The Shadows Rising

by General Alastor Azimuth

Shikamaru went to great lengths to avoid reaching his potential. But What if he met someone who opened his eyes and trained him to grow strong to protect his loved ones? He will protect his world and village with his last breath and soon his enemies will learn why they should fear he who walks the shadows.

1. Chapter 1

The Shadows Rising

Hello everyone,

This is my first story ever so I would appreciate feedback. It starts slow, but hopefully I'll be able to speed up the pace as the story continues.

Keywords:

"Stay determined": Normal Speech

"Fire style": Jutsu, loud speech, summons and buji speech and weapons' names

"Why can't they just leave me alone": Thought, telepathy and flashbacks.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

Chapter 1

It was a beautiful morning in Konoha the birds singing on tree branches, the sun shining high in the sky and the fallen leaves twirling in the breeze. Around the entire village the signs of a peaceful morning prevail. Unfortunately, that was not the case in the Nara compound.

In the Nara head house the 6 year old Shikamaru Nara was sleeping peacefully in his room having a dream about living in a world with no troublesome women. That was until he was rudely awakened by the banshee like morning calls of the Nara matriarch Yoshino Nara saying: "Shikamaru you good for nothing son get your lazy ass out of the damn bed".

Shikamaru's pov

I grumbled as I woke up to the yelling of the troublesome women I called mother. Muttering "Troublesome" as I crawled out of the confines of my bed. Recently, I have joined the ninja academy to learn how to be a shinobi of the leaf as it was expected since I was the heir of the Nara clan. I have always wanted to be an average ninja and marry an average woman and have two kids the first a boy and the second a girl then get retired after my son finds a good job and my daughter gets married and then play shogi to the end of my days and die before my wife.

As I started wearing my clothes my mind wandered back to an event that happened 3 years ago.

Flashback starts

A 3 years old shikamaru was just returning from having a nap in the Nara forest when he heard his father Shikaku Nara being scolded by his wife. "I still wonder why he married a troublesome woman such as mum" he sighed. Then, he noticed the door to his father's office opened. He entered and gaped at the amount of scrolls and books littering the place, but he should have expected it since he gets his laziness from his father. Some of his father's military briefs got his attention so he starting reading them. Usually, any normal 3 year old wouldn't understand what the hell was written in those briefs, but shikamaru has always realized that he was smarter than normal kids. He didn't know how long he's been reading, but when he took his eyes away from the briefs he saw his father gaping like a fish at him. "What" Shikamaru asked irritably.

Flashback ends

From that moment my dad figured out I was gifted and made me take an IQ test secretly so I don't attract unwanted attention. To his utter shock the test results came back and they were off the charts as I scored over 200. My father then started helping me in honing my skill and developing it either by giving me war scenarios to find a solution for or games of shogi which I mostly preferred including other ways. At first, I was really interested and absorbed everything my dad taught me like a sponge, but as I grew older my prospective changed so I stopped studying with the excuse of it being troublesome.

I got out of my room and went to the kitchen to see my mum scolding my dad about chugging his sake. Rolling my eyes I muttered a lazy morning and sat on my chair. "Eat your breakfast then we'll play a round of shogi" I grimaced at the mention of my mum's cooking. "Listen here punk you're going to eat your food and you're gonna like it then you aren't playing shogi with my good for nothing husband you'll do your chores then I bought you some books that you're going to read" "It's too troublesome to read and I don't have academy today" "Shikamaru you have the potential to the best shinobi the village has seen in years, but instead training and studying you prefer to watch the clouds and do nothing like your father, sometimes I wonder why do I even bother with you."

My eyes widened at that last sentence my mum has always given me shit about my hesitance to train, but this was the first time she said it directly. My eyes hardened when I felt a certain emotion radiating from mum. Disappointment an emotion I loathed and hated my entire life. Without warning I pushed myself out of my chair letting it clatter to the floor and shouted "I've had enough for 3 years you've given me shit about my intelligence and my lack of motivation I don't care if I can be the best ninja this village has seen or not this is my life and I choose to live it the way I want to not the way you'd want". I took of leaving the house saying that I need time to cool off then I started running into the Nara forest as fast as I can without looking back.

Normal pov

Silence reined over the Nara household as the situation played out and shikamaru left. Shikaku had a concerned frown on his face and Yoshino had her eyes full to the brim with tears realizing her mistake. She rushed to follow her son, but her husband stopped her "Give him time" he said. She collapsed into his arms and started crying her eyes out wanting nothing more than her son in her arms to hold as tightly as she can. Shikaku wasn't any better as he was concerned about the wellbeing of his son, but he kept telling himself that his son needed time.

Shikamaru kept on running even though he felt like giving out any time soon, but his mind was a raging storm of thoughts and ideas. Finally his legs gave out and tears started falling freely from his eyes as he focused about what happened in his house. He has always used the excuse of training being troublesome to hide the true reason behind his hesitance to training. Sometime after discovering he was a genius he was researching in the archives about previous prodigies in the leaf feeling curious to how it feels to be a prodigy. Let's just say what he found out wasn't very pleasing. First was Konoha's copy ninja who lost his entire team and almost lost it to madness. Then, there was Itachi Uchiha who has slaughtered his entire clan except his younger brother in the excuse of testing out his strength and it was a product of burdening him with responsibilities and pushing past his mental limits. Later on he started wondering was that what it is be a prodigy and suddenly he didn't want to be a genius anymore. He started thinking of an excuse so he wouldn't disappoint his parents and came up with his famous excuse.

Shikamaru's personal enemy has always been disappointment as it was one of his many reasons to not train. It is a simple concept really when you become a prodigy people put high expectations on you, but if you fail to deliver you'll be met with nothing but disappointment and scorn so it was easy for him to understand these concepts form a young age.

"Why can't they just leave me alone" was his final thought before regaining his breath and composing his self. He tried to see where he ventured into the forest as he has never been this deep. Everybody in Konoha knew not to venture into Nara clan forest if you aren't a member of said clan. He tried a tracking his footsteps, but it proved for naught so he just continued moving forward. After a while the tree line broke and he arrived to what looked like a clearing with a giant tree in its center.

It appeared that he was just outside the border of the village. As shikamaru was busy analyzing the situation he almost didn't hear the growl that came from the tree. Keyword here almost. He slowly turned to the tree and immediately regretted it exiting a hole in the tree was a 8 feet tall bear with black fur and a scar over his right eye. The bear's eyes burned a hole into his own promising nothing but a slow agonizing death. Shikamaru's mind was moving a million miles an hour trying to find a solution for this problem. Finally, he decided that running was the best option since the bear was bulky and looked extremely heavy so he may has a chance to outrun it. He put everything he had into his legs then ran faster than he did in his entire life and the bear gave chase. At first, it appeared to be working and his heart filled with hope but slowly the bear started catching up and for one dreadful moment lost his concentration and tripped on a vine and his head hit a stone.

As he started struggling to stand up with a bleeding head he saw the bear circling him like a predator wanting to toy with its prey. He sighed and closed his eyes as he felt his consciousness slip away and resigned himself to his fate and waited for the killing blow to come. Surprisingly, it never came as he opened his eyes he saw a man holding a sword that was prodding out of the bear's neck. He couldn't really see the man accurately as his vision started to get bleary. The last thing he saw were a pair of yellow reptilian eyes staring at him then everything went black.