Fighting Shikamaru

"Proctor!" Kankuro blurted out. "I abstain. Please advance the matches!"

There was a collective gasp of surprise, both from the other ninja taking the exams, and from the audience.

Genma sighed. "Due to Kankuro's abstention, Shino Aburame wins by default!"

There was an uproar from the crowd, bloodthirsty for an entertaining match to follow Naruto and Neji. Meanwhile, up in the waiting stands, Temari tsked, grabbed her fan, and leapt from the balcony, floating gracefully down to the arena.

"You are..?" Genma asked nonchalantly.

Temari smirked. "It's my turn, isn't it?"

"It seemed that you're really fired up. Okay, let's go to the next match." He looked up at Shikamaru. "Hey! The last one, come down!"

Temari smirked cockily as Shikamaru looked visibly panicked. This fight was meaningless, but there was no reason she couldn't have any fun.

Again Genma called for the shadow brat to come down. Temari stared him down, silently daring him to come down and fight her when suddenly the brat in the orange jacket appeared and pushed him over the railing and down, yelling something obnoxiously.

Temari, as well as many others, winced as Shikamaru landed with a thud. He didn't seem too bothered at falling, on the contrary he looked relaxed. Temari began to wonder if he had gotten hurt when he landed because he spent several moments just staring up at the sky. Before long, her patience ran thin.

"Fine, if you wont come to me, I'll come to you!" She said, already charging him, brandishing her fan. Shikamaru barely moved his head to acknowledge her coming but didn't move. She leapt up, unknowingly giving Shikamaru a brief glimpse up her skirt before coming down and thrusting her giant fan directly on Shikamaru's face. The dirt floor exploded under the weight of her attack, making a large dust cloud surround the impact site. Temari smirked as the dust cleared, but gasped when she saw her fan had hit nothing but ground. She looked up to see Shikamaru standing coolly on two kunai he had stabbed into the wall.

He sighed again. "It's a drag, but I can't stand the idea of losing to a girl. Guess I'll fight."

'Prick!' Temari angrily thought before leaping backwards to gather information on the boy. He dashed away quickly enough for Temari to loose sight of him. She looked all around her, expecting to seem him charging from behind or falling on top of her, but he was nowhere to be seen She glanced over to the dark wooded section across the arena.

'He must be trying to lure me in there' Temari noted. 'I know he uses shadows. Nice try shadow brat.'

She walked over to the woods but stood a good distance away from the tree's shadows. She opened her fan to reveal a singular purple circle before waving it violently and sending a sizable **** of razor sharp wind blades into the forest. Even from here, Temari could hear the bark being torn off the trees and many leaves flew into the air, freed from the branches by ****.

'Did I get him?'

Twice more Temari sent deadly wind into the woods, just in case, before Shikamaru finally acted. She was debating switching to the second purple circle when a long black shadow shot out at her. Temari's eyes widened at the speed, but she was able to dash away in time. She kept leaping backwards before the shadow slowed and strained before stopping. The moment it began to slink back into the woods, Temari carved a line in the dirt, marking the brat's maximum reach.

'That was close. He's fast, but I've got him figured out now. As long as I stay behind this line, he can't reach me. Unluckily for him, I excel at long ranged fights.'

She opened her fan even more and sent vicious wind to the woods. Temari kept assaulting the trees with no response for quite a while. She didn't dare go closer but the crowd was getting restless.

"Come on! Do something!" They chanted, clearly bored by now.

'Why isn't he doing anything? Is he stupid?' She was starting to feel like she was beating a dead horse as she sent another powerful wind at him.

Just as suddenly as before, a long shadow stretched into a fast line charging Temari. She smirked at the futility as she was safely behind the line. She watched the line go straight for her again. However, the shadow didn't slow down this time as it neared the line.

'What?!' Temari thought as the shadow went right over the line and she had to again leap away. She didn't have to retreat too far before the shadow strained again and stopped just shy of capturing her.

'How did it reach further?'

After a minute of thinking, Temari figured out that Shikamaru had purposely wasted time as he waited for the sun to get lower in the sky, extending the shadows to his benefit.

Suddenly she could barely hear Kankuro shout something from across the silent stadium. She chanced a quick look at him and followed his gaze up. She looked up to see something faint against the sun's glare. It became clear that it was Shikamaru's jacket. It slowly drifted down, just above Temari. Her eyes widened as she looked down to see it slowly forming a shadow extension right at the end of Shikamaru's shadow. She leapt back again, flustered that she had been outsmarted twice in such a short time. Once the jacket parachute touched down, the shadow was gone and his shadow **** slinked back.

Temari wiped the sweat from her forehead and opened her fan again. She plunged it into the ground between herself and Shikamaru's woods, shielding her from his view.

'Okay. He clearly wants a drawn out battle. The longer I wait the more shadows he'll have. I need to distract him somehow and flank him. I'll make a clone behind the fan and have it run towards him. While he's distracted I'll rush around him and bring him out those damn woods.'

Temari, confident in her plan, started forming the hand signs of the clone jutsu. Mid Jutsu, she stopped and her eyes widened in shock. She couldn't move.

"N-no!" She said. "How?!"

Her head started moving independent of her control to look behind her. There was Shikamaru's shadow sticking out of a hole in the ground that Naruto had created in his fight.

"The hole?! Y-you led me here on purpose! Bastard!" Temari cried, but it was too late now. She was caught.