Shadow and Wind: New legends

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Disclaimer: Everything that isn't Kishimoto's is mine. There's not a lot left, now is there? -__-'

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9. The First Mission: Training

First up on the schedule of the new team? Training, of course!

It was a beautiful morning. Of course, it would be impossible to the average Joe to notice this from the middle of one the densest forests of the Country of Fire; the huge trees acted as such good filter that one could not see the sky, barely distinguish between night and day. By looking around however, an artist could be mesmerized by the harmony lush greens and vivid browns.

Unfortunately, Naruto wasn't an artist and beautiful forest bored him as much as waiting for Kakashi usually did. He had gotten up fairly early and had done a couple of exercises, wanting to be in shape when the training would start. But after an hour or so of trying to find something entertaining to do, he decided he couldn't wait anymore and tried to wake up his partner.

"Come on, Shikamaru; less sleeping, more training!"

For a brief moment, Shikamaru wanted to know why his mom wanted to drag him out of bed. She knew that it never worked; why did she bother today? But he stopped himself before asking something stupid. Whatever the stuff was he was sleeping on, it definitely wasn't his bed; so the probability that the person currently trying to mess with his sleep was his mother became nonexistent. He then remembered all the recent events up until today; that left no doubt in his mind about the culprit of the most heinous of crimes: trying to wake him up.

"Get up, man! I'm bored out of my mind, let's do something!"

Damn! I should have mentioned the training would start tomorrow afternoon.

The lazy chuunin turned his body around in an effort to shun the boy next to him: with any luck, maybe Naruto would let him off if feigned being a heavy sleeper. The genin resorted to shouting, but Shikamaru had foreseen that option and simply shrugged it off. He was sure of his victory when he heard raging footsteps trailing off into nothingness.

Unfortunately for Shikamaru, he forgot that one Naruto strong points, if one could call it so, was his unsurpassed talent to annoy people. The blonde genin came back and from the sound the chuunin could make, he was now crouched next to him. The genius simply closed his eyes tighter; no matter what his partner would do, he was ready for him. It was then that he felt something poke his ribs repeatedly before proceeding to do the same to his back…

It didn't take more than thirty seconds before the annoyed sleeper suddenly turned around, savagely ripping the tree branch from the genin that brought it back with him. However this only seemed to please Naruto; there was now no doubt that Shikamaru was awake. He got up, and pointed a finger towards his teammate who had taken the time to sit up.

"Come on, you're awake now; training, training, training!"

"Shut up. You're annoying."

"By the way, that's some bed hair you have."

"…I hate you."

Having now no other choice now than to get up, the lazy chuunin did so and headed for the nearby water source. After the morning toilet he proceeded to tie his hair by using the river as a mirror. As he fixed his hair in a familiar upward ponytail, he gave his new attire a more careful inspection: he had to admit, his vest seemed to go rather well with the rest of his clothes. Too bad it couldn't come in other colors; not that green was a bad in anyway, but he didn't like having this much color, with him already having black pants and a grey shirt. His thoughts quickly moved on; fashion was on his troublesome list, partially – or totally – due to Ino's constant nagging on the subject.

More importantly, this vest was more obvious than having an "I am a shinobi" sticker planted on his back. He knew that common folk out of the hidden villages had little knowledge on ninjas, but even children at the ninja academy knew what this vest represented. He figured that giving the impression that he and Naruto were ordinary people themselves was a good way the avoid trouble and in the worst case, serve to confuse the enemy who was unfortunate enough to underestimate them.

He came back to the place where they had set camp and shoved his vest into the backpack. Naruto was carefully watching his teammate actions, always expecting the next one would lead to the start of some sort of training. When it looked like the fun would actually begin however, he started to doubt his new partner.

"Hum, Shikamaru? Can you really train me?"

The question annoyed the chuunin more than the poking previously had. "If you're not sure I have what's needed for this, why did you wake me up?"

"Ha… huh, I guess training is training right?"

"Eh, whatever. I'm not Kakashi or Asuma, so of course you won't get the best training. But I can do one thing better than they ever could."

"Really now?" said the genin squinting his eyes.

"I can show you your weaknesses and tell you what you need to work on."

This was enough to fire Naruto up with anticipation, but that quickly turned to anger when Shikamaru sat down again, going through his backpack.

"What are you doing now!? Aren't we supposed to be training or something?"

"Yeah, just this question then: what's the nature of your chakra?"

"…what's a chakra nature?"

The chuunin noted that it was the exact same answer he had heard before. He seriously wondered what he had learned at the academy; suddenly remembering that he hadn't learnt anything worth mention either. Most of what he learned came from his dad or captain Asuma. He thought about explaining the concept in depth but he remembered the Bingo Book and tried to keep things as simple as possible.

"What do you know about the elements?"

"Not much."

"Ok, let's start with that then. There are five principal elements: Earth Fire Water Wind and Lightning. They lie at the basis of most phenomena occurring in our lives. They're so important that the five most powerful countries are named after those elements."

"Ah… ok, and what does that have to do with me?"

"You'll notice that most offensive jutsus have to do with elements: Sasuke's fireballs or his new lightning techniques are a good example."

"Awesome! But wait, does that mean that I can't learn a technique if I don't have a chakra nature?"

"Well, you could say that; there are some elemental techniques that most shinobi can learn to perform even if they don't have the element in question, but they won't be able to master them or learn the more powerful jutsus."

"O.K.! so, in other words: they're important if I want to be a better ninja. Well in that case, isn't it better if I master them all?"

Shikamaru went on to explain how hard it was to master one element to begin with. The first element a student mastered was usually the one the shinobi was aligned with and therefore the easier to master; mastering a second element was so hard that even most jounin hadn't done so. Now in order for him to improve, one of the most pressing matters was finding Naruto's chakra nature since Shikamaru already knew his.

"So how do you do that?"

"Well, usually we use special chakra sheets to easily determine the affinity since it instantly reacts to the smallest sign of chakra nature. Unfortunately I don't any in my bag."

"Aw man! What do we do now? You're talking about all this cool stuff and I can't even learn it: this sucks!"

"Well, there is another method; I didn't consider it because it's kind of a hassle. But we have no choice, I guess."

"Alright! So, what do I have to do?"

First, Shikamaru had to make sure Naruto could draw out chakra around his hand at will. When the genin had reached satisfying results, the chuunin asked him to put his hand on the bark of a tree and release violent bursts of chakra through his hands. The genius looked at the results and concluded that demon container didn't posses a fire affinity; burn marks would have appeared on the tree otherwise.

Next they went by the river and found a spot where the current was almost nonexistent. Under the instruction of his partner, Naruto dipped his hand in the water and proceeded to draw out chakra like he had previously done with the tree. His teammate shook his head mentioning that bubbles would have meant the genin's chakra nature was water. The next target of his chakra bursts was Shikamaru: he would feel a shock if Naruto's affinity was lightning. The chuunin reluctantly offered his hands and felt relief when there was no trace of the unpleasant tingle.

"Well, up next is earth nature."

"Okay, what do I do?"

"Hit the tree with a chakra enhanced fist."

"…Eh!? Um, you sure about this?"

"Trust me."

Naruto wrapped his hand in chakra and punched the tree with all his might. The results were painfully obvious. The chuunin couldn't help but smile as he saw Naruto rubbing his poor hand."

"That hurt!"

"Of, course it did; if it hadn't, it would mean that you're also earth type, and seeing you already have a wind affinity things would get odd."

"Wait a second; we haven't even done the wind test yet!"

"Actually, we did: remember the first test we did?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Look at the place where you put your hand. It's not very obvious, but if you observe carefully, you can see small cuts here and there."

"Oh yeah, you can."

""Wind cuts", in other words, your affinity is wind.

"Alright!" He threw a fist towards the heavens with a victorious smile, but his expression quickly changed when he saw he bruised hand. "Wait a second! That means you knew all along! I punched that tree for nothing back there!"

"'Took you a while to figure it out. Anyway, that'll teach you to poke me awake." He replied with amusement.

"…I hate you."

Shikamaru explained Naruto that he would need to train in order to master his nature. While they were on the subject, the genin asked his partner what was his chakra nature since he used shadow jutsu. Shikamaru replied that some disciplines like medical technique and most of taijutsu did not rely on nature manipulation; the same could be said for his shadow biding.

Not wanting to dwell on the subject further – and admit his knowledge was limited on the arts of his own clan, the lazy genius lead his teammate towards a clearing and challenged him to a fight. The blonde was ecstatic: finally some ass kicking!

"But, there's a stipulation; no ninja arts"

"What!?"

"There's something I want to show you."

The kid agreed: it didn't change the fact that he was stronger than Shikamaru. The genin patiently waited for the signal to launch himself at his opponent. He jumped and threw a punch that was easily dodged. He landed near his target from where tried a missile drop kick that missed as well. He quickly got up and threw a flurry of punches and then mixed it up with some kicks here and then…

It took him around ten minutes of vain effort until he stopped to catch his breath.

"What's wrong? Tired?"

"Shut up and stop dodging, damn it!"

"Why? It's not like I enjoy getting hit, you know. Anyway, I guess you can see for yourself one thing you could work on: you rely too much on your clones when you fight at close range."

"… And that's a bad thing?"

The genius answered by telling Naruto that focusing too much using Shadow Clones resulted in him neglecting his own close range training. While this wasn't really a disadvantage due to his stamina, combat training could significantly improve his overall battle prowess.

"In other words, for an enemy that Neji, Kiba or Sasuke could defeat alone, you'd need three or more clones. On the other hand if could beat that enemy without using clones…"

"…I'd be that more dangerous with my clones. I get it now! But you're not bad yourself to be dodging my moves like that."

"Well, that's all I'm good at; I'm no better than you at attacking. I found learning the various combat styles to much work and asked captain Asuma to train me to be good at defense. Anyway, that's that for taijutsu; what are your known jutsus?"

Naruto's known jutsus were the Shadow Clone, Transformation and Summoning; he also knew the Sexy and Harem techniques, but Shikamaru didn't find them useful.

The chuunin was impressed; Naruto was a powerful shinobi without even knowing all the genin jutsus. He made a mental note to teach his partner the Body Switch and Body Flicker techniques when he could. He'd also have to teach a little about genjutsu but it would have to wait; for now what picked his interest was Uzumaki's trademark Jutsu. The skill had always intrigued him and now was a good time to have some of his questions answered.

"Naruto, how many clones can you make?"

"I dunno, I can make has much as want, but I can make about twenty without feeling like I'm wasting chakra."

"Didn't you say you summoned a thousand of them in your fight against Gaara?"

Naruto's mood darkened somewhat. "Back then I relied on the Kyuubi's power. I don't want to use his power anymore."

Shikamaru found wise to immediately return to the topic at hand. "So, hum… how do you control your clones? Do you give them orders like the normal Clone technique?"

"Not really, they kind of do their own things. I can give them a general idea of what to do at first, but after that what they do is fully up to them."

The news shocked Shikamaru. He never would have thought that Naruto's clone could move independently from Naruto's will. They were like summons in that aspect. The chuunin then asked how if Naruto knew when his clones disappeared. The positive answer made him conclude that his own theory about the Shadow Clones was totally false.

He thought Naruto's jutsu was an advance version of the normal Clone technique; the things he learned taught him the two techniques worked in completely different ways. Naruto obviously didn't realize this, but there was much potential behind the technique.

"Naruto, can your clones use jutsus as well?"

"Yup, that's how my Harem Technique works."

Shikamaru had a feeling he was about to make a great discovery, but he needed one last piece: how much information Naruto could get from his clones. He asked the blonde genin if he could have one of his clones follow him. Naruto wondered why but Shikamaru said it was a surprise and that the experience would be ruined if he knew what he was going to do. Naruto did what he was asked and the clone followed the Nara heir into the forest. When they were out of sight of the real Naruto, Shikamaru explained the process of the experience to the clone.

"So basically, I'm going to stab you with this kunai."

"What the Hell!?"

"Relax, it's not like it's going to hurt or anything."

"Oh, right. But why would you do that?"

"Don't worry; you'll get it soon. Ready?"

The Shadow Naruto agreed, and the next moment he was nothing but dust. The chuunin headed back to the clearing, looking forward to the results of his little trial.

"So Naruto, is your clone still there?"

"No, he's gone."

"What happened to him?"

"You… stabbed him with your kunai? What the Hell?" Naruto was surprised by what the chuunin had done; so much that he hadn't realized the real goal of the experiment or how amazed Shikamaru was.

"That's not really important. What's really important is: how did you know?"

"…Ah that is weird!"

Shikamaru quickly informed his teammate of his discovery: whatever the Naruto clones learned, it was also learned by the original. That made the technique very useful as a scouting tool and various information gathering missions as much as it was useful in combat; no wonder it was a forbidden Jutsu.

"Okay… but what does that have to do with training?"

Shikamaru thought about the best way to make Naruto understand before answering. "Let's say you had to write a sentence a hundred times, what would you do?"

"Well, I'd use my clones"

"Why?"

"'Cause two people writing at the same time things get done twice as fast. With a hundred clones I'd just have everybody write the sentence once and I'd be done with it."

"Exactly; well what you just learned does the same thing for your training."

"…huh?"

Shikamaru understood he had gone too fast for Naruto and tried again. "Let's say you have this awesome new technique you can learn, but for normal people it would take a hundred days to do so. Well in your case, if you trained with one of your shadow clones for a the result would be that same as if you had trained alone for two days; with three of you, it would be like you had trained for three days; with ten of you, ten; and for hundred of you…"

"I'd get a hundred days worth of training in one day…Oh, I get it now. So if use my clones, I can learn things super-fast. That's Awesome!"

The newbie chuunin asked for some time in order to incorporate Naruto's newfound ability into his new training. A half hour later Shikamaru came up with course of action.

The first thing Nara did was sent another message to Kakashi asking him to send some equipment to the village they were currently heading to. After that, Naruto's training finally began. His first task according to Shikamaru was to refine his chakra control to at least his own level. For that Naruto not only had to be able to walk on water without sinking, he also had to learn to channel his chakra without using the hand signs. After that, they would head to the village the lazy ninja mentioned where they would further their training.

According to Shikamaru's calculations it would have normally taken Naruto a month or two to reach this level of control. Fortunately, thanks to his extraordinary stamina and his Shadow Clones he was making incredible progress in record time. Meanwhile, Shikamaru had Naruto learn the Body Switch technique. He himself hadn't completely mastered the jutsu, as he still needed to do a hand sign in order to perform it, but for now this was the most useful skill he could teach his teammate.

By the time they finally left the forest in order to head to the village, Naruto was capable to perform the Body Exchange technique on short notice. He was also able to channel chakra without moving and had enough control to walk run and even fight over water. He hadn't enough time to revise his fighting methods but he and Shikamaru worked on some battle formations and tactics. He was even able to surprise the chuunin with some of his ideas.

As for Shikamaru, he did not train at all. He kept telling himself it was due to Naruto's training, but deep inside he knew he had just slacked off. He used the time he didn't spend watching over Naruto sleeping or reading his father's studies. Even if he read some of the training scrolls, he only had Naruto's development in mind.

The chuunin was torn between two thoughts: On one hand he was a little mad at Naruto; the kid had made training look so easy it was ridiculous. He was now a chuunin and Naruto was already way out of his league in terms of battle prowess. The genin still lacked refinement in the more subtle arts of the shinobi, like infiltration, but currently Shikamaru couldn't help but feel his teammate would make a better chuunin than him. He was jealous of his remarkable growth and even wondered if he shouldn't ask Naruto to teach him the Shadow Clone Technique.

On the other hand he was quite happy of the current development; if things went this smoothly Naruto would be doing all the work. All he would have to do was train him properly and maybe assist him here and there. Heck, he defeated and demon possessed kid with only half the abilities he had planned for him to learn. Maybe defeating Kohaku Hyuuga wasn't such a farfetched idea. He mentally slapped himself; of course it was a crazy idea; they were up against an S-rank criminal. But seeing there was a ninety percent chance that he was a close range user, maybe using this and that according to a certain formation…

In the end Shikamaru seemed to have forgotten one of the most important reasons he wanted to go after Naruto on this mission. He also lacked the motivation that pushed Naruto to always improve. Unfortunately for him, fate had just the thing to drag him out of slacking.

Promising start... for one of them, anyway! Be careful, danger is never far!

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A/N: New chapter; Joy! Also, you might want to take a look at chapter 7 again; I tweaked it a little. Look forward to chapter 10: now it's Shikamaru's turn to do a bit of growing.