Forty Six And 2: Team Ten
Chapter Two: Legitimate Lessions to Learn Laziness

The piercing persistent bell of an alarm clock droned in an untidy room. Clothing lay on the floor, screws stuck in the walls but did not hold anything, and an old lamp posted in a corner without a light bulb. On a single mattress, with only its covering, Shikamaru, in the clothes he had on yesterday, sat up and walked to the power plug without its cover and removed the cord of the alarm clock. A picture of the nine passing genins hung on a piece of peeling wallpaper with safety pin. "In every picture the class has taken," Shikamaru commented on the picture, "I invariably block Kiba's face. Why did the teacher pass me?"

He slugged to his doorway that was covered with a grey fleece sheet held up with thumbtacks. He brushed the piling sheet on the floor with his feet and stepped out of his room into the hallway. His father, Shikato, sat at the table in the dining area near the kitchen. A line of split coffee ran down his tattered old grey sleeveless jacket. Shikamaru took a sit across from his father in front of a plate of black burnt toast and a glass of milk.

"Hey, Shikamaru," Shikato said, "there are straving children around the world."

He took a piece of toast off the plate and tapped it on its edge to knock of some of the charred chumbs. "So there is escape from your cooking."

"None, it's impossible," Shikato laughed, "many strong ninjas have succumbed to my cooking."

"How about a tip?" Shikamaru asked.

"No, they were too dead to leave a tip," Shikato retorted, "they have to spend the rest of existense in purgatory doing the dishes."

"No, when I said tip, I had meant advice," Shikamaru stood up from the table. "Cereal, milk, spoon."
In the open field, Asuma stood waiting for his students. His eyebrow twitched, and he switched into a cross legged position with his hand combing through the coarse hair on under his chin. His pinky pulled across newly grown stumble. "They are taking their time," Asuma groaned and put a new cigarette into his mouth using the old one for a light, "I'm losing my shave and I'm losing my pack. If they don't show up, I can't pass them. And if I can't pass them, I will have to return to teaching. Students are getting louder, growing more lazy, and unfocused. There they are!"

He jumped up to his feet and raised his hand to respond to their waving. Bringing his hand up over his eyes, he saw that they were waving for him to go over to them. Asuma lamented: "Where is the respect? I am the one who has stepped before them."

Reappearing before them, the back of his fist rolled over the top of their heads leaving them sore and rubbing. Ino recovered soon and darted her finger at him. "You can't hit a woman!"

"I don't comply with trash," Asuma scolded and pulled his lit cigarette into his hand to flick it into her face. The bud hit off her and continued on to Choji to her left and across to Shikamaru until it reached Asuma's hand. They were left in shock as Asuma relit it. "What do I do with trash? I burn it. If you can't get me to say that you pass by lunch time, I'll fail you. Without lunch!" Choji chocked on his chips. "Without respect from your classmates!" Ino heard that the most. Asuma looked at the slack Shikamaru. "Do you think that I can't come up with something to scare you into motivating you, smart ass?"

"I've been prepared to quit since the beginning." Shikamaru stated. "Lazy pays off all the time, hard work only can be banked on in the future."

"Ino has forsaken you. It is I would employed her to give me something I can bank on with you. I know everything about the pranks you pulled yesterday." Asuma told him. Shikamaru stared down Ino but she snuck out her tongue. "But who doesn't now?"

"My mother," Shikamaru admitted.

"Now go!" Asuma ordered. They rushed into the forest. The three sat in a tree and Choji tried to keep quiet as he put his bandaided hand into a bag of chips.

"Let's give up," Shikamaru suggested. "I've firgured out how to oppose his plan."

With a push, Ino sent Shikamaru off the branch and crashing into the ground. "Use you mind for something important!"

Ino had a fantasy involing Sasuke. He had looked at her. "I love your long blonde hair." She heard Shikamaru's negative comments all around her: "Why bother trying! How troublesome! Let's give up! What's the point!" They rang throughout her fantasy and Sasuke said, "but Shikamaru convinced you to give up being a ninja and I no longer like you."

Ino grabbed Shikamaru by his light grey vest as he was climbing back up the tree and hung him out in the air. "Look," she pulled his dirty drowsy face to hers, "think of something fast, now!"

She pulled him the rest of the way up and he rested against the truck of the tree and thought with his hands pointing down and his fingers touching. He openned his eyes. Ino snapped her fingers and brighten up with a smile. "I'm too hungry to move," Choji said throwing some more chips in his mouth. Shikamaru gestured for her to come closer to him so he could whipser to her. With his hand to her ear, her smile fainted to a ghostly look.

"That's suicide." She proclaimed.

"If Shikamaru," Choji pointed out, "makes a plan, it will work."

"Shit," Ino said as she put her hands together in front of her face to make a triangle. "Body replacement technique."

She passed out and had control of Choji's body. Shikamaru picked her up and put her down on the ground. He looked up at Choji. "Now take all of his food and throw it down here."

Ino had a hard time getting to all of the food; there were even candy bars hidden in holsters made for weapons. Quickly, Shikamaru removed his vest and wrapped all of the food in there and attacted it to Ino. "Okay, you can leave his body."

Ino regained consciousness and started to run and Choji followed with a fire in his eyes. Behind him, Shikamaru also followed. Ino lead them into the field that Asuma stood in, and she threw the bag of food over him and then ran in a circular path to meet up with it.

"So they found out how to get Choji to run." He commented ready for what he would suspect. "Shikamaru will try to use his shadow to get me, but he doesn't have much to work with to extend his shadow. It would have been better to have lured me into the forest. I don't have to worry about Ino since her technique would be too slow to get me."

She stood behind him as they ran in the direction of Asuma. "Choji could use his multisize and meat tank jutsu, but he is not graceful with that."

"Come on fat ass!" Ino yelled with joy. She pulled down a bottom eyelid with his finger and struck her tongue out at him. Choji stopped and Shikamaru stood a meter a head of him and strenched out his shadow.

"It's not long by a long shot." The instructor recongized.

Ino and Shikamaru were getting ready, this was going to hurt. "Multisize no jutsu," Choji said and his proportions ballooned and his body elipsed the sun up to the base of Shikaramu's feet. His shadow strenched the extra meters to get to Asuma. Ino then used her body switch jutsu and caught him.

"I see, he used Choji to expand his shadow." He thought as he tried to gain control of his body. It was hard since Shikamaru had him trapped in his shadow and Ino had taken control of his mind. "They are certainly suicidal."

"Meat Tank!" Choji yelled and his limbs and head retreated into his body and started to spin. It rolled over Shikaramu, and under Ino's control, Asuma jumped out of the way. "You all pass!" He was forced to say. Choji continued rolling and trampled over the limp body of Ino. Choji stopped the jutsu stumbled on his feet depeated.

Ino returned to her body and Shikamaru returned to his senses; "What a hassle."

Asuma gathered his team up. "Good work," he said in a deep voice. "Anyone willing to be crushed under the weight of a member of Akimichi for the good of the mission is a ninja by my standards. You have all passed. Missions begin tomorrow."

"What I put up with for love?" Ino questioned.

"You don't have to tell me," Shikamaru stated. Ino's eyes widened and she folded up with laughing smacking her hand on his shoulder.

"Shikamaru has a sweetheart he wants to impress," Ino held close to his arm, "who owns that lazy heart of yours?"

"When I said that you don't have to tell me," Shikaramu started, "I meant that I wasn't into listening to what you had to say."

Shikamaru wandered off alone.

"He didn't mean that," Choji told Ino, "when situations are at their worst, there isn't a person for whom he doesn't care."
The night had come and left the forest dark. Shikamaru lead by the sound of running water, pushed his way pass branches to the source. He yawned into his hand. "I can't believe I haven't returned to bed yet because I wanted to take a walk," he complained, "what do I do on walks except daydream? I could be at home getting real sleep? I'm truly a fool when it comes to practical thinking."

He entered onto the rocky river bed dancing with fireflies and saw Shino lying down glazing at the stars. "Don't you want to go back inside?"

"I never thought of myself on the outside." Shino stated. Shikamaru laid down near the tree line and looked up pass some leaf covered branches to see the stars.

"I look at clouds," he said.

"There isn't a cloud in the sky," Shino said.

"Where else would there be," Shikamaru replied.

"Oh, I see," Shino admitted.

"When I see the stars, I'm reminded of the past," Shikamaru put his hands behind his head. "There is change, yet there is a cycle that I can see time goes through when I look at the past or look up to the stars. If I were to speak of the one thing that remains the same in time, I would mention laziness. The whole universe is filled with conservation of energy and flowing with the forces of other heavily bodies."

"If laziness is true for ten thousand things, than what harm come from it? The universe lets the grass grow under one's feet, is impartial, and it is natural. So," Shino started, "Lao Tzu said: ' If people lack knowledge and desire/ Then they can not act;/ If no action is taken/ Harmony remains.' What I want to imply, is that everything which is lazy has knowledge or desire, and therefore exists in harmony. What you call laziness, I call harmony."

"Do you know the way back to Konoho?" Shikamaru asked. A firefly rested on Shino's hand that he put to his face and blinked rapidly.

"He will guide you," Shino said as the glowing bug flew off into the forest.

"Thanks," Shikamaru said.

"Don't thank me," Shino said.
Ino knocked on the door to Shikamaru's house and Shikato opened the door. "Oh, it's Inoshin," he paused and pulled down his head, "daughter."

"Don't say it like that!!!" she kicked him in the shin. "Has Shikamaru come back home yet?"

"I didn't know he left." Shikato said. "What's he up to? He's mostly in his room playing Go."

"Today is his genin exam." Ino shouted.

"When did he graduate from the academy?" He asked.

"Don't you know anything about the life of your son?" She asked annoyed.

"He's not dead, that's for sure," Shikato explained, "he'll procrastinate until the sun explodes to take his final breath."

-------- End of Chapter Two ------------
Next Chapter: First mission. Yeah, if you have read chapter three of Bugs: Team Eight, then you know how it turns out in the end, but what you don't know is the total extend that Team Ten had in that mission. Tactics to the yin-yang!

Notes: Yeah, a huge part of this chapter was ripped off of Bugs: Team Eight chapter two. However, that is the chapter to see if I could even write the relationship between the four in Team Ten. There are less mistakes in it this time around. But writing about Shikamaru really makes a person lazy. I get too in to the character when writing.

Predictions: Soon this will branch off to include material not linked with that of my team eight fanfiction.

Comments and suggestions are welcomed as I need to see which of my fanfictions is worth more time since I have to conserve my enegry.

BTW, thanks for reviewing, Dragon Master Lytore. I almost forgot about this fanfiction.