Shikamaru dully notes every slight quiver of muscles as the target blithely chewed, which logically pointed to a clearly ill individual to anyone with common sense.
Shika sighs. What a bother. This is Hidden Sand, a ninja village. Of course, common sense doesn't apply here.
Besides, given its recent destruction, Shika finds he doubts that even his home village, Leaf, wouldn't react much the same. But it would still be a bother.
Heck. This whole assignment is such a bother, he thinks, wondering at Sand's overly cautious nature. Can't we try to speak to him instead of this whole bother of deploying five man special tactical force?
Shikamaru takes in a breath, but chomps back his words as he sees an ugly bothersome scowl flicker on the target's face. Followed by an entire shoulder rounding, and nearly striking his nose. Heartbeats later, the target rises to his feet, and, chopsticks tinkling within the porcelain cavity, stomps his way from the low table.
With all the grace of a raging rhino, the target rudely pushes, and in a few cases shoves, past all the others lined up before the wagon to stand at the very front. Shika watches in amazement as the target, dwarfed by nearly everyone around, waves imperiously at the vendor, and demandingly gestures to his empty bowl.
Instead of the expected rightful snap of a reprimand at the sheer audacity of the boy, the vendor cheerfully bellows,
"Ah friend. Of course of course. Another bowl coming right up."
Shikamaru raises his brows. He never heard of Itchiban to give out seconds of his ramen. Well, certainly not for free.
"Position two: copy?" Hisses the radio in his ear. Shikamaru frowns as he presses the radio button.
"Yeah." Shikamaru drolls.
"What are you doing sitting there."
"Recognizance."
"I remember your performance in the chunin exams, boy. You're wasting the daylight your technique needs. I remind you that your sole role on this team is to quietly acquire the target."
Shikamaru rolls his eyes before he blows out a gust of wind.
"If you're just going to sit there, at least clear the area of civilians so that the job can be done properly. Copy?"
"Bother. Fine. Copy."
Shikamaru frowns, and quickly makes the hand signs he needs to shape his chakra. His shadow beneath his feet, long and blue, thanks to the setting sun, slithers forth just as the target reaches for the heaping bowl of noodles with outstretched arms. Easy. Shikamaru thinks. Very easy.
"Shadow stitching..!"
How? Shikamaru thinks, widening his eyes in disbelief as, within the span of a single inch, so very close to successfully stitching their shadows together, the target's moves. His arms abruptly swing back, away from the proffered bowl, and the rest of the boy follows in a smooth graceful arch of a leap backwards: a high hand spring.
Several civilians startle at the unusual movement, and cry out as they lunge out of the way of the leaping boy. Their shadows mingle with that of the wagon, and his, and the tangle of their chakra is a difficult distraction to navigate through at the best of times. Here, it costs him several seconds.
Along the dust of the ground, Shikamaru's shadow stretches, the uselessly swipes at the oblong blob of a shadow as the leap away isolates the target's shadow from the rest. Unfortunately, Shikamaru finds it is quite safely out of the immediate reach of his shadow stitching technique.
Amazingly, the boy continues on, backhand springing a few more times before landing perfectly balanced on his feet, and crouched low to the ground with a feral scowl on his face.
Shikamaru faces the boy's heated gaze, and for a heartbeat, neither moves.
"What the hell, Nara?" Shikamaru hears over the radio. "I said quietly!!"
Shikamaru frowns, vaguely aware of the noisy shouting rush of fleeing bodies around him, as the civilians flee the area, not daring to tear his gaze from the boy. Not now that he is locked into a what is sure to be a nasty, and bothersome, ninja battle. Feeling quite exposed, wishing, not for the first time. that he was only a puffy little cloud in the sky, a part of him wonders if perhaps common sense is not completely absent from Hidden Sand after all.
"How bothersome." Shikamaru says aloud to no one in particular.
He hears the boy spit out a low and guttural snarl, like the strange word that follows is nasty sort of poison.
"Pride."
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
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