royal // shikamaru nara

8

/Shikamaru's POV/

I just stood there as I watched her walk away from me. It felt as if time was slowing down and all i could do was watch her leave. I had no right to stop her so I let her go. I stood there until she was out of sight and stared into the nothingness ahead of me before slowly making my way back home.

I collapsed onto my bed and stared at my ceiling, not really wanting to think of anything yet everything kept coming back to me. I wish I could say I felt nothing but in the moment I felt everything hit me, all at once.

I stayed that way for what I guess was a few hours due to the fact that I could almost see a glimpse of the sun from outside my window and I took that as a signal that it was time for me go to bed not really wanting to do anything all day.

//

A few hours has passed until I hear a loud banging on my bedroom door but I just simply ignore it and pretend to go back to sleep and whoever was on the other end of the door was simply just not having it as they knocked my door open and let out a sigh at the sight of me still in yesterdays clothes and fast asleep at two in the afternoon.

"Shikamaru, get up! The hokage has requested you." My dad lazily says as he walks out of my room, silently muttering how lazy I was. I groggily got out of bed and made my way to Lady Tsunade's office, not even bothering to get ready.

I knock on her office door and I hear a small 'come in' and so I opened the door to see the rest of my whole team standing there and I join them.

"You guys are the team that was instructed to protect Himari-Sama and escort her back in a few weeks time." Lady Tsunade begins and we all nod at the information we already knew. "So tell me, where exactly is she?" She asks and all for of us give her a deadpanned look as we all realized that we didn't exactly know the girls exact location and besides me, no one else knows she left the village.

"She's probably at home or with Hinata." Asuma calmly says as he lets out a puff of smoke. "Is that so? because I have been receiving calls, non-stop from the entire Hyuga clan, saying that she went missing in the middle of the night and none of them can spot her anywhere in the village even with their Byakugan." She says, letting out a little 'hmphf' under her breathe as she stares at us.

My team and I all look at each other with worried and panic filled faces, not really knowing what to do. "Find the girl." Lady Tsunade says as we all turn to look at her. "I don't need to deal with an angry feudal lord, screaming at me for losing her daughter." She simply says and waves her hand off at us as a sign that we were dismissed.

We all gave her a little bow and exited her office. Once we left the hokage building we all looked at one another wondering what was our game plan but a part of me didn't want to go out and find her. I felt like I couldn't face her after that last night.

I stayed up all night, thinking about what he asked me yesterday. Why did I ignore her after that day? Was it because of Temari? I asked myself but got sucked back into reality when Ino smacked me at the back of my head.

"Hey!" Ino loudly says while waving her hand in front of my face and I turn to stare at everyone in confusion. "We were wondering if you knew anything about her disappearance" Asuma-Sensei says as he shakes his head at me and I just nod my head no.

"Fine, for now we ask around the village. It's impossible that absolutely no one saw her" Asuma-Senei says, looking at all of us and we nod in reply. We all spread out in search for the girl but I just headed straight back home.

I pulled out a bag and stuffed it with everything I needed like clothes, food, ninja equipment and scrolls. I dashed out of my house until I heard someone clear their throat behind me. I stop in my tracks to see my dad standing there with a confused expression on his face.

"Where are you going?" He asks as he crosses his arms. "Uh.. a mission?" I say as if it were obvious and he lets out a sigh. "You're going to try and find her on your own aren't you?" He says as he shakes his head at me and I let out a sigh full of despair.

"Yeah, I am but you can't tell anyone." I say, hoping my old man does me this once favor. "Fine but if your mom asks, I had nothing to do with this." He says as he lets out a sigh and I nod in response.

I make my way to Temari's place and knock on her door. "Hey, What's up?" Temari says as she opens the door. "Hey, uh is Gaara there?" I awkwardly ask as I knew that Gaara would have an idea of where she is due to how close they've gotten lately. "Hey left for Suna last night with Kankuro." She replies as she raises an eyebrow at me with confusion.

I stood there for a moment, thinking of my next move and that was when the realization hit me. It couldn't have been a coincidence that Gaara left the same night Himari did. She went with him back to Suna. I suddenly felt my heart clench at the thought but decided not to make it obvious.

"Want to go on a little adventure with me?" I suddenly ask a very confused Temari. "To where?" She asks cocking her head to the side.

"Suna"