AFTER DARK | naruto

16 | a quitters resolve

"[Firstname], goodluck!" Naruto cheered. You looked down at Shikamaru, who was looking up at you.

"Man. Another girl... I can't lose to a girl." He sighed. You could feel your eye twitch as the proctor called out the start of the match. "Yeah, now that I'm down here, I finally realize who I'm up against. Can't have a boy losing to a girl, so I think I'll play along..." He was finally standing up - and suddenly he was hiding behind a tree.

You were still at his words before you felt yourself grimace. To think someone really still felt that way at this age, you found it made you somewhat angry. Given a minimum of five minutes, the trees had been set on fire in order to get Shikamaru to stop hiding. Actually, it looked like Shikamaru's misogyny and the crowd's booing did well to make you angry. Maybe if Neji acted that way you'd beat him up to teach him a lesson, but surprisingly, Neji was respectful in a way Shikamaru proved he wasn't.

You were down to the last tree, the last possible one Shikamaru could be hiding behind. "Get the hell out here!" You yelled - maybe Neji was right when he said you were an irritable person. Or maybe, they were doing good in making the usually calm people angry during the Chunnin exams. After all, Neji had completely lost his cool in all matters of the word. Or having Kushina around so much when you were young rubbed off on you. But lighting trees on fire wasn't because of anger.. only. It was also to mess with the shadows he could use against you.

'Man, she's pissed. She was terrifying enough during the preliminary, but I thought she kept her cool.'  Shikamaru wasn't being given the time to think of a plan. 'Women are such a drag, especially when you make them angry...' He groaned out loud, peaking his head out from behind the tree to see the amount of damage you had done. It had to be some sort of hell on earth; he had never seen so much fire in one place before. The crowds rude comments had died down - his stalling made them angry, but set fire to a few trees and their attention is caught.

'I have no idea what Shikamaru said, but I've never seen [Firstname] so mad before...' Naruto sweatdropped, the grip he had on the railings was loose. 'But man, she's so cool!'

"WOO, [FIRSTNAME]!" He cheered, arms thrown up in the air.

Given the last few seconds of peace Shikamaru had - he thought of a plan. Though he was running short on them given the fact the active fires were messing with the shadows he needed to restrain you. He also noted the Kunai you had marked in a few locations - one by the big hole Naruto had made, another toward the shadowed area of the wall, and the last by one of the trees whose fire was dying down. It was overwhelming, but keeping a calm head was the best for a genius.

He took off the vest he kept over his shirt - tying it together with his ninja band and a Kunai. Your fire did him a favor in the way it moved, exposing the direction of the wind that was directed toward you. He set it off to his left while he stepped out to the right - he moved just in time as you had released another fire Jutsu toward the tree.

"Go, Shikamaru!" Ino cheered.

"Show that punk whose boss, [Firstname]!" Sakura cheered from beside her.

"Yeah, [Firstname]! Rip him a new one!" Naruto cheered louder.

As Shikamaru had thought, you were so preoccupied by his appearance that you failed to notice the trap he had set. A shirt parachute from above - he didn't need you near the walls and fire to set up his shadow Jutsu anyway. So his first attempt at his shadow binding Jutsu started, slowly reaching out for you, but you stepped back. There wasn't a way to block or dodge shadows, your own would always follow you - you backed up toward the smaller hole before you had been caught. It took a lot less energy on Shikamarus part than he thought it would. He grinned at his own success, turning around so that you'd see what he had done. But you weren't much of an idiot either, you had figured the shadow of a hole would do him well.