I'm so disappointed disappointed disappointed. This version of chapter 3 is infinitely inferior to my previous version. In the first version, creepy was creepier and the overall reading was better. If only my last computer didn't completely die on me. (Worried about the health of her current computer also.) I swear if this computer also gets infected with some weird crud (I don't see how it could be possible) I'm gonna swear off computers and live without technology. This chapter is really rough, I apologize before hand. I gotta go out of town tomorrow and I wanted to get this posted before I go. I'll edit it later.

Ch. 3 And Various Events Occur

It would be aberrant of him to allow some random woman of the night to follow him to his home. At the same time, it is unconscionable that a young and attractive lady would carelessly place herself in a position where she would be at the mercy of others. This Yamanaka Ino doesn't know who he is as a person. He could be a killer, rapist, or some other malevolent being who lived at the fringe of society. Is she so innocent (stupid) that she would think others are always what they present themselves to be? Or maybe, she was more devious than he suspected. After all, he didn't know her either. Perhaps under the guise of a pretty smile and irritatingly loquacious personality was something that would be dangerous to him. They were two strangers of the night; one heading home after the end of another lackluster day, and the other, an audacious blond that he had almost mistaken for a murdered 'working girl'.

Shikamaru sighed, feeling the full exhaustion of the day manifest themselves as invisible weights that pulled down on him. He thought that he must be getting old because he was being strangely contemplative this particular evening. 'I thought I had overcome that character flaw….. or at least have control over it', Shikamaru thought as he extended a hand to the impatiently waiting woman. The woman by the name of Ino looked at him questioningly.

"Well, give it!" Shikamaru uncivilly grunted. When Ino made no move to obey him, Shikamaru jabbed a finger at her luggage with annoyance. "You want me to help you carry your stuff or not?" He asked her in a tone that made his distain of the whole situation patently clear. Her eyelids drew back with dawning realization and for the second time that night, Shikamaru found himself powerlessly attracted to her shimmering, blue sapphire-like eyes.

"OHHHHH Thank you sooo much! THANK YOU THANK YOU!" Ino squealed as she threw herself at him, enfolding him against her as she hung off his neck.

"Get offa me!" Shikamaru yelled. Uncomfortable with the lack of personal space and unfamiliar with any show of strong emotions, he tried to extract himself from her arms. "Don't make me change my mind." He said in a warningly.

"Yes sir!" She chirped excitedly and sloppily saluted him with two fingers.

Muttering not quite under his breath, Shikamaru grabbed the handle of both luggage and proceeded to walk. He knew it was a bad idea to bring the woman along, since not even the men he thought of as brothers have been allowed to enter his home; his safe place of seclusion. It seems that the years of being exposed to the horrors mankind was capable of wasn't enough to kill all of his humanity. He still cared for the wellbeing of others in spite of his efforts to quash that lingering philanthropic nature. It was a character flaw that upon discovery by the superiors would land him back in re-education class. He didn't want to go back there. Not again. Not ever. But not even his blinding terror of being returned to re-education class was enough to persuade him into abandoning the blond. If he discarded this young woman in the streets, she might not live to see the next day and Shikamaru just couldn't bear the thought of that weighing on his conscience. He wasn't aiming to be a villain in the story of life. Nor did he actively take a stance against the injustices of the world. If it was possible, Shikamaru would like to happily settle for the role of antihero.

Not all lands were blessed like Fire Country; a nation with sufficient natural resources on native soil. There was a place that was an ocean of sand where the daytime and nighttime temperatures were extreme and living creatures were tested to their limit. Instead of having dense urban jungles with a scattered splattering of greenery, it was a place that looked misleadingly empty; at least on the surface.

While most countries such as Fire Country, developed upwards with skyscrapers that were like modernized versions of archaic monoliths, this country developed downwards; beneath the golden sun-baked sand, burrowing forever deeper into the temperate earth. Miles down, under the windswept desert and away from the blistering heat, was a labyrinth of underground facilities. It is in these facilities, shielded from the taxing elements of nature, that the government of this region operates. This place is the Sand Country; a terrain inhospitable to anything less than the strongest.

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Spacious with melting dirt walls, the dimly lit room resembled nothing of human structural design. It looked like a lair that was hollowed out of dirt by some unknown animal of gargantuan size before the ground was paved by polished gray tiles. The only piece of technology that was visible in the room was a cone-shaped lamp, hanging from a stringy cord as the dying light bulb provided what was left of its fading orange light.

Beneath the lamp and in the center of the room, was a person sitting in an impressive-looking throne-like chair, cradling an indistinguishable spherical lump. The person's features were lost in the shadows. All that the sole light source of the room could do, was to outline the silhouette of the person with a faded glow. Judging by the person's contour, he seemed to be a young male, with broad shoulders and unruly hair that hung off his head like tassels.

The youth sat in his chair, rocking gently to-and-fro with the large shadowy orb in his arms. His hands would move once in a while as he swayed, to caress the abdominous surface of the round thing in his lap with movements that exuded tenderness. And often, his right hand would creep to his face where he would eagerly stroke an area of his forehead with his fingers. Whispered talking emanated from him but exactly what he said couldn't be discerned. In this oversized room that was dank and badly illuminated, the murmuring man sat alone with contentment; surrounded by a fragile aura of peacefulness that would immediately dissipate if any irritant is presented.

A stream of brightness poured in when a door opened and the long shadow of a person was cast onto the floor. "Kazekage-sama," said a soldier of the Sand Country, "Your therapist is here. Shall I show her in?" The teenage boy referred to as the leader of Sand Country responded with breaths of toneless laughter. Looking visibly uncomfortable, the soldier waited at the doorway for definitive instructions to be given. He didn't dare to take the teenager's creepy sounds of mirth as an invitation for the therapist because it was well known that the Kazekage wasn't the most stable of people.

The leader of Sand displayed behaviors that were anti-social, sociopathic, and completely against the norm. Nothing the feared Kazekage did could be taken by its face value or reasonably analyzed. The soldier knew that the unpredictability of his leader wouldn't be so dreadful if it weren't for the fact that it exacerbated his fondness of indiscriminate and frequently carried out killings. As the young man's laughter waned, the soldier grew more nervous and scenarios of his own untimely demise flitted through his mind like the images of a macabre slideshow. It was entirely likely that the Kazekage's unperturbed mood would change in an instant. The soldier thought an unspoken prayer to whoever was listening above, that he would not be around when the Kazekage loses his mind to his regular bouts of manic highs.

"Show her in."

The soldier's tense body flinched at the soft-spoken command.

"Yes sir." He responded quickly and turned around to gesture at the woman behind him.

The therapist was an impeccably dressed woman wearing a gray-colored two-piece dress suit. She had blond hair that was sported in an unusual way. It was tied up in four separate bundles that extended straight out in bushy tresses. When she saw that the soldier was waving her in, she proceeded to walk with slow deliberate steps, to the door that the soldier was holding open for her. Strolling past the soldier, she murmured "You may leave" with a dismissive flick of her hand. The soldier moved the moment the words left her lips, as if he had been waiting for her to allow him to go. As the soldier rushed down the lonely corridor, hurrying so quickly that he barely maintained the façade of self-control, the lady therapist stepped into the blackness of the room.

"Hellooooooo doctor…"Crooned the monotone voice that greeted her from the darkness.

"What happened to the light?" She asked immediately, disliking the dark because it shrouded too many dangers from view.

"The light bulb burned out." The soft tenor voice replied. Although the line was said without any audible emotion, the woman sensed that the speaker spoke with an amused grin on his face.

Refusing to be affected by the creepiness of the atmosphere, the therapist demonstrated just how well-prepared she was for this session by pulling a small but powerful flashlight out of a breast pocket. She clicked a button and a burst of intense beam instantly shot out of the flashlight, and by chance, caught the only other person in the room on the face. Instead of wincing at the sudden luminosity, the Kazekage continued to stare straight at the therapist, even as his irises constricted to almost nothingness against the backdrop of his pale teal eyes. Looking back at the man, the psychiatrist saw that her initial intuition was right: He WAS wearing a toothy grin.

"Is it time for therapy already?" The Kazekage asked. His lips were pulled back in a painful looking manner, revealing his pearly whites that shone sinisterly under the light. It made one feel about as comfortable as one would be if a shark flashed a teeth-filled smile.

"Only if you want it to be." Came the careful response of the doctor of mental health.

"You disappoint me…nee-chan…" The Kazekage's stare was fixed on the therapist's stern, yet attractive sea-blue eyes. "All your visits are work-related." He complained without a trace of real feeling.

"DON'T call me that."

"Oh?" His nonexistent eyebrows arched. "Maybe you prefer something more respectful…like…Onee-san or Aneue. We ARE sort of royalty you know…" He bowed his head and leered up at her through the dirty, stuck-together bangs of his cherry-red hair.

"Please Gaara, I'm not here to play your mind games." The therapist said tiredly, sounding old beyond her years.

Gaara's humor instantly vanished and his face relaxed into an expressionless pallid mask. "Fine then Temari, go ahead and try to cure me of my insanity." He said to her, as if issuing a challenge.

Temari scrutinized Gaara's squalid appearance and saw oily hair that hung limply in clumps, and clothing that looked as if it was worn past an expiration date. His milky cobalt eyes were sunken, surrounded by a greenish gray-tinged ring that advertised his losing battle with insomnia. Exactly how long he's sat alone in this cave of a room while clinging to his oversized gourd was anyone's guess. He looked pitiable and Temari felt an alien twinge of pain deep within her chest. It was the sister in her that was hurt by seeing Gaara in his current state. The nearly forgotten part of her that still remembered Gaara was her younger brother. Her homicidal, blood-lusting little brother who used to be a sweet-faced boy before their parents uglified his being with their never-ending onslaught of cruelty. Watching him, the focus of Temari's observation gradually drifted to the series of scars on Gaara's forehead; the thin pale streaks of raised flesh that merged together to form the word 'Ai', the Chinese character for the word 'love'. Yes, she remembered now. Gaara always loved their mother, and while their mother also had a hand in making Gaara the monster he is today, Temari relegated most of the blame on their father. "When was the last time you had some sleep?" Temari asked quietly.

"Can't remember…" He told her, sounding unwell. "Mother has been keeping me up with her constant demands…but that's ok…." He looked down at the flesh-colored gourd that was nested against his body. "I'm happy that mother is so hungry for my attention…. It means that she loves me......"

The skin of Temari's forehead furrowed in controlled, barely roused anger. "That thing is not Okaa-sama." She told him seriously.

"Shut up." Gaara snapped as his eyes flicked up and captured her gaze with the intensity of his pale-colored orbs. "You'll upset mother."

Intimidated, Temari modified her tone. "Okaa-sama is dead." She said. This time, her voice was soft and had an undercurrent of sorrow.

"No…I don't want to listen.." The pasty-skinned teenager said huskily. One of his arms hugged the gourd closer while the other went to his forehead where he began to rub at his scar. Temari frowned because she knew Gaara's touching of his scar was not a good sign. It was an obsessive compulsive indulgence that Gaara resorted to whenever he was upset. Once he starts it's hard to get him to stop. He becomes lost in himself and no one will be able to reach him until he's worn himself out.

"Please Gaara, stop." She pleaded. "You're going to rub your skin raw." Gaara ignored her. With his eyes closed, he had a look of rapture as his fingers fervently stroked the unevenly healed flesh. Temari saw the patch of skin there was already turning pink from his attention and she grew more worried. "Gaara?" She said his name with concern. Temari wasn't surprised when he acted as if he didn't hear her. The young woman knew it was time to give up. Turning around, she exhaled heavily through her nose. "I see you're not in the mood for a session. I'll come back next week." She told him. When he still didn't utter an answer, Temari turned her flashlight away from Gaara and used it to find her way back to the door. She could hear the dreadful huffs of Gaara's heavy breathing progressively becoming faint as she walked away. Temari reached a hand out to the door and-

"Wait." Commanded a dry throaty voice.

By the change in character of his tone, Temari knew Gaara was entering another phase of his personality; the dangerous one. "Yes?" Her falsely cool voice trembled slightly.

"That soldier before…" Gaara wheezed deeply. "Bring him to me."

Temari turned off the flashlight and the room fell back into a complete pitch-black. Daintily, she tucked the miniature flashlight into the pocket from which it was extracted. A hoarse chuckle floated to her ears from the center of the room.

"Mother said the blood of that soldier smelled sweet. You know how mother always gets a little peckish around midnight." The sentence ended with a harsh giggle.

Temari nodded, not knowing if Gaara could see her reply, before she pulled open the door and walked out into the light.

"Report your name." Demanded the robotic female voice that was synthesized by the building's Artificial Intelligence program.

"Nara Shikamaru."

As the program analyzed for the vocal traits that were distinctive to Shikamaru, a ray of crimson light swept over his eyes and after a series of approving beeps, the metallic door to his apartment glided open.

Shikamaru laboriously dragged his boot-clad feet into his pristine and empty apartment. He didn't own many furnishings; only a couch, some chairs, a bed, and the rest of the stuff were built into the dwelling. As he walked past his dull-looking gray couch, Shikamaru pulled the stiff bulletproof vest off his body and tossed the weighty thing haphazardly onto the overstuffed furniture. Without the extra burden clinging to his chest, he felt he could finally breath normally.

"Okaerinasai Goshujin-sama." His apartment said as warmly as its program would allow. "May I get you or your guest anything to drink?" Asked the program's feminine voice.

"No." Shikamaru replied gruffly. "Turn yourself off."

"Yes sir." The apartment's program replied amiably. A second later, the glow of the small monitor that was mounted on the wall next to the light switch turned blank.

Without getting an invitation, Ino followed Shikamaru into his abode and started strolling around the reasonably-sized living quarter, surveying everything in her immediate vicinity. After taking an approximate appraisal of the place, she let loose an appreciative whistle. "Heyyy this isn't bad at all! I thought you said you were poor!"

"I am." He snapped with irritation. "I had to kill to get this place." Ino laughed, not knowing that he was telling the truth.

"Sooooo.." Ino sidled up to him, "Where's your room?" She asked, putting a delicate hand on his arm.

'It's probably a move she uses all the time to get men to do whatever she wants', Shikamaru thought irately. The thought of giving her a lecture on how he was infinitely smarter than the average run-of-the-mill-think-with-your-dick kind of guys she was used to dealing with passed his mind, but in the end, he chose to step back and pull his arm away. "Why?" He inquired aloud and glared down at her with eyes full of mistrust.

Ino sighed good-naturedly despite of his hostility and crossed her arms with a patronizing smile on her lips. "You can't honestly expect me to sleep on the couch do you?" She said to him, brimming with amusement, like a mother familiarizing an infant child with the established decorum of society.

"Like hell I'm going to give you my room!" Shikamaru growled, full of indignation. His room held his bed, the one item he actually cared enough to pay money for. And since sleeping was his one and only hobby, he put a lot of emphasis on the quality of bed he bought. It was his indispensable tool that provided quality and comfortable sleep; his only guilty luxury. Shikamaru was both shocked and offended that the woman would be so impudent that she'd toss the owner of the apartment out of his own sleeping quarters.

"Well it'd be the honorable thing to do." The cheeky blond quipped back.

"Says who I'm honorable? Maybe I brought you here with the intention of assaulting your body." Saying that, Shikamaru's hand sprung out with speed too fast for reaction and he seized Ino by her chin, his action reiterating his previous point. "What do you have to say about that?" He questioned her abusively while forcing the petite woman to look up into his sneer.

Holding Ino's head in position, he was able to look her full in the face and he saw that her eyes were like the unruffled waters of the tranquil sea. There was no fear in those eyes as she steadfastly watched him. They stood in the middle of the living room; sky-blue eyes and murky onyx eyes exchanging a silent conversation. Without Shikamaru realizing it, his stern hold slackened and gradually slipped away. He suddenly felt awkward. Then the discomfort was washed away by a deep and profound sense of loathing for himself. Reeling from the force of his own guilt, Shikamaru released her and looked away with an ashamed slouch in his wide shoulders. "Fine…you can have my room." He whispered in a mild voice he didn't even know he possessed.

Ino grinned at him, bright eyed. "I knew you were gonna to say that."

"But that doesn't mean I trust you!" He reminded her. "If I find out you're a spy or something, I'll kill you myself."

"Whaaatever" She sang out as she dragged her suitcases to his bedroom.

Left alone in the living room, Shikamaru looked at his couch then stiffly bent to pick up his uniform vest. If he was going to start sleeping on the couch, he shouldn't leave his possessions all over his new bed. It wasn't as good as his old bed, but it was something. 'Mendokusee..' groused his inner voice. Troublesome indeed….

Nee-san: Sister (affectionate)

Onee-san, Aneue: sister (increasing formality)

Okaa-sama: mother (formal)

Okaerinasai: welcome home

Goshujin-sama: Master (formal)

People have commented that I can make Ino yell without using all caps lock. True, but I used caps because I was trying to write Ino in a way that would make her seem like a very annoying person. Sure I love Ino but we all gotta admit, she's a pretty loud person LOL. Besides, I was trying to show that while Shikamaru is worldly and realistic, Ino is still very much a child and prone to the tantrums that are characteristics of immature kids. At least that's how she presents herself.