Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Shikamaru stirred his pork fried ramen around the bowl in an attempt to cool it. Unlike his dining companion, he didn't feel an urge to immediately swallow his food and then complain how he had burned his mouth. Naruto, widely considered the best candidate for Hokage, still ate like a child. He wondered if Sakura's presence would've improved his manners or not.

"I'm thinking of taking on a team this year." Naruto said around a mouthful of noodles.

"Oh," Shikamaru said, picking up a more reasonable portion. "Do you really think that's a good idea? I mean, that process can take years. It would be a bit unfair to your students if you had to abandon them halfway through their training to become Hokage, don't you think?"

Naruto seemed to give that some thought before shrugging. "I've been told that's not happening before I am twenty-five, so that would give me three years at least. Besides, if your lazy butt can do it so can I."

"Takara is an apprentice, not a student." Shikamaru corrected automatically. "And she's a very troublesome apprentice at that."

"Yeah, I wouldn't have to teach my genin to read at least."

"You wouldn't have to teach them table manners either. In fact, you might pick up something from them there."Shikamaru's comment cost him a poke in his side. As he turned his head to deliver a verbal response to the physical assault he caught movement from the corner of his eye. More on instinct than conscious thought, his hand reached out, intercepting a small hand with a kunai an inch from Naruto's back. He applied enough pressure to the wrist that there should have been a sound of pain, but the kunai was simply dropped and the hand twisted out of his grip.

It was only when the attacker turned and ran that Shikamaru was able to get a look at the would be assassin and was surprised by his youth. The kid couldn't be any older than a year out of the Academy. That did not stop Shikamaru from giving chase as the boy quickly disappeared down an alley. He reached the corner just in time to see the boy disappear into the next street. It was at times like these he regretted that all of his shadow techniques required at least line of sight to be effective.

Emerging from the alley, Shikamaru was again just in time to see the boy climbing up a gutter and onto a roof. The analytical part of his mind wondered why he wasn't using chakra to climb the building, but on the same token he was grateful for it as he was able to climb like a spider, closing the distance but not fast enough to prevent the boy from jumping from the roof to the next building.

The boy did not hesitate, either having supreme confidence in his skills or was simply terrified. When he jumped to a third story roof, Shikamaru would've sworn there had been no use of chakra again, but then the wanna be assassin did something strange. Instead of continuing on to the next building, he scrambled up the water tower on the building, and without hesitation, jumped head first into the street.

For the second time that day, Shikamaru was forced to act without thinking. Jumping just-in-time, they collided in midair. With one arm wrapped around his target, Shikamaru grabbed and caught one of the numerous clotheslines that crisscrossed the street. Almost immediately, one end of the clothesline gave under the surprise weight, swinging them like a pendulum to the other side of the street. The rope slipped through his hands, but he held tightly, slowing their descent just as he smashed into the side of the building, knocking the wind out of him. By then they were only a few feet above the ground and he dropped, holding firmly onto his captive who didn't seem to be moving.

The last part of the chase had drawn considerable attention and people started to gather around them, but here the advantage of living in a ninja village asserted itself. Instead of crowding him, several individuals who were clearly ninja formed a perimeter around him. He remembered the procedure any active ninja was supposed to follow when there was a disturbance in the village, and two people diving off of a building would certainly be classified as a disturbance. Secure the area and detain anyone involved. If he tried to walk out of the perimeter he would be stopped, at least until someone in authority arrived. When Naruto arrived late to the show, he was reminded of that when a ninja half his size stopped him from approaching. Instead, Naruto called out over someone's shoulder, "What happened Shikamaru?" Not really knowing himself, he just shrugged and that was when the ANBU arrived.

"Does it have to be so tight?" Shikamaru asked the nurse who was supplying the medical gauze to his injured hand.

"Yes," the medical-nin replied. "The less you use it the quicker it will heal." The woman added before finishing her work. "Now, there's someone else who wants to talk to you too so stay here."

"Fine," Shikamaru said sighing. It had been thirty minutes since the incident and they were now in the Konoha hospital. The rope had not taken off too much skin, but it definitely needed attention and the medical gauze certainly constricted his hand. Naruto had stuck by Shikamaru's side except for when they had been separated to give their statements. As it turned out, Naruto had been completely unaware of what exactly had happened.

Once the medical-nin left they both looked at each other and shrugged. The day had taken an odd turn and neither of them knew what to make of it. There was a moment of silence between the two of them, but Naruto broke it. "I thought you were trying to ditch out on paying your side of the bill."

"I'm not that cheap," Shikamaru answered, glancing down at his hand. They had given him something mild for the pain but it still felt like the worst rug burn he had ever had. "Strange day."

"Yeah, not exactly what I expected when I invited you to lunch."

"And you're sure you've never seen him before," Shikamaru asked.

Naruto shook his head. "I don't think I've ever seen that kid before. At first I thought it might be, you know, a transformation, but they checked for that before taking him away."

Despite the fact that the kid had tried to stab him there was a sad tone in Naruto's voice. Even if the kid had been a trained ninja, and Shikamaru doubted that, his friend wouldn't be able to feel anger towards the kid. Kids had a soft spot in Naruto's large heart. Not that Shikamaru could look down on him for that. His last mission involving a kid had ended up with her becoming his apprentice despite her tendency to start fires. The mental reminder of Takara made him groan. "She's going to be in one of her moods."

"Who?" Naruto asked, not being able to read his mind.

"Takara," Shikamaru answered, glancing up at the clock. "She hates when I'm late and I told her I'd be back ten minutes ago."

"That's not so bad. When Kakashi is ten minutes late I almost consider him on time." Shikamaru was saved from explaining by a knock on the door.

The Fifth Hokage walked in without waiting for a response and said with no preamble, "Well, this situation is certainly strange."

"Which part?" Naruto asked.

Tsunade tried to force a smile. "All of it. I just don't know where to start. The kid, and it is a kid because we checked that ten different ways, was nearly completely catatonic for the first fifteen minutes we had him. He was in the middle of a medical exam when he seemed to come out of it. He immediately started calling for his parents, and when that didn't produce results, accused us of kidnapping him."

"Genjutsu?" Naruto suggested almost hopefully before frowning and shaking his head. "No, that wouldn't work.

"No, it wouldn't and someone put a lot of effort into this. It wasn't just a kunai you were going to be stabbed with, Naruto, it had something on it. We're still analyzing, but this definitely wasn't a spur of the moment thing. There was a piece of paper they think had the kunai in, like a sheath, and there's more of the substance there."

"So what's his story?" Or cover, Shikamaru didn't add for the sake of Naruto.

Tsunade let out a long sigh. "He says his name is Ryoichi and he claims he's an acrobat."

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow at that, but in a strange way it didn't seem odd. "That would explain some of his agility."

"Yes, but his story gets stranger from there," Tsunade continued. "He gave us the name of a traveling circus along with the names of his parents, which we're both checking out. He says the circus was just about to leave the Fire country for Grass. He remembered help taking some stuff down and then," she shrugged, "three months later he woke up here."

"Weird," Naruto observed.

Unconfirmable, Shikamaru thought. Alright, they could confirm the name of the circus, and if his parents were performers they might be able to confirm that too. Of course, a missing persons report could be forged if one had been filed. Most people, if told a kid was missing, would believe worried parents because that was not something you lied about, but it could be something you would do to provide cover.

Alright, enough pessimism, a suitably paranoid person could cast doubt on any evidence. How could they confirm his identity? "So, what is the theory here? Do we think it was something like the Senno Sosa no Jutsu, but different?"

Tsunade eyed him. "Perhaps something like that. What do you think?"

"I'm not sure," Shikamaru said honestly. "He attacked Naruto when his back was to the street which indicates either extremely good luck or at least some familiarity with Naruto's behavior. Then again, I'm not sure how many people are not aware of his unhealthy love for Ramen."

"Hey!"

Naruto's objection was ignored."However, I didn't see him use any chakra and he did try to take his own life, he tried to do it in a very specific way. If he didn't want to fall into enemy hands it would've been a lot easier to give him a cyanide capsule or anything more reliable than a swan dive off of the building. It makes me think he was trying to destroy something." He gave the Hokage a questioning look and she grimaced.

"The tests were inconclusive. We suspect whatever was there somehow destroyed itself."

"So he was being controlled, but now he's back to normal?" Naruto ventured.

"Possibly," Tsunade commented. "We really don't know. This new personality could just be another layer."

Shikamaru thought that Tsunade was falling into the same trap that he had. "Well, there is one way we can get some more information." He waited until everyone was looking at him and then shrugged, "Send Naruto in to check up on Ryoichi. If he seems to recognize him we will know something's up."

"Reasonable." Tsunade allowed. "That is if Naruto is willing."

Naruto just grinned.

Ryoichi was being kept in a secure hospital room that was actually the basement. It looked like any other room except there were no windows and there were multiple closed-circuit cameras. Tsunade and Shikamaru watched from the security room as Naruto walked in, dressed like he worked in the hospital. He inquired about the boy's health and if he could get him anything before checking his chart and leaving.

Shikamaru had tried to concentrate on the boy's expression, but had not seen anything that looked like recognition. "I didn't see anything."

"No," Tsunade said, her gaze not wandering from the monitor. After a moment, she tapped the ninja stationed there on the shoulder. "Make a copy of this tape. I want to give it to intelligence so they can analyze for micro-expressions."

Micro-expressions were small unconscious reactions. They were hard to detect and even harder to control. Shikamaru did not envy whose job it would be to go through the short film frame by frame. "Well, it seems you don't need me anymore, so I'll be going."

"Yes, but report to my office first thing tomorrow morning. I might have more need of you then. Tell that to Naruto, too." Tsunade said before he reached the door.

Shikamaru resisted the urge to say troublesome just under his breath as he stepped into the hallway. He nearly ran into Naruto and relayed the order he had been given before parting ways.

As Shikamaru walked home, he mulled the situation over in his mind. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed very odd. As a general rule, ninjas didn't go for the whole suicide mission thing. Ninjas would lay their life down for their village, but most chose to live and fight another day. The only time suicide was preferable was when capture was imminent with no chance to escape, or a mission so critical to the village's survival that there were simply no other choice.

Naruto certainly was a powerhouse, but did he really rate such treatment? At first glance, the attack looked like it would've had a high probability of succeeding. Naruto's back had been to the street, but then if the kunai had struck there would've been no way the assassin could've managed an escape. If someone is desperate enough they might sacrifice one of their young ninjas, but not to such an uncertain cleanup plan.

His mind drifted back to a few years ago. Sasori, a member of the former Akatsuki organization, had some way to control people if Shikamaru remembered correctly, but he was long dead and presumably that technique with him. Then again, information was never lost, it was just obscured. So, maybe he shouldn't be thinking how it was done but why someone would want Naruto dead. Unfortunately, that wasn't a very short list.

When he opened a wooden gate to his family's home, thoughts of the botched assassination fled him as he fell under the gaze of a very angry Takara.

Takara had, at only ten years old, become the most troublesome female in Shikamaru's life and that was an impressive feat considering he still lived at home. She was his apprentice, although, he had not quite realized how much responsibility that entailed initially. The girl had actually been the target of one of his missions.

Three months ago, he had been given a mission to catch an arsonist in a village to the north. What had started out as a simple straightforward mission; had turned into a more complicated situation. The governor had hired him using Fire country funds, but had neglected to point out that it was only his privately owned property that was being attacked. Once he obtained that piece of information, and factoring in the local conditions, he had been able to predict the next target of the arsonist, which to his surprise, had turned out to be a kid.

The story from there had become a simple story of revenge and anger. Takara and her brother had been orphaned. Together, they had drifted around the country and eventually resorted to crime. They had been caught breaking into a warehouse by the night guard and her brother had accidentally killed the men. He was caught and publicly executed. The governor flew his family's crest in addition to the Fire country crest at the execution. That had been the impetus for Takara to go on her arson spree.

Still, when Shikamaru had finally caught her, he was hard-pressed to see anything more than a scared kid who had just been lashing out in anger. Arson carried the death penalty and her age would not have mediated her sentence. Sympathy for her had only been part of his reasoning, however.

The village where she had committed her arson spree in was an industrial hub. He had initially worked under the theory that the fires were being set by ninja. If the village had been engulfed by a firestorm, the economy of the Fire country would've taken a massive hit. The local police had not been slack in their efforts to capture the people responsible. Avoiding their night patrols and other checkpoints would've been a difficult task.

Takara had not been simply lucky to avoid capture. She had shown impressive planning abilities that had taken him time to peel back. It was only once he started to place the governor at the center of the fires that he able to understand her plan and capture her. If he could focus that intellect she could be a major asset for the village and the country.

Of course, despite all of her intellect, she was still just a small girl and right now she was angry at him. One thing Shikamaru had learned about Takara was she hated him being late. If he was a little late she became angry. If he was more than a day late she became very upset. He had found that the hard way.

"Takara," he began just as she turned around and retreated down the hallway, leaving the front door open. Shikamaru took a moment to reflect that he had brought this on himself and headed into his family's house. When he learned that because Takara was not a native of the village, he would have to provide her housing, he had been at loss what to do. That was until his mother had offered her one of the guest rooms. Now the room was her's as far as his mother was concerned. Instead of heading up the stairs to her room, he instead headed to the kitchen where he luckily found his mother. "How upset is she?"

His mother only glanced at him before returning her attention to the dish she was violently cleaning. "On a scale of one to ten I would say about a three, but look in the dining room."

He glanced into the dining room and saw a plate of untouched food. "I'll take it to her."

As he walked up the stairs he wondered what his mother really thought of Takara. She was different with her then she had been with him at the same age. It wasn't just that he had never been allowed to eat anywhere but the dining room. He simply couldn't imagine his mother putting up with him the way she put up with Takara. Then again, he had been just lazy. Takara had a genuine fear of him not coming back for her.

The way it had been described to him was because her brother had disappeared she lived with a constant fear of being abandoned by the closest thing that she now had to her brother, which was him. Shikamaru had been ensured the fear would subside with time, but until then he should try to be as consistent as possible.

Coming to the door, he knocked and said, "Takara, I'm sorry I was late." There was a notable lack of noise from the other side of the door so he continued. "I had to stop an assassination. It couldn't be helped. I'll tell you about it if you open the door."

There was the sound of something being moved away from the door and a latch being undone. Shikamaru was grateful, for once, that Takara liked to hear ninja stories.