/AN\
Hey!
Again very sorry for the long jump, but nothing too interesting happens in those two years. Once again the first few chapters will summarise what happened during the time period and any specific moment that is relevant will show up as a flashback.
Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think and any questions you have and I'll happily answer.
xx
SC
"Speaking."
'Thinking'
Jutsus
Chapter 25 - Time Flies
"Can you believe it's been two years since we were at our own promotion party?" Masaru laughed as he threw his arms around Shizuka's and Kaito's shoulders as they walked towards the bar where the party was being held.
"Two years for you, Masa, six months more for us." Shizuka sighed as she allowed herself to be dragged into her tallest teammate's side.
"Details. How's active duty been treating you, Zuka?" Masaru ruffled her hair and allowed her to pull herself out of his side hug.
"The year of light duties I took so that I could train paid off." Shizuka put her hands in her pockets. "But it's nice to be home too."
As soon as they entered the bar Kaito and Masaru moved to greet some Chūnin near the bar while she was left to look around the room.
There were a good number of Chūnin she didn't recognise.
After the Uchiha Massacre Shizuka took on a much lighter schedule of missions and instead dedicated herself to the task force Inoichi had put her in. She had ended up only having missions related to the task force and this caused her to spend most of her time in the village.
To fill in the time she wasn't working at Intelligence she trained with her father or was left to her own devices. Once a week she would join Kouta and Kaito on his specialised training or she would train alone with Kouta when Kaito was away. When both were away and she had the time she would try to track down Kakashi and pester him for a new lightning jutsu. The Jōnin would demonstrate as many times as she asked and disappear after observing for a few minutes.
After a little over a year of light duties and heavy training, Shizuka was recommended by Aoba and Kouta for a Tokubetsu Jōnin promotion, but she had by then fallen behind on the required mission count. This led her to take on a nearly consecutive streak of missions for the last several months, which meant she was barely home.
Shuffling to the side to allow more Chūnin to enter the bar she smiled in greeting and returned to scanning the crowd. Easily spotting the guests of honour she moved towards them.
"Reiji-kun, congratulations on your promotion." Shizuka approached the group of recently promoted Chūnin and shook hands with the Yamanaka. "Hope we get the chance to work together sometime."
"Shizuka-chan! Thank you for coming! I hope we do too." The blond smiled and the two moved to sit in one of the booths that had been booked for the party. "You could have told me about the challenge though."
"I wouldn't dare interfere with tradition." Shizuka snorted as she eyes the people around them. "Have you been introduced to any of the Chūnin yet?"
"Hai, Emiko introduced me to a couple, but there are some Tokujō and Jōnin that I haven't met."
"I'll introduce you sometime, but I can't see any of my friends here so it'll have to wait."
"How have you been? I haven't seen you since your fifteenth birthday party two months ago and you missed the last barbeque."
"Hai, I was on a long mission for the last few weeks." Shizuka shrugged. "I was nominated by Aoba-Senpai, the head of the sensory squad, for a Tokubetsu Jōnin promotion, but I needed to increase my mission count."
"Tokujō! So sensory and tracking speciality?"
"Sensory and infiltration, but tracking isn't too far off either. It should be made official in a month or so." Shizuka grinned. "You'll have more catching up to do."
"I like a challenge."
The two laughed and were soon joined by other of the recently promoted Chūnin who asked her about the different divisions and advice for the coming months.
Just a week later Shizuka was called for an infiltration mission and possible assassination with her uncle as the only other person on the team.
'This isn't suspicious at all.' Shizuka rolled her eyes as she ran ahead of her uncle, her senses spread for any signs of life.
Deciding to keep her comments to herself, for now, she waited until they set up camp the first night to bring up her thoughts on the situation.
"So, Kouta-Sensei finally gave in to the requests?" Shizuka glanced across the little fire where their dinner was roasting at her uncle who looked up sharply from his book. "What, why else send me on an assassination mission with a Jōnin and former ANBU as my only support just before my promotion to Tokujō?"
"I told them you'd figure it out." Daichi sighed as he put his book away and shifted his position so that his elbows rested on his knees and his chin rested on his clasped hands. "Reducing your mission intake took their focus away, but now that you're back they have been more insistent in testing you."
"And they let you be the one to test me? Isn't there a conflict?"
"I've technically left ANBU. But I still have contact with some people there and will occasionally do some scouting." Daichi paused to observe his niece. "You know they don't say when they will test you. You've been on their watch list for a while."
"So I've been told." Shizuka shook her head. "I'm not ready, even if I pass I don't want to join just yet."
"I know. Kouta and I have made that part clear to them. When, and if, you want to join all you have to do is ask and we'll get you into their training program, from what I hear you won't have an issue there."
"Kouta-Sensei has been preparing us, Masaru isn't interested in ANBU, but he joins occasionally at least for the training."
"Kaito still has a few ways to go, but he's on the watch list too. You have quite the head start though on him though."
Shizuka tilted her head as she contemplated that information. She knew it had a lot to do with who she trained with, but also due to her skills in infiltration and sensing.
She was well versed in the pros and cons of joining, having gone through them with her father and her sensei several times over the years. She was pretty set on her decision to join in the possible if a bit distant, future. Her uncle seemed to realise she wouldn't add anything to the topic and seemed to relax his posture.
"Get some rest, I'll take first watch." With a mumbled goodnight Shizuka made herself comfortable and fell into a light doze.
The mission went smoothly. They had been hired to assassinate a merchant with several ties to a corrupt politician to send a message to his associates that they were on to his trail.
It wasn't her first assassination mission, but it was the first one she was in charge and fully expected to take action herself. When the time came, she slid into the target's office and completed the mission without any hitches.
Obviously, something had to happen.
On the way back to the village, Shizuka identified four high ranking shinobi lying within her range in their way to get back into the ire country. They tried circling around but they would risk falling into a trap, so they pushed ahead to meet their opponents head-on.
The Nara's didn't even share their surprise to see Iwa ninja instead of Grass. Though Shizuka couldn't help but let a small smile slip through at her uncle's amused snicker.
Pulling out her tantōs, she didn't need to say much to her uncle before he connected his shadow to hers as she sprinted full speed ahead. While faking a slash, she waited until last minute to dance around the woman's attempt at parrying her blade and instead moved on to the man next to her. She felt the moment her uncle's shadow disconnected from her and launched into the first woman's throat.
"Nara! Watch the shadows!" The man furthest from Shizuka called as he launched to the side, his hands flying through handsigns.
Their fast attack had made the situation slightly more even, three enemies for the two of them. The man she had targeted wasn't too tall, but he was much bulkier and Shizuka could tell he had average chakra reserves at best. Her uncle was already engaged with the other two ninjas, the man who yelled earlier who was an earth ninjutsu user and a fire user.
Using her speed and agility to continuously move around her opponent's strikes she moved under his arm and slid a blade between his ribs and with a twist the other blade went into his neck. Pulling both blades out she pushed him forward and turned towards the other battle going on.
Her uncle was handling himself just fine against the last two opponents, but now she was free to help.
The only issue in this situation was that neither her or her uncle were necessarily the best to fight against a fire user. Both of them had wind as their primary nature which was weak against fire. On the other hand, Shizuka had lightning which was strong against Earth, and she was sure her uncle could find a way around the chakra nature disadvantage issue.
The decision was taken from her hands as her uncle caught the fire user with a strong gust of wind towards the trees, and hence towards where she stood.
Not one to waste an opportunity, Shizuka launched her shadow to pierce the man's heart and lung.
As the now dead ninjutsu user fell to the ground, his last standing comrade, the Earth user, stood between Shizuka and her uncle. Sending a pointed look at her uncle, Shizuka launched forward towards the last enemy nin, her shadows already stretching to full range of seven metres.
The woman started on the handsigns for an Earth wave, probably to stop the young Nara's momentum and give her time to retreat, or better, escape. Shizuka counted the seconds between the waves of Earth that were meant to throw her off balance and continues forward, her opponent continuing their retreat.
The woman had become too preoccupied with keeping Shizuka's shadows away and thus had forgotten Daichi, who had jumped into the trees and sent his shadow around to capture the woman from behind.
"Raiton Dan: Ibuki!" Shizuka flew through the handsigns before releasing what looked like a little ball of lightning towards her captured opponent. (Lightning Release Bullet: Powerful Breath)
"That is new." Daich deadpanned as he released the jutsu and jumped to the electrocuted woman's side. "Kakashi-san taught you?"
"Hai! Well more like he showed me how to do three reasonably strong jutsus, gave a warning on safety, 'supervised' it for a few months and then said I'd be fine training on my own." Shizuka shrugged. "It took me a year to actually get it this consistent."
"Well, you never made it easy for yourself with the number of projects you took on." Daichi bent down to shuffle through the contents of the woman's pouches. "In any case, it's a nice trump card to pull out."
"Hai. Hey, did you notice the sparks in spreading out of the bullet?" Shizuka asked as she did the same on the other fallen shinobi, her uncle only answered with a hum, "Do you think it's possible to discharge lightning around you, like a little field to throw people out of your range?"
"Possibly, but I'm the wrong person to ask. Find Kakashi and ask him." Daichi stood with a few scrolls in his hands. "Why would you want that anyway? You have a close range style so you want your opponents inside that, and as a Nara, they will already be avoiding getting in too close."
"Well, more like a faster way of eliminating enemies and getting time to retreat if I need." Shizuka explained as she made a pile of weaponry and scrolls to seal separately from the body.
"You'd probably have to be careful., being in the middle of a charged field of lightning can't be easy."
"Yes, Tō-San has drilled the 'think and plan before experimenting' process into my mind. No more improvisation, I promise." Shizuka moved out of her uncle's way as he moved to seal the body into a scroll to return to the village.
"Good. Now let's go back home." Daichi put the scrolls away and launched into the trees with Shizuka right behind him.
"To the newest Tokubetsu Jōnin." Her family cheered as they clinked glasses the night after her return to the village.
"Can't believe you're ahead of us after a year barely taking missions." Masaru grouched from his position next to her in the large dining room in her house.
They rarely ate there as they almost never had more people than their usual table between the kitchen and living room. This time she had the adult and baby Ino-Shika-Chō as well as the latter's wives and her team.
"Well, we haven't specialised, so it's regular grinding until we get the required nominations," Kaito answered for her as she chewed on a dumpling her aunt had made for the dinner.
"You boys are on your way, you will catch up, maybe even get the Jōnin promotion before her." Kouta teased as he turned from his conversation with Daichi.
"Shika, what do you think?" Shizuka nudged her brother who was nearly falling asleep at her side. "Will I or the boys reach Jōnin first?"
"The boys, you'll get distracted at some point and they'll catch up."
"Oi! You're supposed to be on my side." She gave his shoulder a pinch, and Ino having caught the end of the conversation pinched his other shoulder.
"Don't worry Shizuka-Nee, I'm on your side!" Ino grinned and they high-fived over her brother's head.
"Troublesome…" Shikamaru slumped and then looked across the table at Chōji, "And you, will you also turn on me in favour of my sister?"
"Hai, Shizuka-Nee will beat them." Chōji smiled and his cheeks turned pink when Shizuka grinned back at him.
"I find it adorable that you have your own little cheer squad." Kaito snorted at the group. "Does this promotion cause anything to change in regard to team four?"
"Not really, I'm just listed as a specialised shinobi, so if they need a sensor or tracker my name will be 'highlighted' as in it's a good fit for my specific skills."
"If anything, she will be doing fewer rotations in some positions such as guarding the gates but will likely be given more patrols and scouting." Shikaku pitched in.
With that comment, the conversations drifted into other matters such as plans for a new training schedule, the academy and other trivial topics.
Once the guests had left Shizuka said goodnight to her parents and ruffled her brother's hair, promising him a shogi match the following day before heading to her room. With one last look at the scroll confirming her promotion, she fell into a deep sleep.
/AN\
Reply to comment:
Candice
Hi again! Thank you for the comment!
Yess… Poor Itachi. Again you'll have to wait to find out more! :D
As you can see they've done a good job! And yes, I can totally see Shikaku being protective.
Thanks again!