it interesting. The two of them fought by proxy, Kankuro's puppets and Kidoumaru's traps and weapons springing from every which way, targeting feints and hastily-made dummies, employing kawarimi to ensure that they themselves could avoid such attacks. Kankuro had taken cuts from several flying kunai he'd only barely been able to avoid, and from the momentary nausea he experienced each time, he'd realized that Kidoumaru was lacing his weapons with mild toxins to weaken his foe and slow him up a bit. Of course, Kankuro had developed a resistance to quite a few lethal poisons by now, but still, it really was turning into a game of wits, this fight.

Kankuro grinned to himself and called out, projecting his voice through Karasu's mouth so as not to give away his position. "Oi, shit head, having fun yet?"

The slight tickle of a breeze against the back of his neck gave him enough warning to drop out of his cluster of leaves and land lightly on the branch several feet below as a flying web-shot and several gold kunai mauled the place he'd been a second before. Nasty laughter rang out through the trees as Kankuro spun off and concealed himself again through a series of careful warps among a maple grove ten feet away.

"More than I've had in ages, asshole, thanks for asking! Oh and by the way, that ventriloquism stuff might work on the garbage you've gone up against before, but I'm a Sound ninja, remember? You can throw some of the vibrations from your vocal chords, but not totally, I can still hear the origin point!"

Kankuro rolled his eyes unseen. This was the fourth or fifth time Kidoumaru had done this during their fight; almost take him out when he made some tiny mistake, and then give him advice of all things on how he'd screwed up. It was starting to get aggravating...

But then again, the little son of a bitch is right. I didn't think he'd push me this hard for this long, and that was my first and most profound error. The only thing that's saved me these last few times is his sick sense of what's "fun".

Kankuro took a deep breath-he really wasn't going to enjoy this, but it had to be done-and barked out, "While we're at it, lesson learned! From now on I won't underestimate you!"

The resulting silence had the tincture of astonishment. Kidoumaru must not have been expecting Kankuro to admit his own grievous error, and in doing so he'd caught the spider-nin flat footed.

Good. Now it's time for him to get a little reminder of who he's dealing with.

Kankuro focused, transferring the chakra strings from Kuro-ari to the little and ring fingers of his left hand; the black ant's capture function wouldn't be needed for what he was planning next. Instead he drew another scroll from his back and invoked Sanshu'ou, tossing the scroll slightly as he did so that the clatter of the appearing puppet would come from its land point on the forest floor. As the salamander took form, a rain of knives shot from all directions; Kankuro twitched his thumb, and a giant wooden tail swung around, kunai burying itself in the sturdy moveable shield that lashed over to protect the main body. Then Sanshu'ou began to climb, determined, powerful movements taking it slinking up the trunk of the nearest tree. The body needed to be protected for this reason; couldn't have enemy weapons impeding movement.

Kankuro followed the salamander up through the trees, taking care to maintain an illusion on himself...even though he was counting on that illusion to ultimately fail him. Far overhead, Karasu rattled through the uppermost boughs of the trees, searching. Kankuro spun it aside as another web shot blasted it, entangling the humanoid puppet's lower and middle right arms as it did. Kankuro swiftly disconnected those arms, at the same time briefly surging his own chakra down the disengaged limbs, considering the chakra that wasn't quite hidden by the sticky webbing itself.

So it has a distinct signature, and now I've got it.

Kankuro had Karasu scuttle back down into the thickest lower branches of the trees, damaged and missing limbs, as he wondered if what he was doing would work. What if Kidoumaru had suddenly become wary of him?

Fat chance. I'll give him one thing, for all that he fights long-range, he isn't a coward. Now...

There it was, just what Kankuro needed. He alit on one of the thickest branches of what he would have judged, had the environs not dictated otherwise, to be a honking great baobab tree, around the area where he'd first started noticing the traps. Now where...?

"Gotcha," a voice whispered in his ear, and Kankuro threw himself sideways awkwardly, although his extremely painful landing on his own ankle was nothing compared to the fate he would have received otherwise; Kidoumaru had slipped down a threat right behind him, silent as a ghost, and spat a spike right at the back of Kankuro's head. Perfect.

The spider-nin somersaulted off the rope and landed right-side up, one knife in each hand and at the ready, his grin triumphant. "So, give up yet?"

Kankuro said nothing and hobbled backwards along the branch, aware that it was thinning out the further it got from the tree. Just a little more...

Kidoumaru frowned and approached him, glancing about every so often for incoming puppets as he did. "Oh come on, that's a lame way to end a game like this. Twisting an ankle? What are you, a thirteen-year-old girl?"

Kankuro continued his retreat, but even as he did his fingers flicked out. Kidoumaru barely avoided Sanshu'ou's huge crushing tail as it lashed out from the salamander's hiding spot under the broad branch, throwing himself into a series of backwards somersaults to get out of range faster...and his wrist caught on the tripwire Kankuro had so inconsiderately appropriated and reset for his own purposes, just before their fight began.

The explosion as the curse detonator was set off was deafening. Kankuro was protected from the worst of the blast by Sanshu'ou's massive tail, which splintered and cracked with debris. It tore out a chunk out of about half the massive branch, but the object's size meant the remaining half was still enough to support the rest, plus Kankuro's own weight and that of his puppet. Kankuro, still cautious, peered through the smoke, and caught sight of a dim figure moving amidst all the grey.

The figure grunted, and Kankuro caught a flash of gold along with a clatter like pottery being dropped. And then, ominously, the creak of heavy strain being forced on a string.

Kidoumaru chuckled faintly as the smoke cleared. There were some minor burns on the apples of his cheeks and on his upper arms, from where he hadn't been able to produce the spider armour fast enough, but his eyes were shining. Kankuro was momentarily taken aback; his enemy looked like a little kid full of joy, rather than a trained killer slowly drawing back the unfailingly accurate and legendarily fatal Spider War Bow.

"Hey, that...that was pretty good, actually. I mean, I'm still going to pin your ass to a tree, but I'm willing to admit that was damn good." He chuckled again; he actually sounded happy. "Double-bluffing me and then using my own traps against me? Heck, I can't even get mad about getting scorched a bit in the process. So I won't kill you, I'll just leave you here for the Konoha ANBU. No hard feelings?"

Kankuro smiled. "Nope, none at all."

Kidoumaru grinned and pulled back the bow string further. Or tried to.

Kankuro raised his middle finger and moved it in a beckoning gesture. Kidoumaru's right upper arm jerked forwards, causing the strung arrow to wobble and fall from the bow as the Sound ninja stumbled slightly, looking dumbfounded.

"You..."

"Ran my own chakra along the wire and then attached it to your sole drawing wrist when you tripped it? Yep," Kankuro said, feeling a bit drained, but generally satisfied at Kidoumaru's disbelieving expression. "It's easy enough to do, really...just get a feel for the other person's chakra and then grab. And since you're a ranged fighter with shitty close-combat defenses, you're sunk now that you're stuck in my puppets' reach. Don't worry, I won't kill you. I'll just use Karasu to paralyze you and then dump you at the Konoha Hospital. Their chief surgeon saved my sorry ass back in the day, so I imagine she'll probably find it in her heart to patch you up as well."

He concentrated on the string and pulled, even as he waggled his fingers, drawing Karasu out of nowhere and leaping to intercept and bind Kidoumaru until the puppet's arm-blades could do their work.

He wasn't expecting Kidoumaru, instead of trying to resist or reconfigure the War Bow, to use the pull to his own advantage and break into a run, charging Kankuro outright. Kankuro had to change Karasu's direction in midair, and the distraction cost him; Kidoumaru was almost on him when Karasu shot in and caught the spider-nin in its inexorable wooden grip, some sick parody of an embrace.

Mostly. Karasu was still missing its lower and middle right arms, which left Kidoumaru's lower right arm free, as Kankuro realized when the Sound ninja slashed at his ribs with a golden blade.

Kankuro choked back an agonized cry and caught the offending wrist, twisting it as he stared into gleaming dark eyes, dimmed only slightly by pain; Karasu's arm razors were extended and digging into Kidoumaru's arms and torso slightly, but the poisons hadn't been unleashed yet. A wave of nausea hit Kankuro and he sagged, leaning his shoulder against one of Karasu's arms for the support to stay upright.

"Shit..."

"That must hurt," Kidoumaru said, his voice slightly constricted. "Call me a big softy, but I didn't put much poison that one."

Kankuro grunted and glanced sideways at his captive. "And I haven't shredded you yet, although I don't know why."

"Hey," and here Kidoumaru's smile came back full force, almost joyful, "why would I want to kill you now? That was great. Man, we need to do this again sometime and drag Shikamaru along for the ride."

Kankuro chuckled bitterly, releasing the strings on Sanshu'ou as he put his hand to his side to staunch the flow of blood from the gash. "Why the hell would you want to put him through this? I thought you liked him."

Kidoumaru's smile vanished. "I didn't say that. But while we're at it, I thought you respected him. 'Put him through that', as if he were made of china. Fuck, I don't know why these Konoha idiots have a guy like him teaching their brats how to throw paper weapons." The Sound ninja considered for a moment, and then suddenly leaned in Kankuro's direction, despite the fact that it caused the razors to dig in deeper. His breath ghosted, hot, against his captor's cheek. "And I don't know why Sand seems to have you pushing paper."

Kankuro should have pulled away. He blamed burgeoning dizziness for not doing so. He needed the support to stand upright or he'd fall on his face; so he wasn't as immune to those toxins as he'd thought... "You're a really strange person. Doesn't that hurt, what you're doing?"

"Hurt? Shit, I stopped caring about pain when I was five," Kidoumaru murmured, his gaze distant momentarily before snapping back onto Kankuro. "Hey, you wanna know how I found you that last time?"

"Sure," Kankuro mumbled into the wood, "knock yourself out."

He stiffened as Kidoumaru's cheek brushed against his own, the grin audible in the Sound ninja's slightly sing-song tone as he whispered into Kankuro's ear, "I can hear your heartbeat...yup, it's hammering away right now like someone going crazy on taiko drums. It's nice. I want to hear it that way again..."

Kankuro was suddenly aware of Kidoumaru's hand twisting out of his grip, and of a sudden, crushing impact to his gut; he coughed and convulsively twisted as Karasu's arms loosened just enough for Kidoumaru to get out of their grip and dodge around the puppet, putting a few feet between himself and Kankuro. The spider-nin's grin was back, and he looked positively mental now.

"On the other hand, I hate just giving up when I can still keep playing. Just so you know." Kankuro made a frantic grab for Karasu's twisting strings, aggravating clouds in his vision as Kidoumaru spat out a wicked looking spike and reared back to throw it...

And froze, his body contorting itself into an at ease stance, obviously against its owner's will if Kidoumaru's expression was anything to go by. Kankuro felt his own body controlled in a similar way. Which meant only one thing.

"You know," Shikamaru drawled from one of the narrow branches above him, no trace of humour on his face, "it was really a toss-up between breaking your stupid neck and freezing you, so don't you dare complain. You either, Kankuro."

Kidoumaru's thwarted glower would have been funny on anyone else. "Shikamaru, you little..."

"Shut up. I don't want to know whose stupid idea this was, but you could have gone and destabilized the entire damn alliance, and I'd expected better of both of you," Shikamaru said flatly. "Now, here's how it's going to go; I can't take you to the hospital, because that would mean explaining to Sakura why you two were trying to maul each other. I don't have much at my apartment, but there's tea and beer, and an extensive selection of first-aid stuff, so we might as well go back there. Try not to bleed on anything, okay?"

Kankuro gave a shaky nod, carefully ignoring whatever Kidoumaru's response to this was. "Sounds...fine. Sure."

Shikamaru's face softened, just briefly. "If it's toxins, I've got something that will help with that. You two are just lucky I've got a ton of bandages."

Kankuro thought back to the pointy-object-happy urchins running around the training areas outside the forest earlier. That made perfect sense to him. Already it was easier to stand upright.

Shikamaru fixed a beady look on Kidoumaru. "Can I trust you not to do anything stupid once I let the kage mane no jutsu go?"

Kidoumaru's expression was strangely closed as he looked up at the younger man. His lips were curved, but it definitely wasn't a smile. "You can't trust me not to do anything."

"That's fine," Shikamaru said coldly. "There's always shibari."

= = = = =

They made it back to the apartment through Kankuro's judicious use of a weak genjutsu and Shikamaru's apparently inherent ability to affect casual insouciance and lie like a rug if called upon; it only happened once, when an older ANBU kunoichi dropped down out of nowhere in front of them and peppered him with questions, and he answered her in tones of total boredom. She was satisfied eventually, and they were allowed to carry on to Shikamaru's building, populated predominantly by civilians who liked peace and quiet and weren't given to setting off explosive notes or having parties crowded with drunken special jounin at one in the morning.

As soon as Shikamaru had the door shut and the first-aid kit produced, Kidoumaru swiped some bandages and ointment, then retreated into the kitchen, leaving Shikamaru in the hallway with a Kankuro who had started staunching his side wound with his hood and was looking deeply disgruntled about it. The chuunin turned him around and steered him into the bathroom, divesting him of his much lighter weapons pouch and his puppet scrolls.

It was only when he tried to pull up the side of Kankuro's shirt to get a better look at the injury and the puppeteer responded by almost frantically shoving the shirt down again that he finally noticed. "You know..."

"Can't you just look at it through the hole? I mean, I feel kind of stupid about this."

"It's not that. I don't think I've ever seen you not wearing your hood before."

Kankuro blinked and ran gloved, bloody fingers through his unruly short hair, as if to confirm this for himself. Light brown hair, Shikamaru thought, and suppressed an extremely stupid urge to reach out and ruffle it. Instead, he pulled open the hole in Kankuro's shirt and started rubbing antibiotic ointment into the wound. The older man's only reaction was a sharp hiss. "Hey, I can do that myself, you don't have to..."

"Just hold still, damn you."

Kankuro subsided with a sulky growl.

"I can't believe you went and did that. I thought you had more sense. And now you're bleeding all over my damn toilet lid," Shikamaru told him with more resignation than rancour. "Stupid..."

"It was his idea," Kankuro muttered resentfully. "I couldn't just take that attitude from him." Shikamaru gave him a baleful look as he fished out a roll of cloth bandages. Kankuro winced. "Okay, so maybe that was stupid..."

"Very. Now I have to take off your shirt to bind the wound up, so don't be troublesome about it. I couldn't care less about scars."

Kankuro looked away from him as he did it. Shikamaru couldn't think why; there were a couple of scars here and there, but all shinobi of his age had them, even Shikamaru with his near-desk-job, and he couldn't think why Kankuro would be embarrassed. He said nothing and went about wrapping the bandages around as Kankuro held one end in place. When he cut the trailing end and cinched them tight, Kankuro made an odd noise and turned slightly green.

"You okay?"

"Uh...y-yeah...those toxins the knives were laced with were pretty weak, but I still feel nauseous..."

"It'll be the blood loss making their effects more potent," Shikamaru told him calmly. He supported the bigger man under his arms as Kankuro got shakily to his knees on the floor. "Try to aim for the toilet, but if you miss, it's not the end of the world. That's what tile's for. You gonna be alright?"

"Ask me in half an hour," Kankuro said with a wan smile. "Until then, though, I'd rather not have an audience, for once."

Shikamaru nodded. "Good. I'd hate to lose you over something so idiotic." Without waiting or looking back, he left the bathroom as he'd been asked, shutting the door behind him. It wouldn't help Kankuro to be humiliated on top of it.

As he made his way to the kitchen, he was mildly chagrined to realize that what he'd said just then was true. His predominant emotion en route to the Forest of Death hadn't been anger but fear; fear that someone would end up dead, fear that their stupid macho egos would result in someone nailed to a tree or butchered by a puppet.

And speaking of which...

Shikamaru had to look around for a second from the kitchen doorway to realize that Kidoumaru was curled up under the small two-person table, the bandages on his arms immaculately tied and already beginning to show soak-through from the blood, all six arms pulling his knees close to his chest. He must have finished bandaging himself faster than Shikamaru had Kankuro, the chuunin thought, before walking in and crouching down into a seated position opposite his obligatory guest, his back set against the refrigerator.

"So did you want to explain what all that was about, or shall I just assume 'moronic posturing' and leave it at that?" Shikamaru asked him after a second or two's silence.

Kidoumaru cocked his head slightly, a tiny smile playing across his lips. "I just wanted to kick his ass."

"You could have killed him." Enough time spent in Team Ten had made Shikamaru wary of people taking life too seriously, with their collective philosophy being "eat, smoke, watch clouds, ogle pretty members of whichever sex one was interested in, and be merry"; on the other hand, people who swung too far in the other direction made him uneasy too.

"I could have," Kidoumaru agreed. "He could have killed me, too. Yeah, I'll admit it, he's good, and if I didn't have my little natural advantages, I'd have lost." He raised his two uninjured arms for Shikamaru's inspection and lowered them again. "But I didn't want to kill him. I just wanted to show him up initially."

"Is that right?" Shikamaru tried to keep his voice neutral, as some tiny, nigh-insignificant part of him suggested that Kidoumaru might benefit from being grabbed by the front of his shirt and shaken until his teeth rattled.

"Yep. Now, though..." the grin went away, replaced by a thoughtful expression. "Now I don't. He's too much fun. I wouldn't mind if he stayed around, actually."

"So you can throw pointy things at him again."

"Aw, were you worried about him?"

"I was worried that you two had done something foolish, and lo and behold, I was right."

"And you came riding to the rescue, huh?"

"I-what?"

"You've never noticed that you have a responsibility complex the size of a small town, have you." It wasn't a question. "It's funny as hell, actually, listening to you go on about how you don't give a shit and then seeing you work 'til you break and then some, even for people you don't really like. Practically comical."

"So not wanted either of you meatheads dead and the possibility of an alliance irrevocably screwed is comical, is it," Shikamaru said slowly. "I don't believe you sometimes, I really don't." He got to his feet. "I'm going to check on Kankuro; he's puking his guts up in the bathroom thanks to you, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Hey."

Shikamaru paused-/why? He wondered, somewhere deep down. Anybody else who'd been that stupid, I'd write them off and walk away/-and turned, crouching down again so he was back at eye-level with Kidoumaru. "What?"

"Back there in the forest. If I'd ignored you, attacked him again when the kage mane was released...would you really have done it?"

"Done what?"

"Performed kage shibari on me? I talked to Tayuya about the technique, and she said it feels like real, human hands grabbing you. Would you really have been able to reach up and squeeze until my pulse got weak and my face turned blue and my skin went cold?" Kidoumaru's smile was disturbing. "Would you have gotten off on it?"

Shikamaru crouched there for a moment, staring back at him, suppressing certain urges, before shrugging. "The answer is yes to the first two and no to the third, and you're lucky I'm in no mood for a brawl, because anyone else would have punched your face in for being such a little prick."

"So...you're telling me you were just making that face back there because you were worried?"

"What face?"

"The one that looked like you wanted to rip my head off?"

"I put two and two together from our conversation at the shougi salon. Ergo, I assumed you were the one who had started that little shit-fest, even if Kankuro had gone and exacerbated it. Thus, you were the one I was angriest at...why are you yanking my chain?"

"You like him better, don't you?"

Shikamaru was so surprised that he sat down flat. "Uh?"

"Kankuro. You like him better."

"I-" Shikamaru struggled for a moment or two, bewildered, before finally settling on sarcasm tempered with diplomacy. "I like you both, gods know why, you've given me a hard enough time these past few weeks. I might even sort of consider you to be friends."

"Yes, but you like Kankuro better."

"You're harping on that, why?"

"Because it's true. Because he's the normal one, the one you can have normal conversations with, the one with normal skin colour and the normal number of /limbs/, the guy who..." Unexpectedly, Kidoumaru looked away, suddenly very interested in the table leg, his eyes unfocussed. Shikamaru scooted forwards, abruptly curious.

"What is it?"

"Nothing at all. I just wanted to establish some...parameters, that's all."

"Parameters."

"Yeah, you...heh, listen, I've been pushing you and prodding you for a reason, you know? Not a game, more like a...a test, if you will. I saw you that first time during the negotiations, I remembered you, and I kind of wondered..."

"Hm?"

"If there was anything there that could understand someone like me. But I'm okay now. I know that's not happening."

Shikamaru shifted so that he was in Kidoumaru's visual range, feeling a flicker of annoyance and bewilderment. "I hate being tested and measured. What are you getting at?"

Kidoumaru looked at him, eyes still not tracking, as if he were looking for something that wasn't really there. "I...like you, okay? Not as a friend. As something else. I wanted to try...to see if you could understand how it feels, how we are, if maybe you could like me back. You know, none of us ever figured it would be worth trying to make it with anyone outside the group. Guess they were right..."

Shikamaru reached out quickly and flicked his ear.

"Ow!" Black eyes came back into focus and fixed on Shikamaru, narrowed in annoyance. "What the /hell/?"

"Don't you self-pity on me, pal. You've pissed me off seriously a few times while we've known each other, which is quite a feat. That's why I'm none too sure about you, whereas I'm comfortable with Kankuro because I've known him longer. I've spent time with his family, I know what makes him tick. You, on the other hand...you swing back and forth between the sort-of-sensible-sort-of-goofy guy with the odd sense of humour who's able to give me a hard time on the shougi board-don't you dare grin, that wasn't supposed to be innuendo-and the same psycho I remember from back then, the one who thinks people are game pieces."

Kidoumaru stared at him, brow furrowing. "Guess what? Still the psycho."

"About ninety percent of the time I've spent with you, you've been normal."

"That was acting. I can't do "normal" any more than a dog can walk on two legs all the time. I mean, look at me."

"I don't care what you look like," Shikamaru told him quietly. "It could have been me just as easily; hell, I'm only holding onto sanity by default. Take a look at some of the geniuses this village has turned out, me included. Do you think you're the only one guilty of seeing the just the game? Of forgetting the human cost of what you were doing?"

Kidoumaru continued to stare at him. "I..."

"What?"

"I never forgot it, I just chose to ignore it. It's really easy, you know."

"I know."

"...and?"

"I don't...know how I feel about you yet. I don't know how I feel about a number of things, one of which is in the bathroom ralphing up. But I'm not going to forget that you have problems, and I'm not going to expect you to be little mister bland normalcy. I'll try to deal with you as you are and not demand much from you. Couple of conditions, though."

"Oh yeah?"

"No more 'tests', on me or on Kankuro."

Kidoumaru wrinkled his nose, although he was starting to smile. "Why would I bother anymore? He passed. So did you, sort of."

Shikamaru held up a hand for silence, and then raised two fingers. "Second, try to keep jerking me around to a minimum, okay?"

"Heh, your value of a minimum or mine?"

Shikamaru sighed. "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response. And no one in either of our villages is target practice, right?"

"What if that Hyuuga guy wants a rematch?"

"That'll happen when Jiraiya-sama proposes on bended knee to Ebisu, I'm sure."

Kidoumaru looked at him curiously for a few moments, before smiling a little hesitantly. "Well, that's better than what I was expecting, anyway."

"What were you expecting? To be chased out of the apartment with a broom?"

"Something along those lines, yeah."

Shikamaru winced. "I'm not sure I should ask."

"Let's just say that my shining personality doesn't always counteract the effect of my good looks," Kidoumaru said ironically. "Oh, hey, I think my arms have stopped bleeding now. Not to mention I don't hear doll-boy puking up anymore."

"Good, I'll start making tea then," Shikamaru said, pulling himself to his feet, slightly dazed after the weirdest confession of possibly romantic intentions he'd ever heard. Kidoumaru scrambled out from under the table a moment later, suddenly intent.

"Hey, mind if I do that?"

"You know how?"

"It's tea, of course I know how," Kidoumaru said rather sharply, then caught himself and looked awkward. "It's just...Orochimaru-sama made the four of us learn tea ceremony and a bunch of other Konoha shit to make Sasuke-sama feel more at home. And that goes no further than this room, got it?"

Shikamaru blinked as images of Tayuya of the North Gate in a formal kimono performing the ritual invitation to drink tea invaded his mind, and then shook his head fiercely. "Not to worry. Tea's in a paper bag on the top shelf, and most of the cups are just under it." He moved into the kitchen doorway, only to encounter Kankuro in the hallway, shirtless, bandaged, and with an odd expression on his face. "Yo. Feeling better?"

"I will be," Kankuro muttered, before raising his voice slightly, "once I kick a certain someone's ass for calling me 'doll boy'. Death wish much?"

"I'm not the guy who challenged an obviously superior shinobi to a fight on disadvantage ground," Kidoumaru shot back from the kitchen over the clink of cups.

"Oi, as the guy who actually pays rent on this hole of an apartment," Shikamaru interjected pointedly, pushing Kankuro into the living room as carefully as he could, "could you save the chest-thumping until after the tea's ready? Boiling water shouldn't be involved in this kind of discussion."

Ten minutes later, the tea was ready (and it was very good, Shikamaru had to admit), Kankuro had made himself comfortable on a sheet-covered heap of dirty laundry, Kidoumaru was sitting cross-legged in the apartment's sole battered armchair, and Shikamaru had sprawled across the couch-cum-futon in defiance of all conventions of being a good host. Kankuro and Kidoumaru had obeyed their shougi partner's edict from earlier, but they were still glaring daggers, or at least partially blunted shuriken, at each other, so the otherwise welcome silence was fraught with tension.

The silence stretched out even when Kankuro finished his third cup of tea. Shikamaru rolled over on his side and decided that he wasn't going to run block for whatever happened next, unless it started to involve real pointy objects; he drifted, going into catnap mode. It had been that sort of day, the kind that demanded a nap.

"You tried to shove a kunai through my lung."

"Yeah? And you tried to slice me all to hell with a killer puppet."

Shikamaru didn't open his eyes or react. Instead, he began to snore quietly, on purpose.

More silence.

"...call it even?" From Kankuro. Huh. Shikamaru had been worried the puppeteer was too proud to back down. Being proved wrong was nice once in a while.

"I guess." Kidoumaru this time. Oh no. Shikamaru could hear that damn grin. "Gotta admit, though, it wouldn't have been half as much fun if the weaponry hadn't been live."

"I reject your definition of 'fun' and substitute my own. Next time we should-"

"There's a next time now?"

"Your idea. But yeah, I suppose I wouldn't mind too much, so long as we can leave out the poison and the grievous bodily harm, for the most part."

"And drag him along." Uh-oh.

"Does that look like a man who finds his entertainment in having projectile weaponry thrown at him?"

"Well, you never know a guy until you fight beside him or against him. By the way, Shikamaru, nice try, but I know you're awake."

"That heartbeat thing again?" Kankuro's tone was sardonic. "By the way, that was a lame line you fed me earlier to catch me off-guard."

"It wasn't a line." Kidoumaru sounded offended.

"...yeah."

Shikamaru rolled over just in time to catch Kankuro and Kidoumaru averting both their gazes from each other, just for a moment. He wasn't sure what to think, or whether it was that or the sudden act of rolling that made him momentarily dizzy. "For your information, I was asleep, thanks."

"After that much tea? I think not," Kidoumaru snorted, just as someone with a fist the size of a soup pot knocked on the door.

"Oi, Shikamaru? Are you busy? Can I talk to you a minute?"

The chuunin levered himself up off the couch. The voice, and the accompanying chakra resonance, belonged to the one person he would never find it troublesome to accommodate. "Chouji, hi. C'mon in."

Then he remembered his two visitors, one of whom had managed to get to the bathroom, snatch his shirt, and reappear back in the main room fully clothed, minus hood, in the space of five seconds.

Chouji had to duck and turn sideways to get through the apartment door. Kidoumaru looked like he was about to make some crack, caught the warning look from Shikamaru, and schooled his face into a blank expression.

It would be easy to understand Chouji being a little distracted, what with upcoming wedding and the fact that he obviously had something on his mind, but the first thing he did was survey the apartment and take note of the other two shinobi within, and Shikamaru gave him mental points for alertness. Then again, Chouji was good at noticing right away what took others a few beats to register; being overlooked himself for a lot of his career had probably contributed. The big special jounin nodded politely if warily to Kidoumaru, waved awkwardly at Kankuro (understandable, from what he knew at this point Kankuro was "Shikamaru's ex's little brother"), and then crowded himself onto the end of the couch his friend wasn't occupying, with some difficulty.

"Huh, didn't realize you had guests, but this makes my job a lot easier. I'm sorry, Ino and I can't have dinner with you tonight."

Kidoumaru still looked blank, but Kankuro ditched his air of the affected casual and sat up a bit, as Shikamaru blinked in surprise. Chouji, like all of his clan, took sharing meals very seriously, as Ino had discovered once when she'd tried to skip out on dinner with her future in-laws to conserve her diet (resulting in a future mother-in-law reduced to tears and the only yelling match ever incurred over the course of their relationship). Earthquakes and tidal waves were grounds for calling off a social dinner at the Akimichi compound, barely.

"Did someone die?"

"It's nothing really bad, Shikamaru, just important," Chouji reassured him. "Naruto-sama sent me to get you, and I think Baki-san and that fa-that Jiroubou guy were out looking for you two as well," he added to Kankuro and Kidoumaru. "Naruto-sama's just gotten word that Shino and Kiba are back from Hidden Cloud, and he wants that Uchiha and the Kazekage to hear their report as they make it, along with immediate and trusted members of their delegations."

"That's awfully trusting of him," Kidoumaru remarked, bemused. "Is he naïve or what?"

Chouji frowned. "Naruto-sama trusts people. Your boss might benefit from doing the same. And like I said, this is important, maybe to this alliance as a whole. Plus, you guys live right next door to Cloud, so it's something that concerns you anyway."

Kidoumaru waved an airy hand at him. "Phht, all the neighbours want to kill us, except you guys. For the moment."

"Can't imagine why," Chouji said. No rancor, no sarcasm, just lack of understanding. "You're so small."

Kankuro got up, hood judiciously tucked into the hole in the side of his shirt so no bandages were visible. "Thanks, I appreciate you telling us that." He opened the doors to the balcony, not looking back at the other three men. "I'd better get going before Temari starts frothing at the mouth. I'll see you two there." A second later he was gone.

Kidoumaru shrugged and waved one undamaged arm at Shikamaru before disappearing himself. Chouji sighed. "I guess it's not just the fat guy, then; all of them have the manners of a tank. Although I suppose growing up they wouldn't have had a very good example to model themselves on, would they?" He looked at Shikamaru, unspoken concern in his eyes. The chuunin absently patted his friend's arm.

"It's okay, Chouji. I've already established that he's kind of mental."

"I'm a little worried about that Kankuro, too."

"Chouji..."

The big special jounin shrugged and made an effort to smile, although it came out a little lopsided. "Sorry, don't mean to be overprotective. You're entitled to hang out with who you like, especially considering I haven't, you know, been there for you very often lately..." He looked away.

"Oi, you're busy preparing for the happiest damn day of your life," Shikamaru scolded him lightly. "All things considered, you and that annoying woman have gone out of your way more than you can afford to for my miserable ass."

Chouji winced. "Yeah...when I said earlier that it wasn't bad, I was lying a little because that Kidoumaru guy was there. I don't know if this might disrupt the wedding or not..."

Shikamaru leaned forward a bit so he could get a good look at his oldest friend's face. "What's going on? Didn't you say Shino and Kiba and their team came back?"

"No, I...I suppose it wasn't really lying when I said that, because I was being very precise: Shino and Kiba were the only ones that made it back."

= = = = =

It wasn't supposed to happen...

TSUZUKU