Shikamaru: Lost in Fog
Hello, readers.
This is my second fan-fic and I am really excited and pumped over this story. I am writing this story for Shikamaru lovers, and all those in favor of ShikaIno! Yay!
Anyway. Just saying this now, I'm not really sure about Tsunade's character. I don't really know anything about her; so if you see anything that is desperately out of character, please tell me. Thanks!
I think I made up the Village of Fog. If I didn't, then don't think I'm talking about the one you know. This is a Village of Fog from my head.
Also, sadly, I do not own Naruto. Sigh.
For this story, I'm making the rookie nine all fifteen (everyone else's ages adjust as well, but I don't feel like researching the details myself)
The setting of this story is after the big fight thing during the third part of the chunin exams. Sasuke did not run away and stuff. The sound guys attacked, the leaf guys beat them away, and now a large part of the village is in need of repair. The fifth Hokage has called a meeting of the village.
Chapter One:
"Now. I'm not going to tell you all anything but the cold hard truth." Her mouth was set in a tight line on her face. "Our village is a wreck. We need a lot of repairs and rebuilding, thanks to those good for nothing, troublemaking sound ninja." She cleared her throat. "Anyway. The point is, our village can't afford to pay for all of this reconstruction."
This exclamation was met by a wave of murmuring. The Hokage raised her hand and silence fell. "The other jonin and I are working on coming up with the money, but any ideas or contributions from you all will be greatly appreciated." With that, the Hokage left the meeting building, followed by several of the jonin and other important figures, and everyone else left, talking among themselves about the situation.
In the back of the hall, several genin and one chunin were standing together. Naruto Uzamaki, Sakura Haruno, Sasuke Uchiha, Ino Yamanaka, Choji, Hinata and Neji Hyuga, TenTen, and the newly made chunin Shikamaru Nara.
"Well, that was a boring meeting," Naruto yawned and stretched. "Let's go get some ramen." Choji seconded the motion, but then both Sakura and Ino clobbered their respective idiots over the heads.
"How can you say something like this isn't important?!" Sakura said to Naruto.
"Yeah, you too Choji." Even though, on the inside, Ino knew that food was never very far from Choji's immediate thoughts, and often pushed more serious things out of the way.
Neji just smirked and walked away, melting into the crowd. Hinata pushed two fingers together and said, "I didn't know the damage was so bad. We must need a lot of money, if Lady Hokage is asking the villagers for their help."
Shikamaru wasn't paying any attention to the conversation, but was thinking about how long it had been since he had gotten any cloud watching time. There had been so much chaos when the sound ninja attacked, then the aftermath, then his being made a chunin…it was all too much. He sighed, and just then his old sensei Asuma came up to him.
"Sensei!" Ino greeted her teacher with a smile, as did Choji.
"Hello, Ino, Choji. Team 7. Hinata. TenTen." He turned to Shikamaru. "The Hokage needs to talk to you, Shikamaru."
Shikamaru sighed, shoved his hands in his pockets. "How troublesome…"
Asuma turned back to the others. "Your sensei will be in this meeting for a while, so you can probably all go do what you want."
Tenten walked away, thinking, Maybe Neji will take a break from training and we can go do something together. Sasuke followed suit, except he wasn't thinking about Neji.
As Shikamaru and Asuma walked away, Ino watched them go, thinking, that chunin vest looks so good on Shikamaru…. Then she realized what she was thinking and gave herself a mental slap. She hit her hand with her fist, a determined look in her eyes. "Let's go listen in on that meeting."
"Why? You know Shikamaru will just tell us about it later," Choji said, breaking into a bag of chips he pulled out of nowhere.
"You can't count what Shikamaru will say as telling us about it. All he'll say is 'It was troublesome'. No, Choji, we're going to go do some eavesdropping." She turned to Sakura. "Coming, Billboard-Brow?" Sakura growled as Ino dragged Choji away, after Asuma and Shikamaru.
"Let's go, Naruto!"
"But Sakura, I was gonna go for Ramen!"
"Too bad!" She grabbed the front of his jacket and marched him away.
"Come on, Hinata!" Naruto took hold of Hinata's wrist and pulled her along with him, not noticing the blush that crept onto Hinata's normally pale face.
Ino, Choji, Sakura, Naruto, and Hinata all stopped outside the smaller meeting room. The door was open just a crack and all (except Hinata, who was standing nervously to the side) stacked up and listed to what was going on inside.
Shikamaru had walked into the room with Asuma to find only a few of the village's best jonin there, including Kakashi, Gai, Anko, Iruka, Kurenai, and a guy he recognized as the moderator from the third part of the exam, along with a few he didn't know. The Hokage leaned against a desk, arms folded, eyes shut. In the middle of the room was a chair. When the Hokage heard them come in, she opened her eyes.
"Good. Thank you, Asuma. Shikamaru, please sit down." Asuma went over to stand with Kurenai as Shikamaru took the seat cautiously. He had a bad feeling about this.
They waited in silence for about a minute. Then the Hokage straightened and spoke. "I'm not gonna beat around the bush with you, Shikamaru. From what Asuma's told me about you, you like to hear things straight forward. And you're pretty smart. Anyway." Here eyes hardened. "There was a Lord from the Village of Fog at the Chunin exams. He saw your match against Temari, and he liked how you fought. In his own words, he thought you showed qualities of what it truly meant to be a ninja."
She paused. Shikamaru knew she wasn't telling him this just to make him feel good, so there had to be something else. He waited.
"He wanted to buy you from the village and have you go work for him. After things settled down, I told him, 'I'm sorry, sir. But I can't sell you our ninja. That's not how we do it here. You can ask Shikamaru yourself, but he's not our property. We can't sell him.' He didn't really get what I was telling him, because he just said he would pay even more."
She paused again. Outside in the hall, Ino's heart was thudding loudly in her chest.
"I told him again, but he just offered even more. Shikamaru, he offered me enough money to pay for almost all of the repairs and rebuilding costs. I told him I would talk to you about it." She watched him carefully.
Shikamaru's expression had not changed. He said, in his normal drawl, "So basically, this guy wants to buy me. Like a slave."
The Hokage's eyebrows twitched together. "Well, if you want to put it that way…"
"And if I went, he would pay you enough money to fix the village, but I would be stuck with him until he released me. Or I died."
"Just think about it Shikamaru. By taking the Chunin exams, you opened yourself up for this. I'll admit, it doesn't happen often…. But think about the good it would do. A third of the villagers are sleeping in the evacuation halls because their homes were destroyed. You could fix that, just by going to work in the Village of Fog. You would be doing the same thing you'd be doing here, you'd still be a ninja." She watched Shikamaru, waiting for a reply, but he was staring at the floor, thinking. "I'll give you until tomorrow morning to decide." She turned and left the room.
Outside in the hall, Ino got down from the stack by the door and ran down the hall. The others called after her, but she didn't turn around. Her head was filled with the conversation she had just heard, her eyes were filled with tears, and her heart was filled with dread.
To be continued…..
Well, it's almost midnight and I just finished writing this first chapter. I am so excited about this story. Oh my gosh. Anyway, if you have any suggestions, please tell me. And even if you don't, review anyway. Please. I'm on spring break now, so I'm hoping to get as much of this written as possible before I go back to school. Good night, all.
