A/N: Yay. Welcome. Enjoy it, if you can. This idea originated when I was searching for Shikamaru's birthday. Then I realized how close it was to Naruto's. Did you know Ino's and Shikamaru's birthday was one day apart?
Summary: If Naruto was deemed an unsuitable container for Kyuubi. If instead of him... it was someone else? Different lives and a different universe.
I solemnly declare that I do not own Naruto.
"Nara Shikarmaru..."
The baby gurgled and reached out a hand as if to grab something. A second later, his hands dropped. Instead, he chose to blink blearily at the man holding him, as if deeming it too troublesome to take back his bottle of milk.
"I'm... sorry."
A flash of light fell, and the baby felt a burst of pain from his stomach. For the first time, the nearly three weeks old baby let out a full blown cry, tears leaking out of his tiny eyes.
The man holding him fell onto the ground, dead. Before Nara Shikamaru could follow his fate, another man flew towards the baby faster than normal human eyes could follow to grab him.
And Nara Shikamaru fell asleep, exhausted, unknowing that fate had just taken an extremely unhealthy interest in him.
Somewhere not too far away, a newborn baby took its first breath of air and cried.
"Team ten, Hyuuga Negi, Tenten, Nara Shikamaru. Team - "
Pretending that one was sleeping was actually a type of fine arts that consists of advance controlling abilities and skills. The rate of breathing, muscular contractions, eye movements, all had to be coordinated exactly, precisely to the dot. Should any of them appear less than being fully natural, then one would run the risk of ordinary civilians finding out one's current state of consciousness. And if ordinary civilians could find out, there was nothing to be said about enemy Ninja. Which was why Shikamaru had taken up the initiative (really) to perfect that particularly fine art. Every moment of the day, at every opportunity he had.
After all, damn good blackmail materials could be heard if the people surrounding him thought that he was lost to the world of consciousness.
Currently, Iruka-sensei was reading out the list of people to be grouped into their genin teams. He was in the same group as Hyuuga Neji and Tenten, who was one year older than he was. He had been skipped a year of academy due to most unfortunate circumstances through no fault of his. If someone had to be blamed, then Nara Shikamaru supposed that the demon sealed on his belly would be that someone. Or something. He never quite figured out whether it was technically a person or not.
Finally, the team assignments were completed. They were told that their Jonin instructor would be meeting them that afternoon after a long lunch break. Shikamaru didn't care much about that, since he already knew who their Jonin instructor was going to be. He shifted around until he was at a more comfortable position, and gave a small yawn. Not to mention, he was really more sleepy than hungry... His mother called him up so early in the morning too... So maybe he would just catch a few winks of sleep first...
"Hi! I'm Tenten. This is Nara Shikamaru right? Nice to meet you."
It looked like his sleep and Shikamaru were just not meant to be.
Sitting up straighter in his seat, he gave a lazy grin and shook that hand which the girl in front of his table was offering.
"Nice to meet you too."
He supposed that now, he should introduce himself to his other teammate. Reluctantly, Nara Shikamaru stood up and walked over to where Hyuuga Neji sat at, with Tenten following behind him. His sleep was going further and further away from him. Going… going… gone.
He sighed.
"Yo, Hyuuga. Seems like we are going to be teammates."
Hyuuga Neji turned his head to look at the source of the voice, and nodded his head slightly.
"Nara Shikamaru. Tenten."
"Why don't we have lunch together? I mean, we're supposed to meet our sensei later anyway..." Tenten suggested.
Shikamaru shrugged. He had no problem with that. Hyuuga Neji just nodded his head.
The cafeteria was unusually empty. That was to be expected, at that time of the day. Shikamaru immediately went to his usual stall and got his usual food. Along the way, he had to walk over a badly made wire trap, maneuver his way around several kunais lying unassumingly on the ground, hop skillfully over a slippery patch of floor, before he finally arrived back at his seat. (which he then proceeded to swipe away the whoopee cushion disguised in the color of the chair) Even then, he took out a silver needle and poked it into his food.
Only after checking that the silver needle was still silver, that Shikamaru took a bite out of his food.
Under his breath, he muttered 'troublesome'.
That was not paranoia. Not at all.
His two other teammates had gone through much of the same procedure as well. Ever since the first day of school, they learned to avoid intentional and unintentional traps laid in place around the school grounds by academy students learning to be Ninja. After all, getting caught in those would be potentially embarrassing but not particularly harmful in the academy. However in the real world, those could easily cost them their lives.
Nara Shikamaru surveyed his surroundings as he ate and chewed his food slowly. He had to worry about his safety. Though eating in the academy was significantly less dangerous than if he ate in public, there was the matter of vengeful teachers out to seek his life (which was interlinked coincidentally with the nine-tailed demon fox's).
The last time he had been eating out in public…
It seemed like a sad fact that people were out to get a boy's life. But it was the truth of the ninja world. Too many had lost so much. Too much. Forgiveness was not a virtue much ingrained in the human society, much less the ninja one. And ninjas had particularly long and warped memories.
Occasionally, the unfairness of it made him angry that they would take it out on him. After all, he didn't kill their family, he didn't destroy nearly half of Konoha, and it just wasn't his fault. But did the people care? Of course not. They needed someone to blame. And he was just conveniently placed to be a scapegoat.
Ever since he was young, his parents had to protect him from the planned assassinations, the looks of loathing. When his father went away, it was his mother that protected him. Throughout the years, the known chakra-enhanced protection wards his home rivaled the top clans in Konoha. As for the unknown ones... well, the inner Nara family knew, and the Hokage knew. That was all secret tunnels leading the way out, invisible rooms, hidden doors. His house was akin to a maze. A maze in a fortress to be exact.
He supposed he coud have hated them, but really. Hatred was too troublesome. Shikamaru preferred if he didn't have to deal with it at all. In his observation, Hatred consumes the human's logical part of the brain, and he prized logic more than anything. So why should he waste effort to hate people not worth his time? Only a fool would be angry at general humans' stupidity.
Poof!
"Eep!"
Without much as a blink of an eyelash, Shikamaru looked up dully from his rice to look at his new Jonin sensei – Sarutobi Asuma.
Despite looking slightly rougher around the edge than the photo in the file that Shikamaru had sneaked a peek of, the Ninja standing in front of him was clearly the son of the sandaime Hokage.
"Oh? You three are still eating then? Then you don't mind me grabbing a bite too, eh?"
Before Shikamaru or any of his two teammates could say anything, their Jonin sensei was already at the stalls, ordering.
Tenten huffed.
"Appearing of nowhere like that..." She bent down to pick up the spoon that had flown out of her hand when he appeared beside her.
"AH! Sorry about that."
The spoon dropped on the floor with a 'clang' again.
Shikamaru watched the exchange with slight amusement. So far, he detected none of the hostility toward him that even an idiot could sense when someone hated them. Their new sensei appeared to be mostly neutral about his prisoner locked behind a jail made secure by a flimsy piece of paper infused with chakra. In Shikamaru's mind, that already earned him some points.
"So, team ten. Start introducing yourselves. Your name, likes, dislikes, dreams and all that."
"Why don't you introduce yourself first." Tenten said, still annoyed about the 'spoon incident'.
"OK. I'm Sarutobi Asuma, your Jonin sensei. I like to play chess, dislike snakes, and my dream is to get more money. But the main focus isn't on me. It's on you three. So next!"
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow internally. Outwardly, although Sarutobi Asuma seemed to have said a lot about himself. In hindsight, he had revealed nothing much really.
"Right! My name is Tenten. I like to study the intricate designs of various weapons. Swords and knives are more of my main focus. I really hate people who are prejudiced, sexist, racist, or biased towards a person for no reason. My dream is one day be on par with the legendary Sanin, Tsunade."
Compared to their sensei's introduction, it was certainly more informative, and it provided Shikamaru a vague idea of how one of his teammate might react to his rather well-known secret.
"Good good. Next one, the one sitting on the right side of Tenten."
There was a silence, as both Neji and Shikamaru made not a sound, both choosing to assume the other to be 'sitting on the right side of Tenten'.
Finally, Neji spoke.
"Hyuuga Neji. I like the colour white, and dislike the colour black. My dream is to be a strong Ninja."
Biting his tongue to stop himself from laughing at the incredulous expression on Tenten's face, Shikamaru knew that Hyuuga Neji had picked up on their sensei's lack of information and chose to follow it.
"I'm Nara Shikamaru." Shikamaru sat up straight and declared with the most serious voice, before slouching again in relief, as if he had just ended off a great, passionate speech.
Silence reigned again. Someone (he assumed Tenten) poked him painfully in the ribs. With a long suffering sigh, he continued.
"I like to watch the stars in the night sky. I dislike troublesome things. My dream is to be a strong Ninja with the least fuss possible."
And thus, ended everyone's introduction.
"Wow," Asume Sarutobi said slowly. "What a great introduction. Well done, everyone. Now I know so much about you people."
Shikamaru knew that sarcasm was said to be the lowest form of wit possible, but to him, it was better than being completely witless anyway.
"Now, listen here carefully. I would like to just fail you three and then go back to earning my money doing missions, but I can't do that without you going through the genin test." He frowned, as if the mere thought of the test gave him an unpleasant feeling.
"Tomorrow we will meet at eight o'clock, on training ground number ten. Be there early cause late-comers will automatically fail. The test will be held then, you hear?"
Everyone nodded their head, even Shikamaru, who usually didn't bother moving any part of himself unless absolutely necessary.
Sticking a cigarette which seemed to appear out of nowhere into his mouth, Asuma Sarutobi then stood up.
"Bye then."
With another poof!,he disappeared without a trace.
And Nara Shikamaru's life was just about to get as complicated as it could be. Though he didn't know it yet.
A/N: I would poke myself at every mistake I made. However, herein lies the problem. I can't spot any. Be kind to offer some constructive criticism, won't you?
Most likely, this would remain as a one-shot. Unless I got a huge infuse of inspiration or something. 'Course, reviews help. But that's not a guarantee either, since I haven't tried writing anything longer than 5k words before. That needs tenacity. Sometime I of course have. In near-zero quantity that is. If Shikamaru seemed a little out of character, that can be easily explained. 'Being hated as a demon containment' is one. If Asuma seemed out of character, then that would be my fault, as I don't really know his personality anyway.
Now, review?