Hey all. So this is my first real attempt at a ShikaTema fic. After voraciously reading probably every ShikaTema fic in existence, I decided that I should probably give it a shot and actually contribute something for once to the wealth of lovely fics about my favorite pairing of all time. I drafted the first few chapters of this a long long time ago, but hoped to wrap up before posting. I figured I'd get this out there though anyway, maybe that will motivate me to carry on.

Slight AU, just as a heads up – I'm imagining in this that Rasa, the sand sibs' dad, didn't get assassinated by Orochimaru in the chunin exams arc and is still Kazekage. So while Orochimaru did attack Konoha, Suna wasn't involved, at least not in a way that Leaf found out about. Why, you may very well ask, would I make this minor but weird change? Gaara's no warmonger, but his dad definitely is, which adds some edge to Suna-Konoha relations, and who doesn't love the potential for more angst between our star-crossed lovers, don't you think? ;)

0

"A room for one please, just for the night," Temari said, smiling at the woman at the front desk. She had cloaked her chakra a few kilometers before even reaching the village, not that anyone would notice a foreign shinobi's chakra anyway. The civilian village was a resort town known for its hot springs, though it was rather sleepy as the crowds dwindled during the rainy season. The young woman at the front desk seemed quite happy to see a client come in, and immediately started fussing over her, insisting that she have dinner brought up to her room before she went to the hot springs.

She allowed the woman to show her around the inn and the bathing area, before leaving Temari at her room with fresh towels and a plain yukata to wear to the baths. Normally Temari wasn't one for luxury, but she had been out in the field for almost a month and a long soak in the hot pools sounded like just what she needed. And in any case, she was supposed to be passing as a civilian visitor, so it fit with her cover in any case.

She sighed as she allowed herself to sink into the waters, dunking her head underneath the surface before coming up for a breath. She took out her hair ties and tried to run her fingers through her locks, but found that it had become too matted and stuck stubbornly in its four bunches even without the ties. Well, that was a problem she would deal with after her mission.

She had been incognito in Iwa for weeks now, traveling covertly up and down the coast since the beginning of their rainy season. She was just relieved that her extended solo mission was almost over. The heat of the water soothing her sore muscles was reminding her just how exhausted she really was.

'Just two more…' she thought to herself, thinking of her final targets. She laid her head back against the edge of the pool, staring up into the dark clouds, allowing her brow to furrow. It wouldn't do if the storm started tonight. She needed a good night's sleep if she was going to do this right. Soldier pills and chakra powder can only get you so far, and she wanted to save the meager remains of her stash for a real emergency.

The inn was almost empty. The rainy season had been particularly bad this year, which had scared off any off-season tourists that might have stopped along the coast. Not to mention that not many people in this region of Iwa had much disposable income nowadays. She smirked to herself. The mission was going well.

Her father, the Kazekage had been getting more ambitious the past few years. Ever since Konoha had lowered their rates back when she was still a genin, Suna's economy had suffered, and she knew her father would do anything for the Sand to hold onto it's prestige and reputation. Her brow furrowed as she thought of the chunin exams she had attended in Konoha. She knew for a fact that her father had considered entering an agreement with a missing-nin to attack the village. He had only pulled out last minute when Orochimaru made on his life. Ever since that time he had become even more suspicious, and unwilling to enter into alliances or rely on anyone outside of his inner circle. They had maintained a formal alliance with Konoha, but he lacked any trust in the Leaf. He cooperated with them the utter minimum amount necessary to avoid provoking further distrust of the Hokage.

After the exams, he had worked his children even harder than before. They were his weapons, the only ones that he felt he could rely on. She was proud to serve her father and her village, but she hated these missions he sent her on. She liked to face her enemy head on. It was much more honorable to defeat someone in battle than it was what she was doing. She scoffed to herself. She didn't feel like a shinobi on these missions. She was more like a walking disaster. A human hurricane.

Resting her head against the edge of the pool she stared up at the sky. So gray. She missed the clear skies of Suna.

It was a well-kept secret that Suna had a long tradition of wind-users manipulating the weather as a battle strategy. The desert surrounding Suna had a reputation for it's extreme sand storms that could strike in any season, but outsiders to the village were unaware that these were actually quite rare natural occurrence, and that more often than not, they were stirred up by sand-nin as a way of delaying and weakening any unwanted visitors on their way towards the village.

Temari had initially viewed this as underhanded, but as she grew up she overcame her young idealism. Battles were not won head on with adversaries at full strength. Battles were won behind closed doors in the council chambers, and silently in the dead of night by black ops taking out a sleeping victim. She was still frustrated by the extreme lengths her father, the Kazekage went to manipulate the field in his favor. She longed for a high profile mission, or even just to serve as a bodyguard by her father's side as she used to. Those were honorable missions, but because of her natural affinity for high power wind jutsu, she got the dirty work.

He saved the high profile missions for her brothers, she knew, because he wanted them to succeed him to the position of Kazekage. Everyone knew that Gaara, the sand's ultimate weapon was next in line, but that if anything were to ever happen to him—as if that was even possible, given the strength of his defenses—that Kankuro would take over. Over the past few years, their father had made it clear to Temari that he no longer considered her to be in the running. Just thinking about it she felt the resentment and anger boil up inside her. She had more raw power than Kankuro by far, and her chakra control was almost on par with his—it would have been just as good if she had undergone the specialized training that he had to manipulate his puppets.

Both her brothers were probably out on A-rank missions right now, but here she was, in another backwater village, on an unranked, unofficial mission. Only top councilmembers and her father even knew she was here, and there were no written records of her presence. She had been sent out of the village weeks ago on a B-rank escort mission for a merchant, but her file would not account for her extended absence from the village. It wasn't uncommon for mission records to be sealed, as many black ops nin had extensive blank periods in their files, but anyone remotely connected among Suna nin would know that she wasn't on black ops. If anyone ever bothered to give her record these past few months a look, it would be fishy at best.

She dunked her head under the water again, bubbles rising from the pool as she exhaled slowly. She hated overthinking things. She was a shinobi of the Sand, and if this was the way that the Kazekage chose to use her abilities, she would carry out his orders faithfully and without question until she died. Coming back to the surface she pushed her hair out of her face and exited the pool. The sky was darkening and she wanted to be well rested by the time the storm broke.

"Storm's coming in tonight" Temari overheard the staff in the lobby talking amongst themselves as she made her way up to her room.

"It's supposed to hit worst to the north, so we'll be fine."

Temari paused just around the corner at the base of the stairwell to listen.

"I know… but it's just been such a bad hurricane season this year… did you hear what happened last week in that resort town on the border? Meteorologists weren't even classifying that as a tropical storm but it did more damage than the worst hurricane the village has seen in a decade. High winds and flooding did a ton of damage. It's going to be a long recovery for them. I don't trust the weather service anymore, they've just underestimated every storm this year so badly."

Temari smirked to herself and headed up the stairs. She had really done some fine work last week.

0

In the early hours of the morning, she woke to the sound of rain pounding against her window.

"Crap!" she cursed herself as she flew into action. She wasn't sure how long the rain had been pounding but she was losing precious time. She pulled on her black hooded cloak, and quickly unsealed her tessen from the scroll in her pack. She threw the windows open and darted off into the night.

She had already staked out the geography of the village, and immediately climbed to the highest point in the city, a rooftop near the center of town. She almost felt bad for the small town as she surveyed it from above. Almost. A grin spread across her face as she pulled down her hood, exposing her face to the rain, and started to gather chakra, feeling it flow and concentrate in her tessen. With a yell, she released a gale of winds down at the town. A few more sweeps of her fan, and chakra charged winds soared through the village. She smirked to herself as she heard window shattering nearby.

After a few minutes of stoking the storm from her perch, she pulled her hood back up and folded up her tessen, panting from the huge amounts of chakra she'd used up creating the sustained strong winds now spiraling through the town. She hopped to the nearest power line, and using her fan like a bat, swung with all her force at the transformer attached there. Sparks flew as her fan smashed into the device, knocking it clear off the pole and severing the power lines connected to it. She gave out a contented sigh as she watched lights flicker out in the surrounding buildings.

Moving on to another sector of the town, she wielded her metal fan like a sledgehammer, shattering windows that had withstood the high winds. She unfurled her fan yet again and with a few apathetic swings she knocked over some trees, which went crashing into the roofs of a nearby house. The residents within began to yell, lighting lanterns, but she had moved on before they could come outside to examine what had happened. A few downed power lines and crushed roofs later she climbed back up to her perch to look back down at her handiwork. Power out village-wide: check. Trees downed: check. Storm drains clogged: check. All she had left to do was to break a few water mains and take out the main radio tower and the damage would be done.

By dawn she would be miles away and the residents of the village would be shaking their fists at the sky, cursing the bad weather for their misfortune. There was no way they'd be able to fully repair their damaged infrastructure given the economic strain already afflicting Iwa. Those poor farmers had had such bad flooding this year as well… Lucky for Suna their formal trade agreement with Iwa had been dissolved last year, they were no longer beholden to the stone nation and wouldn't be compelled to send any aid unless the Tschikage could offer them something to make it worth their while.

0

Two weeks later, Temari found herself back in Suna. She had barely slept in her run back to the village. The rainy season had initially enchanted her—rain was a very rare occurrence in Suna and as a child it was almost magical to her to run outside to play in the rain, but Temari had been almost perpetually soaked to the bone for weeks and she craved the familiar dry heat of her home.

She arrived late at night and though she knew she should report, she didn't give a damn. There was no official record of her mission anyway, so it's not like she was officially breaking protocol anyway. Not to mention that even if she did break protocol, that wouldn't change her standing with the Kazekage anyway. No one else was capable or trusted enough by her father to carry out these missions.

She was loyal to her father to a fault, but that didn't mean she had to pretend she didn't hate these missions, so if he wanted to scold her about her lack of decorum on her return, she would take his slap on the wrist and get on with her business.

She dropped her pack on the floor, changed out of her filthy clothes, and collapsed into her bed without even showering first. The maids would change her sheets anyway once they realized she was back, so she was less than concerned about getting some mud on them.

0

"Oy, Temari!" Temari groaned as she heard her brother pounding on her door, "Dad's asking for you and he seems pissed. You'd better get your ass out of bed, it's almost noon!"

She wanted to ignore him, but he kept pounding, so she rolled out of bed and walked over to the door, cracking it open and shooting her brother a glare.

"The Kazekage, pissed off?" She said, sarcasm dripping from her voice, "That's never happened before, I'd better scurry off to apologize."

Temari let her brother into her room and he sat down as she tugged at her matted hair with a brush.

"He says you didn't report," Kankuro continued, "Where have you been anyway?"

He poked at the mud-caked cloak she had dropped on the floor the night prior and shot her a mocking look that said 'you are a complete mess.'

"Mission," Temari deadpanned back at him.

"Yeah, idiot, I figured," he scowled at her, "How was it?"

"Fine."

She didn't want to talk about it. She used to love talking about missions with her brothers, but ever since her father had started using her for clandestine work, she had become resentful. Her brothers had high-profile mission after high-profile mission and she was left to stir up shit in rice paddies and sabotage infrastructure in whatever nation had most recently pissed off the Kazekage. "Economic retribution," or "political maneuvering" he often called it, though she figured that "environmental terrorism" was also fitting.

"Tch, whatever" he responded, getting the message that she didn't want to talk and getting up to leave the room, "just get your ass over to his office ASAP or he's gonna be on my case too."

She smirked to herself as she stepped into the shower for a long soak. The Kazekage could wait.