In a forest deep in the heart of the fire country, a worm struggled against the mud that prevented him access from anyplace else in this forest. The worm knew of his plight, and envisioned getting home, wherever home may be. He had grand dreams, to be the first worm to crawl through the forest undetected by the natural predators of the forest. A worm's struggle that none knew, nor cared, of. Even if no one knew of his existence, he would press on through the forest. On this particular night it was raining hard, and the worm found it hard to move, but on the upside the predators couldn't find him. Not that it mattered, because eventually he was squished and his journey was tragically ended. All he could see before his death was a small boy who looked like he was about to die as well. The worm cursed the boy's existence and silently died.
The boy in question was indeed scared out of his life. His blonde hair ran down his face and on his clothes a combination of blood, mud, and sweat stained them, giving him the look of a stereotypical pre-teen about to die. Without warning a shuriken flew past his face and connected only slightly, leaving a scar and a trail of blood in it's wake. He could hear a voice taunting him, but couldn't make out the exact words. The boy took his only option and ran further, ignoring the sharp pains in his body and the odd kunai or shuriken that flew by. This damn life wasn't for him. As he was running, he thought back to his days at the Academy.
"Damnit, Shinji, get it right!" the teacher yelled when the young child failed yet another ninjutsu.
Shinji stared dejectedly at the ground as his classmates each showed him up and did the ninjutsu pefectly. He wondered to himself what was so hard about Kawamiri no Jutsu, as it was the basic ninjutsu. He never knew why he couldn't do ninjutsu or genjutsu very well when his classmates could at least adequately to them. His attempts were always met with failure and even all of his hard work couldn't dispel the fact that he had no talent. To make matters worse, his taijutsu was terrible as well, and he probably would remain an academy student forever. He looked back at his teacher, who was still fuming at the talent-less boy.
"Shikamaru-sensei," Shinji said quietly, "Can I please talk to you after school?"
"If it's about quitting, forget it," Shikamaru said flatly, "Your father would never forgive this academy."
"Please, Shikamaru-sensei," Shinji pleaded, "You know as well as I do that I'll never be a good ninja."
Shikamaru exhaled loudly and gave Shinji a stern glare. He knew of people with no talent. Rock Lee and Uzumaki Naruto to name a few. However, both were able to overcome their shortcomings (although Naruto had slightly cheated) and today were great ninja. He had already told Shinji of Naruto and Lee, but decided to try the tale again.
"Shinji, there have been peop-"
"-Shut up!" Shinji yelled, cutting Shikamaru off, "They both had some degree of talent, and you know it!"
"Shinji, the time will come when your skills as a ninja will be tested. You will be a ninja no matter what. You may as well acquire some talent, or else your life will be over in a flash."
Shinji secretly cursed his old teacher in his mind. Shikamaru had a way of being too honest. The more he thought of those kinds of days at the academy, thre more depressed he became. Not that he could exactly be optimistic and think of a good day at the academy, as he had never had one. He never even had any friends. The two others on his genin squad weren't exactly what he could consider friends. One was a porker and the other was vain, their teammate having graduated some time ago. He cursed his luck that he was one of the fillers that the Hokage used to fill up the genin squads. His thoughts clouded his vision, however, and he crashed into a rather large boy only a year older than him. The person pursuing him appeared, but something seemed different about him.
"Chouji," the pursuer said, "Could you go grab my body? We'll turn this guy in to the Hokage."
The obese boy nodded and ran off where the pursuer had come from. It wasn't long before he emerged with a beautiful girl a year older than Shinji slung over his shoulder. In a swift movement, Chouji placed Ino down and extended his arm to an impossible size and grabbed the pursuer. The girl groaned and got up and the pursuer couldn't really do anything confined like that. The girl looked at Chouji and nodded approvingly, then shifted her gaze to Shinji.
"Good job running from him, Shinji," she said in a mocking tone, causing Shinji to look down at his feet.
"Ino, don't be so hard on him. He is only a fresh graduate," Chouji said to the girl, who only scoffed in response.
"Why did they give us a fresh graduate? I only wish Shikamaru was here. That was Team 10, not this Shinji kid."
Chouji looked at Shinji with an expression Shinji couldn't read. Was it pity? He looked back over at Ino.
"In any case, I suppose we should get back to Asuma-sensei," Chouji suggested.
Ino shrugged, Shinji was still the depressed, and the pursuer had fallen silent. He must have given up his struggle.
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"Lee!"
"Gai-sensei!"
"Lee!"
"Gai-sensei!"
"Le-"
"SHUT UP!"
The two yelling each other's names had fallen silent and stared at a man who only took another drag of his cigarette once he had said what was on everyone's mind.
"But we must cry each other names in the memory of the Fountain of Youth!" the shorter of the two yellers complained.
"Screw the 'Fountain of Youth'," the smoker said, even doing the little quotations with his hands, then pointed at the larger one, "And you, Gai! You promised you wouldn't do this around me! Our teams are here to practice, don't...do that."
Gai looked over at his younger clone, and gave a shrug. He could manage a "Sorry, Lee" from his lips before sitting down on a nearby convenient rock. Lee's two nearby teammates exhaled in relief that it had finally stopped, and were playing Rock-Paper-Scissors to decide who gets to fight Shinji. As it turns out, the boy lost the game and had to fight Shinji.
"Aw, shit," he cursed, "Shinji sucks! This isn't training for me at all. Gai! Why can't Lee train against Shinji?"
"Because Shinji sucks?" Gai suggested, to which Asuma didn't react, "Neji, just get over it. You're already at about a chunnin level by now, so you can just relax."
"But I must beat the Main House and show them that their-"
"System is inherently flawed and that I am the rightful ruler. Am I right, Neji?"
Neji was at a loss of words for a moment, and decided to just take it. Tenten needed the training anyway. She was only a girl, after all. Tenten sharpened her weapons, Gai and Lee were busy doing pushups for no real reason, Neji sat there glaring and Asuma wondered why he chose this team instead of Kurenai's team. They would be better for training and Asuma would get to stare at Kurenai. Oh those eyes! Oh those legs! Asuma fantasized about her daily and could only imagine the things he would do to her. He was snapped out of his daydream by his girl student's voice.
"Asuma, why are you drooling?"
Asuma quickly went back to reality and was faced with his three students, who were looking at him enquiringly. He cleared his throat and pointed at Gai's team.
"You are to train with them," he explained, "Shinji, train with Neji-" Shinji went pale, Neji almost started about favoritism but caught the look in Gai's eye "Ino, with Tenten-" Tenten and Ino wanted to cry sexist but let it be "And Chouji with Lee." both of whom thought that their matchup was slightly random.
Ino and Tenten's match was short and unexciting. Tenten basically overwhelmed Ino with weapons. Ino looked over at a disappointed Asuma then Lee and Chouji's fight began.
"Baika no Jutsu!" Chouji yelled and multiplied by ten in size, "Meat Tank!"
This is the part where Shinji couldn't help but grin. Chouji started spinning very fast and came towards Lee, who dodged in response to this technique. Now Lee is going to break Chouji out of his jutsu by hitting him into a tree then overwhelm him with taijutsu before he can object, Shinji thought. Which is exactly what happened. He smiled that his assumption was correct. If only he was as strong as he was smart. Then he realized it was his turn.
He faced Neji who seemed like he'd rather be anywhere except for there. Still, Neji would destroy him in an instant if he screwed up. He had studied the nature of Neji's Kaiten. He expels chakra from many pores in his body and spins wildly, forming an ultimate defence against anything. However, it had a slight start up and slow down time, that Shinji decided was Kaiten's weakness. He would take advantage of it.
Shinji started off running and jumped before he hit the un-amused Neji, and threw a trio of shuriken, which Neji decided to Kaiten. Shinji grinned at this and threw two more shuriken, one to collide with the other three getting reflected back at him, the other to hit Neji as Kaiten slowed down. However, Shinji had calculated off by about a second, and Neji decided he was bored and ran over and closed Shinji's tenketsu. The battle was over.
The only one with an eye to see what Shinji had done was the only one who clapped for Shinji. Everyone watching the fight turned around to face Nara Shikamaru, Shinji's academy teacher. The old member of Team 10 who had recently been promoted to the Chunnin rank. He was actually younger than everyone on Gai's team by a year and was only older than Shinji by a year. Hailed as a genius, Shikamaru thought he was greatly overestimated by his fan club. But enough about him.
"Shikamaru!" Ino exclaimed with glee and ran over to hug him.
"Shikamaru..." Asuma trailed, "Why are you clapping?"
Shikamaru grinned at Shinji and only gave a simple answer.
"Because he was intelligent enough to see Kaiten's weakness."
Neji was particularily surprised. "The Kaiten has no weakness!"
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow at Neji. Overconfident bastard. It's not like Neji would be a jounin anytime soon.
"I just came to inform you of Chunnin exam registrations," Shikamaru stated, handing Asuma and Gai some papers to fill out, "I would like you to fill them out right now, please. It's troublesome to find you guys."
Gai instantly filled out his papers. His team was totally ready for the Chunnin exams. Asuma was a little more hesitant and his papers remained empty for a while. Shikamaru walked over to Asuma.
"Asuma, I know you know that Ino and Chouji are good enough for the Chunnin exams, and as for Shinji...I think...he is also ready."
Asuma looked at Shikamaru in surprise.
"It's just my opinion, Asuma, so feel free to disregard it." And with that, he went to collect Gai's papers.
Asuma filled his out instantly and went to catch up with Shikamaru. He always thought that boy had great intuition, almost like a Hokage. He grinned to himself. He would never tell Shikamaru that until he was on his deathbed.
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After some more getting owned by Neji, Shinji said goodbye to everyone and walked towards home. He dreaded the eventual return home, however, and did things to make him get home slower. He traced his steps with his feet, walked slower, walked in circles, and decided to stop at Ichiraku Ramen. Better than going home to his bastard brother. He gave his order to the hot ramen lady and awaited his bowl of ramen, trying to not think about the inevitable battle of the wits his brother would give him. Once he was done with his ramen, he grudgingly walked towards home. When he reached his front door, his mind raced with things to say, but he gave up in the end. He could deal with Hikaru for a bit. He opened the door to find his elder brother grinning ear to ear.
"Oh, why Shinji, welcome home," his brother said, his voice dripping of sweetness, to which Shinji was not amused.
"Hello, Hikaru," Shinji said, about to walk past his brother, who didn't oblige and blocked his path instead.
"Oh, Shinji" Hikaru said, his voice gradually losing it's sweetness, "Did you win a fight today?"
"Shut up, Hikaru, and let me through."
"Oh, let me through, the little one says!" Hikaru said, mocking him, and a more cynical voice taking the place of his sweet one.
"Just do it."
"What are you going to do, Shinji? Lose furiously at me?"
"Funny, Hikaru. Now let me through." He gave another push, but to no avail.
"I work with what I've got. Kind of like you. Except you have nothing to work with."
"I'll be careful not to cut myself on your wit."
"Likewise, little one."
"Don't call me that."
"Well, you are little, in every regard possible." Shinji attempted a punch that Hikaru easily deflected. "Oh-ho! The little one fights back!"
"Just shut up, Hikaru, and let me through."
"Hmm...let me think about it..." Hikaru said in mock thought "No. I want you to go buy some groceries."
"Where are mom and dad?"
"Who cares? Go get some milk. You'll never be strong without milk. Well...you'll never be strong, but you'll certainly be less weak."
"Go fuck yourself."
"I love you too."
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Shinji quickly collected the items he needed and brought them up to the shopkeep, fully aware of what was about to happen next.
"Oh, Shinji," the shopkeep said, "How are you tonight? Isn't it a little late to be up? I was just about to close, you know."
"Yeah, Hikaru wanted me to get all of this stuff."
"Oh, Hikaru. Your brother is such a nice boy and you two look so much alike."
She was right about one thing. Shinji always knew he and his brother almost looked the same, except his brother was three years older than him. Both of them had medium-length blonde hair, slender faces, were tall and skinny, and really there was only two truly noticable difference between them. Hikaru was a bit taller and had green eyes, whereas Shinji had blue eyes. The identifying mark between the two primarily being their eyes. Shinji ignored the resemblance and claimed that he wasn't a monster, but his brother was.
"Thank you for the items," Shinji said as he walked out the door, only to bump into an older chunnin.
He gave a slight yelp of surprise and the chunnin in question whom he had bumped into smiled slightly. He wasn't too happy as his hair had been disturbed but he excused this genin. He knew of the Shinji's potential and was the whole reason that Shinji had made it through the academy. Shinji never knew of this man's deed, nor would he ever.
"Izumo!" Shinji said in surprise, "I'm sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going."
"S'okay," Izumo replied, "You were probably too busy thinking of how to kick your next opponent's ass. You've got a good mind on you, Shinji. Don't let it go to waste."
There it was. Another comment on his mind. Shinji was no Shikamaru. He couldn't outwit his opponent. He choked up in battle. Why did these people insist that he could be a great ninja? He knew the basics and had an above average intelligence, and that was all. As he burned that question into his mind, he realized that there was no use thinking about it, and he would tell his father that he would quit being a ninja tomorrow.
Yeah. That would work.