Hey everyone, here's the next chapter. Sorry if there's mistakes, I just finished it about half an hour ago. The last chapter will be up soon I hope. It's more of an epilogue but still worth it in my eyes.

Hope you enjoy,

Trouble 1

ps. sorry about the missing line breaks, I fixed it :)
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Reason 3: No one else likes them to either. Eventually.

"We're definitely going to beat you today Shikamaru!" Ino exclaimed as soon as they entered the court yard the next day. Shikamaru was walking behind the group but didn't find it hard to pick out her voice.

"How? By adding more rules?" he asked quietly, yet she still heard him.

"If that's how it has to be then yes, I will add more rules."

"Why don't you just make a rule that says 'Shikamaru isn't allowed to win'?"

"Because that wouldn't be fun and you'd use it as an excuse to fall asleep again."

"I won by falling asleep the last two days," he pointed out, making the blond girl think about it for a moment.

"Then that's the new rule. You're not allowed to fall asleep during our game," she stated triumphantly.

"Seriously? Why should I listen to that rule?"

"Because I'll hurt you if you don't."

"Even though you haven't followed through with either of your other threats, I'm still not chancing it. Too troublesome."

"Then you won't fall asleep?"

"I won't."

"Yes! I win again!" Ino exclaimed as they got to their counting tree.

"We haven't even started yet."

"Then start counting already!" Shikamaru simply rolled his eyes and began his long count to one hundred.
-

"I see you," Naruto heard Shikamaru say.

The blond boy knew for a fact that there was no other player nearby because no one liked hiding this close to the forest so he had to be talking to him.

"Darn it!" he exclaimed.

He climbed out from behind a small bolder to see Shikamaru facing the opposite dirrection with his hands in his pockets. He lazily looked over his shoulder towards Naruto, his face clearly bored.

"Oh, there was someone here," the Nara muttered to himself before facing forward and walking away.

Naruto stared at him, definitely not expecting a line like that from him. He expected something more like "I saw you from a mile away" or "Your hair made it too easy." Well, he was a genius so maybe a "I knew it" or something like that. This made the pineapple haired boy way too suspicious for even Naruto to ignore.

So, making sure to stay extra stealthy, Naruto followed Shikamaru as he looked for the others. The dark haired boy walked around for a moment before stopping under a climbable tree.

"I see you," he said again.

A moment later Kiba jumped out of the tree swearing. Shikamaru simply muttered "Thought so" and continued on, and Naruto continued following him. Kiba gave him a weird look as he passed but there was no way he was going to stop and explain.

He stayed quiet as Shika came to a large trash can big enough to fit a six year old.

"I see you," he said for the third time. Shikamaru waited for about half a minute before continuing on towards a new possible spot and did it again.

The Nara repeated this about a dozen times before he found them all and Naruto was still confused to why he had done so.

"I found you all," Shikamaru said once everyone was present at the counting tree. "Can I take my nap now?"

"But that's impossible! How did you find us so quickly?" Ino asked.

"It was easy," he said, a faint smirk on his face. "You practically revealed yourselves."

With that statement, everything seemed to make sense to Naruto.

"So that's what you were doing!" he exclaimed happily. "You weren't even looking for us. You just went up to random hiding spots and said 'I see you' and if we were there, we'd come out. Wow, Shikamaru! You really are smart."

The smirk disappeared from Shikamaru's face as Ino's became furious.

"That was cheating!"

"It wasn't against the rules," Shika stated in his defense. Ino was silent for a moment before sighing.

"I give up Shikamaru. You win," she said making the whole group look at her in a confused manor. "Apparently there's no rule that will keep you from winning other than the one about you not allowed to win. But you winning all the time is no fun to anyone else so, I'm sorry Shikamaru, you're no longer allowed to play Hide-n-seek with us."

"Ok."

"Ok? Just OK?"

"Yep," he said as he sat under the tree.

"No begging to be let back in? No bargaining? No promising not to win so much anymore?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"I'd rather take a nap," he said simply before closing his eyes.

"Fine! Naruto you have to seek," she said before stomping off, not even giving the other blond a chance to answer.

As the others scurried off, Naruto quickly turned towards the tree and started counting. Just as before he got to the twenties and realized he didn't know what else was between that and a hundred. He was about to make them up when someone chimed in.

"Twenty-six," Shikamaru said from the other side of the tree.

"Huh?"

"After twenty-five is twenty-six."

"Oh, thanks!" Naruto said happily before continuing on, occasionally being corrected by Shikamaru. But in the end, he was able to get to a hundred the correct way around. As he ran off he thought that maybe Shikamaru not playing hide-n-seek was better. Not because he didn't like playing with him, but because this way they were all happy. That and he might just learn to count on his own if Shika kept correcting him.