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The world tips and tilts in front of her as Tayuya struggles to pull herself up from the dirt at the base of the tree she’s just hit. Her lungs burn and her limbs feel like lead, the world around her a dull roar. What kind of attack she was aiming for before she hit the ground is lost on her, brain thoroughly rattled by being slapped halfway across the clearing.
She’s lost her flute on the trip, sure from the wet streak she feels down the side of her face and neck that she’s blown out one of her goddamn eardrums, and no matter which way she tilts her head there is a high-pitched ringing fuzzed over everything. By the time her eyes focus, her opponent has vanished…
Fuck fuck fuck, which way is he coming from?
She senses the blow from above her a second before it connects; she doesn’t even truly see it, just feels the motion of the air barely soon enough to react and launch herself to one side.
She avoids a deadly strike in favor of an excruciating one.
Being slashed or stabbed is routine in this work, something Tayuya can normally endure and push past; her own chakra can heal a minor wound if she focuses enough. Having a bone blade wedged with force into an already twice-broken joint that hurts her even on some good days is entirely another matter.
Tayuya screams, recoiling around her wounded leg, slashing blindly at her attacker through watering eyes. He spares a hand to block her blow but it’s evident from the casual way he proceeds to twist her wrist back, his cold expression barely changing, that she doesn’t truly concern him as a threat now.
That he hasn’t just killed her already means she probably never did.
Shit; he’s been dead all this time but with her mark sealed even years of training hasn’t let her match him…
Tayuya feels panic wash over her with a fresh wave of pain, trying to center herself enough to pull together a scream with some good concussive force behind it. If she can just catch her breath, get some distance…
And then she hears it.
“GET OFF OF HER!!"
Temari’s voice, thundering over them, shrill with utter rage.
"Wind Style! Concussive Gale!”
What feels and sounds like a miniature hurricane slams through the clearing, ripping the startled Kimmimaro off his feet and half the trees off their roots. Tayuya feels the breath practically sucked from her lungs with the force of it, although somehow she stays anchored to the ground as it rushes over her.
Temari comes tearing past her a second later with a furious scream, excess chakra pouring off of her with the next swing of the war fan. A narrowly focused blow of air slams her regrouping opponent right back to the ground with a deafening crack that shakes the earth.
Tayuya lies stunned and breathless in the dust, transfixed by Temari for several moments before she registers Shikamaru’s presence, melting out of the remaining forest’s darkness at her side. The tendrils of shadow he’s held her down with fall loose around her as she pulls herself up to sitting and his hand finds her cheek, sliding back along her jaw to thread his fingers securely in her hair. Tayuya feels more than a little like collapsing into his arms for a moment, and not just because her knee is definitely broken for a third time.
“Are you alright?” Shikamaru’s voice is tight with anger and worry despite her immediate nod, his dark brows knitting as his eyes flicker between her and Temari, assessing which of them needs his assistance more. He quickly settles on Tayuya; Temari seems to have Kimmimaro on his back foot for the moment, keeping him pinned with relentless attacks that roll into one another.
“I lost my flute,” Tayuya says dumbly, heartbeat rushing in her ears. Her cheek still feels hot where he’s touched as Shikamaru shifts back to wrap his hands around her bleeding knee, putting painful but necessary pressure on the wound. She curses but doesn’t waste time, pulling bandaging from her belt and starting to wrap the joint up tightly. She can’t just lay here, can’t keep him distracted. Temari is keeping Kimmimaro down for now but it took a bowl-cut on steroids and a fucking jinchuriki to take him out before…
“We’ll find the flute,” Shikamaru tells her firmly, eyes fixing reassuringly on hers as he helps wrap her kneecap. “And we’ll bury this asshole again while we’re at it.”
Tayuya swallows hard at the rumble in his voice, the way his eyes take on a vicious gleam as they settle beyond her shoulder on Kimmimaro. He doesn’t seem nearly as worried as Tayuya feels he ought to be…
She looks back to see Temari whipping aside a volley of bone projectiles with her fan, still incandescent with anger, chakra steaming from her skin in almost-visible ribbons. She shouts as she winds her weapon back for another strike and Tayuya finds herself sharply reminded - with dry mouth and pounding heart - that Temari was nearly a jinchuriki herself.
Shikamaru tugs her bandaging tight and gets back to his feet, offering Tayuya an arm up, an impressed smirk stealing across his face as they both pause to take in Temari’s ferocity for a moment more.
“Think she needs a hand?” Tayuya suggests, pulling a summoning scroll from her waist; time for a different approach.
Shikamaru tugs a flash bomb from his vest pocket and smiles in a positively vicious way that makes Tayuya want to kiss him more than a little.
“Come on, let’s not let her have all the fun.”