Normal text
'Someone thinking'
"Speaking"
"Reading something/Technique name"
"Shouting/boss summon/kyuubi(maybe)"
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Shikamaru – Age 8 Week 1 of academy.
Chapter 1 – Meeting Naruto
Shikamaru sat at the back of the class with his head resting on the table at an angle so he could see out the window. 'Hmmm.. no clouds today' he thought. He had black hair, styled in a way that his head could be compared to the shape of a pineapple.
He was a naturally curious boy, and when two weeks into the academy year a bright spiky blonde haired boy walks in the room with an immensely huge smile on his face, he couldn't help being interested. He studied the boy closely as he wandered towards the seat right next to him. Somehow he knew that this boy was familiar, like he'd seen him before… His thoughts were interrupted when he heard in a cheerful voice,
"Hi! I'm Naruto Uzumaki! Who're you?"
Then it stuck him, just the other day as he had been walking home, he had seen down an alleyway a young boy being attacked by what looked like two civilians. He had went down to help but they ran away shouting.
"We'll get you next time Uzumaki, you demon!"
He had tried to find the boy but he somehow disappeared...
His thoughts were once again interrupted by the boy.
"Are you deaf or something, or just really lazy?"
"Really lazy..." Shikamaru mumbled. Ignoring the shouts of one of the teachers, Mizuki, to be quiet; they carried on chatting.
"So.. uh.. do you want to be friends?" the pineapple haired boy questioned.
"Yeh sure! I never caught your name.."
"Shikamaru Nara, the heir of the Nara clan."
It continued like this over the day chatting about things any normal person would find ridiculous, like ramen. Shikamaru was now painfully aware just how obsessed this boy was with ramen, he would probably trade his house for a bowl of ramen, if he had the choice. Naruto did most of the talking, as Shikamaru was never much of a talking type, preferring to watch the clouds, sleep or play shogi. Shogi was one of the things he would find fun, and not just relaxing.
Soon the bell rang, everyone packing up quickly except for Shikamaru, who was taking it easy like normal. Looking round he could find no sign of Naruto anywhere, which was strange, he couldn't be that fast, he seemed like a happy-go-lucky kind of guy that messed up at things. Analysing what he thought (which Shikamaru did a lot thanks to playing Shogi a lot) he realised the key word there was 'seemed'. Maybe he's hiding something. 'You really are a puzzle Naruto, and I'm going to solve it. Probably ask my dad..' He thought with a sigh
'Damn my curiosity'
With that he left the building and headed towards the Nara compound with one thought repeating itself in his mind. He knew he'd seen that blonde hair and blue eyes before but it wasn't the incident of the beating, somewhere else.
In his line of sight was the house he had lived in for the last 8 years of his life. With a forest right next to it and the fact it was separated from most of Konoha, it was easy to find even if you didn't live here. Although not as big as some of Konoha's main clans' compounds like the Uchihas' or the Hyuugas' it was still a spectacle to behold. Reaching his home, he unlocked the door quietly and let himself in, mainly to avoid being seen by his mother and practically interrogated on today's day of school. He didn't go unnoticed by his dad though, Shikaku Nara, leader of the Nara clan. Shikamaru groaned as he heard his father speak to him.
"And where do you think you're going, Shika?" Today was the day he was going to learn his first clan technique, the shadow bind technique, and he had completely forgotten, too busy thinking about that conundrum he met at school.
"I kind of forgot about that, hehe sorry." Shikamaru said sheepishly. With that they headed to the dojo, which is where he had practiced his pathetic taijutsu in hopes of it being even slightly reasonable before he got to the academy. Eventually he gave up from something his dad had told him.
Flashback 3 months ago
'It just doesn't work.. when I do this, my balance goes haywire but when I go the other way, the only power I can get is equivalent to the brushing of a feather. Troublesome...' He was too deep in thoughts to realise that his father had entered the room studying him carefully.
"Son, it seems to me that you just don't have the right body shape for any type of taijutsu I can think of."
"Well that's just troublesome. I'll probably be the dead last at the academy. Not that it matters anyway.."
"That's not necessarily true. It just means you'll have to be better at ninjutsu instead. We'll begin that when you start at the academy."
"What do I do in the meantime then? Nothing hopefully" He mumbled the last part.
"HAR HAR HAR! What kind of father would I be if I let you do that? Now let me explain the situation for most Naras. For mostly being physically weak, we make up for it with our tactics and strategies. Let me give you an example, if I threw a kunai at someone, they would be able to dodge it. So I would need a more powerful attack. Like a really high level technique that covers a wide area and is hard to dodge. This would take up more energy that a kunai would it not. However if you were able to get round the back of the opponent and throw it from there, they would most likely not see and and get hit. This is where strategies comes in, they can be used to get the opponent in a certain position or get them to think certain things, if done well. Including get behind them, meaning that strategies can be used as an alternatives to load of power." With that Shikamaru finally understood. Before letting his son go, he decided to tell him one more thing.
"Remind me to tell you about shogi later, you're gonna love it." With that, Shikamaru sighed, 'Troublesome parents..'
End Flashback
Since that day he had been going over strategies in his head over and over again, trying to think of ways the enemies could evade them and then thinking of a strategy to counter that. Also pondering over how he was going to beat his dad in the next game of shogi, something he had never managed to do before. Making strategies was something that came naturally to him, and he did it a lot. It was the reason he could never concentrate in class, and the reason he couldn't concentrate right now.
"....re you alright Shika, you kind of spaced out" Leaving Shikamaru to mutter a mumbled
"Just thinking about something... troublesome"
"Right let's get straight to learning the Shadow Bind technique!" Shikaku said almost over-enthusiastically. 'Stupid enthusiastic parents... Troublesome, really troublesome'
As the day passed Shikamaru was able to harness the shadow to bend to his will but only slightly, about half a metre. Whereas he had seen his dad go up to 100m with just his own shadow. Suddenly remembering something he was going to do earlier.
"Hey dad, I made another friend today." Shikamaru said excitedly,
"Anyone I would know?"
"See if you can guess, he's got bright blonde spiky hair and blue eyes.."
"Yond... no.. Never seen him before" Unfortunately Shikamaru did catch on to the accidental slip-up of his father and looked at him questioningly.
"What was that?? Anyway his name is Naruto Uzumaki. I invited him over next week if that's ok?"
"Oh it was nothing, and yes he can come round next week, I look forward to seeing him." Shikaku walked away deep in thought. 'So my son has made friends with the demon vessel, the boy who had the Kyuubi sealed in him by the Yondaime. Hm.. I've never actually seen him before but he sounds interesting. I was so sure that my son described the yondaime. Now there was definitely more to this than meets the eye'. With that he teleported to the hokage's office using Shunshin to have a small chat.
Shikamaru entered his bedroom more confused than he had been ever. 'Why did he say "yond..." The only person I know that has blonde spiky hair and name starts with yond is... well... I don't know any. I'll sleep on it.'
Next Day
After doing his morning routine, Shikamaru took his time to get up like he always did, never one to rush things. Once again he had forgotten something, he was going to get in slightly early and ask Iruka about this 'Yond..' person. Eating his regular breakfast of some random thing his mum had made him, he leapt out the front door for the first time in well, ever.
The academy was 2 minutes from his house, and being the observant person he was, he noticed quite a lot in those two minutes. Sakura and Ino, the two fangirls always fawning over the antisocial Uchiha, were quarrelling over something he couldn't quite make out, he didn't need to. It was obvious it had something to do with that Sasuke Uchiha bastard.
Next he saw Shino Aburame, having a conversation with a bug. 'It's a shame really, he kinda needs a friend. I think I'll talk to him later.' He also saw a black haired girl who went by the name of Hinata Hyuuga, however she was different to the rest of the Hyuuga who were arrogant and stuck up bastards even worse than the Uchiha clan.
That was all the people that he could remember that he could see. 'Hm.. no sign of Naruto..'. 'This was strange, second day of school and he's going to be late, or very early I suppose.'
Making it to the academy, the current bane of existence thanks to the boring history lectures courtesy of Iruka-sensei; he sped through the doors and found a few no names there but no Naruto. 'Iruka is probably still in his office', rushing through the door.
"Now now Shikamaru why are you in a hurry to see me. Wait a second, why are you in a hurry at all? That's not like you."
"Nevermind that, who's the first person that you think of when I say spiky bright blonde hair and blue eyes?"
"I suppose I would say Yondaime, the fourth hokage."
"And not naruto?"
"Wait you mean the orphan in my class that.. oh my god... looks remarkably like the Yondaime. I read his report for the entry for the academy, they couldn't find out who his parents were, he was an interesting case I tell you." Iruka explained now understanding the hurry of the normally incredibly lazy academy student.
"Tell me everything you know about Naruto." Shikamaru demanded with his curiosity now exploding in his mind.
"I think we should talk to the hokage about this. Meet me afterschool." With that Iruka went back into the classroom and placed his papers on the desk. At first Shikamaru didn't understand one bit, why should they talk the hokage about this? Knowing all his questions would be answered at the end of the day, he prepared to endure another day of boring history lessons and taijutsu classes. Luckily for him, 10 minutes after the day had started, the lesson was interrupted by the door opening and Naruto walking in in front of 2 ANBUs who quickly disappeared.
'That was strange' Shikamaru sighed. Nothing about Naruto was normal, everything just had to be wacky about him. Naruto came to sit next to Shikamaru before greeting him happily. Almost too happily..
The day continued as the two of them endured the boring lectures of Iruka and practiced chakra moulding with Mizuki. Chakra moulding seemed to be one of the things naruto couldn't grasp at first. He seemed to be well behind the others. That was until 2 hours later when a sudden flash of light and bang made everyone look over at Naruto who seemed to be stumbling around in a large crater with wisps of chakra floating around in the air still.
They could briefly hear Iruka whisper
"Impossible..." and definitely agreed with him. The other students had only managed to mould a small bit of chakra at best and even then it didn't last very long.
When finally it reached the end of the day and he went to find Iruka-sensei. He stopped abruptly when out of the corner of his eye he saw naruto talking to Mizuki. Something about the Forbidden Scroll of Sealing and taking it from the Hokage's office if he wanted to learn knowledge on how to control his chakra better. He briefly caught a glimpse of Naruto nodding and running off towards the hokage tower. Now if anything this was suspicious. Why would something that could help a genin be in the Hokage's office?
Knowing that his appointment with Iruka-sensei would have to wait, he sped off after Naruto to watch him.
End Chapter 1
