Bamboo Hearts Firefly

Ladybugs

I've finally found her.

Or rather, she'd found him.

Shino's insects picked up the sweet honey trail of the bee girl, leading him on a dramaticly wild roach chase through the forest, until he finally dropped out of the trees right onto the Shiso farm.

And then he felt it.

The low rumbling of tiny insect vibrations in the air, as the humming of 1000 wings came his way.

KA-BOOM!!

Shino faced the Northern Forest, toward Farmer Fukushima's barnhouse.

A violent silence hushed the trees around him, quieting the crickets and sending the birds flapping from their nest for cover.

And then, like something out of his wildest fantasy, the sake-golden sunset of Konoha caught on fire and shimmered with rubies.

A strawberry hailstorm falling around him, his face kissed with the rose-tinted wings of hundreds and hundreds of-

"LADYBUGS!!!! NOOOOOOOOO!!!! SO MANY LADYBUGS!!!"

Farmer Fukushima's booming lament erupted through the forest, falling on his knees in damning defeat.

Eyelids twitching, jaw muscles jerking, his face reddening with enough ladybugs to fill his Shiso farms for many summers to come.

"So...it has come to this," his hissing whisper finally admitting he'd met his match.

And shaking his fists at the bleeding sky above him, he let the whole forest know his unrelenting rage for that pest, Shino Aburame.

"CURSE YOU, ABURAME!!! YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH THIS!!! IF YOU WON'T COME OUT OF HIDING AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN, I WILL NOT REST UNTIL YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN AND YOUR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN AND THEIR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN'S CHILDREN ARE-"

"Uh, boss?" his farm hand tapped him on the shoulder.

"SHUT UP! I'M VILLIANOUSLY MONOLOGUING!"

"Sorry to interrupt, boss, but it wasn't that meddling, bug-hugging, pipsqueak Aburame this time. It was actually that girl over there, and she's getting away!"

"WELL DON'T JUST STAND THERE, YOU FOOL!!! GO GET HER!!! SOMEBODY'S GONNA PAY FOR ALL THIS!!! I WON'T STOP UNTIL I'VE AVENGED MYSELF AGAINST HER ENTIRE CLAN AND EVERYTHING SHE LOVES!!! YOU HEAR ME, GIRL?? I WILL BE AVENGED!!!"

And with an army of both ladybugs and bees whizzing behind their mistress in death-or-glory chaos, the bee girl bolted out of the forest toward Shino.

Her hands dancing in a quick sequence of hand seals that strategically placed sticky honey traps along the forest path to slow down the farmers and pitchforks stampeding after her.

"You!" Shino stepped out of hiding to confront her.

"Sorry, bug boy, I don't have time to explain," she panted in breathless excitement.

And grinning mischievously back at the farmers falling over each other trying to escape her honey traps, she grabbed Shino by the hand and pulled him along with her.

"Just run for it!"