Naruto C Masashi Kishimoto

Rating because of language, the general age of the characters in the story, and possible adult themes in the future.

Please enjoy.

Oh, to be a cloud. To be pulled through life by a soft breeze, no responsibilities, letting an outside force determine where you have been and where you are going. Floating along, not a care in the world. No effort necessary.

I never could help being jealous of the clouds floating along so peacefully above me. Even in the shade of my favorite tree on my favorite grassy hill, undisturbed by the expectations waiting for me just outside of my seemingly safe haven, the clouds were something I couldn't help but envy. It was the start of another semester, and though it was still early, nothing having officially begun, I knew it was going to be an extraordinarily troublesome one.

My fourth year. It was hard to imagine how much time had gone by and how many things were still exactly the same. People still expected me to do things I didn't really want to do, and somehow, I managed to do just enough to mostly appease them. Though I didn't do nearly enough to keep my mother's nagging at bay. Had I known what was going to come my way at breakfast that morning the year before, I may have worked just a little harder.

But really, I didn't see the big deal. Sure, I got here a year before all my friends and peers. It wasn't my fault the one time I actually took a test without falling asleep half way through would be the time they decided I was just being held back by my situation. They decided I would be better off moving up in the academic world, surpassing the level of the people I had been with since our grade school days. Did I want to go to university a year early? No. Did I really mind in the end? No.

It really wasn't horrible having those decisions made for me. And college was a lot easier to deal with than high school. It was nice going to class and paying just enough attention to pass the tests with a high enough score to move on. It was nice only being in class for an average of thirteen hours per week, leaving plenty of time to lie around and watch the clouds.

I didn't try harder than I had to. I didn't make any extra efforts. Of course, when I was asked to do something I did it. I wasn't one to be lazy to the point where others were affected by it. So when I was told to start working on research in my department, I did. I always showed up, mostly on time, and always went to each class. I did what I was ordered to. If anything I was a decent, average student. Exactly what I wanted.

Obviously that wasn't what was expected of me. My mother made that clear at breakfast. The fact that I was on the same track as my friends, with the credit count of a third year, apparently wasn't where I was supposed to be. I didn't see the big deal. If anything, I liked the idea that being sent to college a year early would give me an extra year to do the same amount as my friends would have to do in much less time. It seemed to cater to my habits and my attitude perfectly.

Apparently I was seeing things all wrong, as the nagging lecture I had to endure proved all too clearly. She would have rather seen that I was ahead of where I should have been instead of behind. Extra unpleasant was the fact that she brought up the Hyuuga kid I went to school with, who, though having started a year later than me, was starting towards his graduate degree this year. It wasn't my fault he was an ambitious prick who made my mother think I looked bad in comparison.

Lucky for me, in a not quite direct, and really only valid when at a fifty foot distance from my mother, way, was the fact that my father wasn't really that concerned with where I was in my studies. The fact that money wasn't playing a role in the matter, as being the son of a tenured professor in one of the largest research departments in the university meant free tuition and plenty of access to books, helped in his appraisal of my situation. The bigger reason he supported my slowness in advancement was the little fact that I got my apathy towards ambition from him and he understood the metaphorical boat I was in.

That and he liked the idea of having me working in his department. I was that extra brain that he got to use without having to worry about paying it. At least not as much as the others taking on an equal load to mine. We had made a deal my second year. If I worked for him on his research, I could move into my own place and he would pay for it. I didn't mind though. His study in strategy and logical operations, something I didn't get to talk about because the government was funding it for their own uses, was interesting, and I was good at it. Didn't mean I wanted to put work and effort into it though.

My second research position was to put some money in my pocket, and I really didn't mind it so much. Working in the cryptology department was something that catered to my likes. At work I got to sit around deciphering and developing puzzles all day. It didn't take a particularly great amount of effort, and I made sure to do things nice and slow to keep my superiors happy but not show them just how easy the work they were giving me was. I didn't want them making me work on anything challenging, after all.

Working was the preferable option to sitting in class and listening to someone drone on about something that I either knew or didn't really need. Lucky for me, my new classes didn't start until after lunch time and I could spend each morning sleeping in or lying under my favorite tree on my favorite hill watching the clouds. Just as I was now.

I could already hear the soft bumble of the crowds of campus growing in size. The morning was floating along just as the clouds were.

A sudden crinkle to my left, and there in front of me, blocking my view of the clouds, was a bag of chips, seemingly floating in air. Attached to it was my best friend.

As I grabbed it Chouji sat down next to me, his own bag in hand. It was too early to break the silence, and being the best friend that he was, Chouji understood how I wanted my last moments before the start of another semester to be filled with as much peaceful cloud watching as possible.

We sat there munching. When Chouji scraped the last of the crumbs out of the bottom of his bag, I offered him the rest of mine, but knew that even with a slightly replenished stock, the end of a bag meant the start of conversation.

"Ino expects us to meet her for lunch at noon, you free?"

"My first class isn't until one, so I suppose, though I can't say I want to."

"Come on, she's our friend. Plus she's been gone the last couple weeks."

"Exactly, all the more troublesome she'll be blabbering on about which guy bought her this, and who she met there. Annoying."

At my grumblings of what I knew Ino would headline the story of her trip with, I felt a little bad for the guy who shared his chips with me. His face dropped a little every time Ino and some other guy were mentioned in the same sentence. How he liked someone loud and gossipy as her I couldn't understand, but the two being my best friends, hard as it was at times to admit sometimes, I wished the best for them.

It seemed logical that at some point she would figure out what she had right in front of her, but then I wasn't an irrational girl, so I couldn't really know if she'd ever shut up long enough to figure it out.

"I'll do lunch, but if she's still talking when I need to leave for class, I'm leaving you to deal with it by yourself." It was a useless thing to threaten him with, as he would far from mind being left alone with the girl, but I felt the need to keep things normal. He knew I knew about his feelings, but it wasn't exactly something we talked about.

We sat in silence a while longer and when we heard the noon bell ring across campus went to join Ino for lunch. It was as uneventful and annoying as I expected. Ino went on and on about all the things she did on her trip with Sakura to spend a week at some beach. I wasn't interested when she told us about how there was this guy who bought her something, and I wasn't interested when she tried to guess which guy they met halfway through their stay, who Sakura decided to ditch her for a good part of the rest of her stay. It was none of my business, whether Ino insisted I knew the guy or not.

I was more than happy to get up and leave when it was time for my class. I even left early. Neither of my friends noticed much, both too entertained by the story Ino now insisted was the most exciting part of her trip.

I made it to the room just as the previous class filed out. I waited in the hall for the stragglers to straggle, and made my way in. Halfway to a seat another person rushed into the room, pushing past me. I didn't pay much notice to who it was, annoyed by how troublesome the person was, until I recognized the messy array of blonde hair and the person it was attached to.

I wanted to leave. Out of all the people to have a class with … I didn't even know we went to the same school. It was hard not to recognize her. She had been my competition that first year of high school when someone had managed to talk me into joining the Academic Decathlete team. She was a senior, expected to wipe the floor with everyone. But I managed to beat her out for first place without ever having put any effort into studying for that final competition.

Sure, I may have had some motivation to beat her when her little brother attacked one of my teammates and threatened to kill another of my friends. She hit me after the results were announced. She was the only girl I ever had the desire to hit back, but it wouldn't have been the gentlemanly thing to do. Instead I used my head and bested her in another battle, all without laying a hand on her, all while she came at me with punches that would have probably hurt as bad as the first one had. I couldn't help it if her brother's antics prevented me from falling asleep while taking all those long boring tests. I quit after that year, but tension between our schools remained high until Naruto somehow befriended her insane brother.

Now I was stuck in the same room as the most troublesome girl I had ever met. She stopped at the table reserved for the professor and put down a stack of papers, only then looking back up at the person she had so rudely pushed past on her way in.

"You. Don't tell me you are taking this class." I didn't know how to respond to her. I was an unnecessary question.

"What would I be doing here if I wasn't?" Usually a comment like that would stay in my head.

"Well good luck. It's not going to be an easy class for someone as lazy as you."

"Like it would be any easier for someone as troublesome as you." She looked at me like she was about to burst out laughing at what I had said, as though I was missing some fantastic joke that only she was privileged to.

"Right Nara, because I'm going to take my own class, right?" What.

I wouldn't have believed her if she didn't have such a smug look on her face. I knew the professor that always taught this class. My dad had him over for dinner a few times a year. Why would that change? How could she possibly take over for a professor? No way she had the qualifications.

"Old Morino decided to retire, didn't you hear?" she almost mocked, as though knowing exactly what was going through my mind. "A last minute thing, of sorts. They decided a grad student could handle replacing him. Lucky me, I got the job."

There was no way I could take the class with her as my teacher. She liked work and practice, put value in it. The only conclusion my mind came to was that I would fail this class, she would see to it, no matter what I did. I didn't want to leave, I had to leave. Troublesome as it would be to have to take the class at another time, it was the only logical thing I could come up with.

Without another word I turned, left, and headed straight for the enrollment office to drop the class. When the paperwork was complete, I made my way back to the cafeteria, and, as I had expected, my best friends were still sitting there.

"Your class get cancelled or what." It figured that Ino would chose that moment to pay attention to someone other than herself.

"Dropped it."

"Why would you do that? Ibiki is an old pushover, at least when it comes to us. Why would you drop his class?"

"He retired."

"Really? Why would he do that? Why wouldn't we know about it? Surely we would have heard something about it. Was the replacement so bad you had to drop right away? Who could be scarier than Ibiki Morino?" I dropped my head onto the table with a muttered "I don't want to talk about it" and tried to ignore Ino's rambling questions.

"Hey Shikamaru, what are you going to do about your schedule now? You need at least 12 units to be considered full time, and I'm pretty sure you were taking, what, like 13 units including that class. Don't you need to be full time to work on research?"

Fantastic. When Ino started making sense, bringing to light things that I didn't even think of, things were way too troublesome. "Suppose so."

"There is still space in my flower arranging class. It meets at nine, which is probably too 'troublesome' for you, but you wouldn't exactly have to do a great deal of work."

"You got any ideas, Chouji?"

"Topping flower arranging? Well, I am taking a cinema class, we are apparently going to watch movies all semester long. It's full, but the professor seems nice, would probably let you in if you asked. It's only offered at eight in the morning though."

"You guys make it sound like I'm not a morning person." They had a point though. With my head pressed flat on the table I had a choice to make. It'd be a drag searching for a class on my own, and it would be easier to attempt homework if I had a friend in class with me. But did I chose flowers or starting the school day extra early a few times a week? "I think the movie thing sounds okay. Not really a class I need to pay attention to."

It wasn't really important what class I took. All that mattered was that I got to keep working on my research and that I didn't have to be in the same room as her.