4The hellscape of her mind was dark as usual, tinged with blood. She had walked this path before, although it had become less frequent in the years of peace that followed the Great War. She was surrounded by a world of human wreckage. The air was rent with screams of the dying, the clash of weapons, the smell of death. She picked her way past the bodies of the fallen, looking….searching. Her brothers, friends, family. She must be there for them. The darkness illuminated for a brief moment, revealing a well known figure lying on the ground. She rushed to his side, knowing what she would find. His pale, bloodless face, his vivid hair even washed out in the dim light. Too still. She felt a lurch in her midsection that seemed to have a mind of its own, a fear that was palpable even in this land of dreams.
Even in her grief, her eyes were drawn to another scene, a hospital bed, a person convulsing in pain, a young girl desperately trying to draw poison from his wounds. Her terror grew, as well as a feeling of helplessness that was foreign to her. She turned away from the scene as lightning slashed through the sky, and rain started to pelt down. The thunder crashed violently around her. As lightning cut the world in half again, she saw something that chilled her to her very core, making her stomach heave again. Something that was different this time. A shape was coming out of the darkness, stalking like a predator towards a figure huddled in the fetal position on the ground, covered in wounds and blood. She stepped closer and recognized him. Shikamaru. Her breath hitched as she saw that he was gathered protectively around something in his arms. A small shape...a child?
Something happened then that had never happened before in this recurring dream. She felt a fierce rush of protectiveness, anger, and determination. Suddenly feeling a familiar heavy weight on her back, she pulled her fan from its casing, opening it with a seasoned, practiced motion. She began to gather chakra to herself, and it seemed that there was much more available than usual. The heady power thrummed through her body and centered in her chest and abdomen as she prepared to protect her family. She would not let any of them die, ever again.
"Wind Release: Great Sickle Weasel Technique!" The chakra ripped from her body like a torrent as she used her fan to send currents of wind hurtling towards the shadow figure. The wind spiraled outward like a tsunami, destroying everything in its wake. Too much. Too fast. The world shattered.
Brightness. Pain. Teal eyes blinked open in disorientation. Temari was at home, in bed. Or she was originally, she was currently lying on the floor. She looked down. There was blood on her. Where was it from? Her face and hands stung, and she brought them up to look at them. Her wrists looked burnt, and there seemed to be shards of wood peppering her skin. Why were her wrists burnt? Why is she getting wet? A bright light flashed, and Temari automatically looked up. Her eyes widened as a resounding boom echoed through the house, stunned by what she saw before her. The entire back wall of her bedroom was gone, a ragged hole was all that was left. She could see the Nara forest past the sheets of rain coming down outside during every lightning strike.
'Well, that's one way to get an access door to the outside built into the bedroom,' Temari thought hysterically. She was a bit panicked, not quite sure what was going on. A swooping, sick feeling struck her suddenly. The baby! Was the baby ok? She pulled herself off of the floor onto the bed and tried to do an assessment of her state. She gently cradled her softly swelling abdomen, and breathed a sigh of relief as she felt a small flutter.
Temari stood up, and immediately was flooded with dizziness and nausea. Her stomach lurched, and she put a steadying hand on the bed. As she did so, a warm, almost painful sensation of force leaped from her chest and abdomen, down her arm and into the bed. A shockwave passed through the bed's surface and rippled through the air and fabric, as an earthquake seemed to tear the frame apart. Stunned, Temari looked at her hands, then the ruins of her bed. "Oh. Oh no."
Tentatively, she reached for her cellphone. She waited a moment, to see if the wave would pass through her again. When it didn't, Temari sighed with relief. Hitting number 1 on her favorites list, she anxiously waited for the call to be picked up. "Shika. I need you. Right now. And...and bring someone who can seal."
Shikamaru stood in the doorway of their bedroom, utterly stunned. The cryptic phone call had barely been disconnected and he was out the window of Hokage Tower, with Kakashi calling behind him. He barely remembered traveling to his home at all, and arrived, wet and disheveled, to utter chaos. His beautiful, fiery, brilliant wife was curled into herself on the floor, covered in blood and surrounded by devastation, and staring at her hands. He took one look at her haunted visage and dove to her side, gathering her in his arms, sensing that she was unaware he was holding her. Something about her vulnerability terrified him. They stayed on the floor for quite awhile, just holding onto each other, until Shikamaru felt the chakra signatures of multiple ANBU around and in his home. He gently released Temari and stood up to greet them, noticing that she immediately went back to the almost protective upright fetal position he had originally found her in, now gently cradling her abdomen. As he ripped his gaze away from her, he felt himself almost unconsciously stepping closer to the ragged damage in the wall. Shikamaru stepped to the edge and noticed the damage was not limited to the wall, but had hit part of the roof and traveled all the way to the first trees in the edge of the Nara forest. One of the herds of deer was near the mangled trees, staring curiously at him. He smiled gently as he turned around and walked carefully back to his wife's side. Sliding down the wall, Shikamaru gently grasped her hand. Temari finally noticed he was there, and gasped. Tears filled her eyes, which made his stomach clench with fear and protectiveness.
"Shika. I-I don't know what happened. I was sleeping and….I had that dream. The one about the war. But this time it was different, and something…..something happened." Temari looked at the hole in the wall. "I saw you, and I couldn't control it." She glared at her hands, then looked up into his face, a familiar fire in her teal gaze. "I didn't want to control it. He doesn't get to lay a finger on my family!"
Shikamaru studied his wife. Something about her determination reminded him that she was the mother of their child, a lioness protecting her cub. She was a powerful goddess of vengeance and strength, not someone that should be underestimated. A stunning, beautiful creature. As he observed her, however, he felt a stinging warmth coming from her palm. Glancing down, he gulped as he witnessed blue chakra streaming from between their interclasped fingers. Each tendril of chakra that escaped became its own tornado, lazily spinning away from her hand and out into the room. The air of the bedroom became stifling, and immediately, ANBU rushed to the door and the gaping wound in the wall. The chakra pouring off of Temari was astonishing in its strength and potency.
"I will keep our family safe. No one will touch my family! Ever again! I will protect us all!" Temari had a manic gleam in her eye, and the chakra started pouring from her abdomen and head, rippling like a heat wave through the air. The ANBU swiftly stepped back, and Cat swiftly slid a package to Shikamaru, unwilling to come further into the room.
"Temari, I'm going to need you to listen to me. You are safe. I'm here. We need to put a seal on you and go speak with the Hokage. May I put a seal on you? I will not leave you, but I need my hand." Shikamaru tried to disengage from her grip, only to find he was held fast in an almost magnetic hold, and felt the tell-tale siphoning feel of his own chakra being pulled from him forcefully. He could see his shadows starting to mix and meld with the blue tornadoes as they formed at their joined fingertips, and gasped at the foreign yet right feeling, like this was what was meant to happen. Shikamaru slowly opened the package and pulled out two paper seals, and after a moment's hesitation, a third. "You are leaking chakra. We need to see what is going on. We need to make sure you and the baby are ok." Temari finally seemed to actually see Shikamaru, and then glanced down at their joined hand, now completely ringed in blue chakra and black shadows. It seemed to pause in its undulation for a moment, a split second of hesitation. Shikamaru took the opportunity as any elite shinobi would, and in one quick motion, pulled the seal and fastened it quickly to her forehead. Temari gasped and dropped his hand, and the chakra fluctuated, then roared from her hands like an unleashed beast to skip across the floor. He quickly dove out of the flight path and quickly stuck another seal on her chest and abdomen. The chakra disappeared like a candle being snuffed out in a breeze, and Temari toppled forward toward the floor, intercepted by her husband's arms. He gently turned her face toward him, only to realize she was unconscious.
"Well, the baby is ok, and Temari was not badly injured by the debris." Sakura pulled the gloves off with a resounding snap. "The burns on her wrists and body are problematic. They look like chakra burns. From what she has described and what was witnessed, it sounds like her chakra is extremely unstable. I am also very worried about what you told me of your body's reaction to her chakra. I need to get more information, so I have asked Naruto and Hinata to meet us at the Hokage Tower. Kakashi-sensei has also requested Yamato-san to come to the tower to observe and potentially seal her in a more stable manner until we can figure out what is going on."
Shikamaru sighed, and rubbed the back of his head absently. Temari was still not completely awake, and the time period between the sealing and Sakura's arrival seemed like some of the longest moments of his life. He knew that he only had a small window of opportunity to get her moved to the tower so they could seal her with something more stable, but he was hesitant to subject his wife to any more scrutiny and stress. This was really not how he expected today to go.
Temari groaned, and started to sit up. Shikamaru was immediately by her side, helping her prop up on the pillows. Luckily their western style bed had fallen straight down when the frame shattered, and the mattress was more or less in one piece. He reached over with a practiced hand to the end table which had miraculously survived all the damage with barely a scratch on it, and grabbed a hair tie, handing it to his wife.
"Sakura, we need to get her moved to the Tower. Can you please help me get Temari ready to travel? Cat, please alert the Hokage-sama that we are on the way." The ANBU leader nodded assent and disappeared through the opening. Shikamaru sighed and turned to his wife, who was struggling with pulling her hair in a ponytail due to her wrapped hands. He pulled the tie out of her hand and gently gathered her golden hair back and secured it. He softly ran his hands down her cheeks and kissed her forehead as Temari held onto his wrists in a loose grip. She usually shied away from displays of affection around others, choosing to tease him and argue, so this further cemented in Shikamaru's mind the gravity of the situation.
Temari then seemed to realize that Sakura was in front of her, and immediately blushed and looked down at her lap. "Sakura, I'm so sorry to pull you away from your family. I'm fine. I'm sure this is nothing that another medi-nin can't handle." She looked up into the green eyes that held her teal ones with a concerned and calculating gaze. "Seriously, Temari? You are halfway through your pregnancy. I am your doctor. This is my job! Sasuke is home right now, he is watching Sarada. You need me and I'm here to help you. Now let's get you dressed and to the Hokage and figure out what the hell is going on. And DO NOT argue with me!" she snapped as Temari opened her mouth to protest.
"Well, crybaby, looks like it's about to be 'Bring your spouse to work day' so I guess let's do this." Temari slowly started to get out of bed with Shikamaru immediately leaping to her side to assist. She allowed him to help her into their closet to change into a clean yakata and cover up the seals, taking her old sand shinobi headband and covering the one on her forehead as best she could. She absently stroked her growing belly as the baby inside caused butterflies to alight her insides. "Let's go."
