Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of these characters.

If reading please review, thank you to everyone who did including the criticiser - helps me improve my writing!

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The next day dawns and Shikamaru is hiding under his blankets shivering.

No...I'm not going...no-one can make me go...go away kids...

His mother storms into his room

"SHIKAMARU! GET OUT OF BED THIS INSTANT! YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR YOUR NEW JOB! I HOPE YOU'VE PREPARED YOUR LESSONS, PRACTISED YOU'RE LECTURES, LEARNED YOUR MATERIAL, PACKED YOUR BOOKS, PACKED YOUR LUNCH, MENTALLY PREPARED YOURSELF, PHYSICALLY PREPARED YOURSELF, SPIRITUALLY PREPARED YOURSELF, AND DON'T FORGET TO BRUSH YOUR TEETH!"

She shrieks at him, then disappears as quickly as she appeared (which wasn't too quick).

Shikamaru seriously considered staying in bed.

On the one hand, kids. On the other hand, mom. Definitely a lose lose situation here. Oh man, why do I always have to be around loud bossy women? Crap, its going to be Hokage and mom on me if I don't go and kids and headmaster if I do. What should I do...

In the end he gets up, brushes his teeth (might as well humour the mum) and sets off to the academy (the evilness of loud bossy women are more scary than even kids). The headmaster is expecting him. He says through a microphone

"Everyone welcome Shikamaru, the newest addition to our elite teaching team! Shikamaru will be replacing our great Iruka who has contributed so much to the school. The competition for his position has been fierce and Shikamaru has beaten many other potential teachers to get this position, being a top mark student himself at this very school and a widely accepted genius chuunin, and he has been chosen...er...wait sorry...wrong speech...that was the one for parent's day. Sorry, sorry. "

He fumbles with a few bits of paper, finally taking out one.

"Alright...Shikamaru, you are taking over Iruka's classes, here's your timetable, Iruka's desk is over there so you can see his lesson's plans and stuff they've already learnt. We'll fix up matters of salary and stuff later on, your first class is in an hour so you'd better be prepared."

How troublesome...a headmaster who leaves me to do all the work Shikamaru thinks as he says out loud "Don't worry, I'm a genius".

How troublesome...a little boy who thinks he's a genius, must have been forced to take this job thinks the headmaster as he says out loud "I'm sure you can do it!"

An hour later Shikamaru walks to his classroom, having done nothing at all in preparation for his lessons. As he opens the door a quick rustling sound can be heard. Then he looks into the room.

To his surprise he sees as whole array of square rocks on the floor and no class.

Weird display, but no class, hooray, I can take the day off!

Then he looks more closely at the rocks, and sees that they are not at all what a rock looks like, even a rock cut into rectangular blocks. He leans closer, and hears some whispering going on inside the rock.

What the hell is this supposed to be, a disguise? He thinks as he taps lightly on one of them, feeling that they're made of cardboard.

Suddenly the rock explodes, filling the air with smoke, and Shikamaru is thrown back against the wall. Out of the smoke three kids appear, a boy with goggles on his head, another boy with big thick glasses and a girl with thickly plaited hair. They are coughing hard.

"Too much gunpowder" coughs the boy with goggles. Then they regain their composure.

"We are..." says the boy in glasses

"the Konohamaru..." says the girl

"Corps!" shouts the boy with the goggles in an impressive voice.

"You seem like a worthy opponent, I challenge you!" shouts the boy with the goggles.

Shikamaru sighs wearily "Alright, the rest of the class, you can all come out now." He says with a yawn.

"You dare ignore my challenge! Don't you know who I am, I'm the..." he never got to finish the sentence as all the boxes in the classroom exploded at once letting outs heaps of black smoke that drifts out the window. Not surprisingly, the fire alarm begins to ring. Shikamaru groans. First lesson and he was already in trouble.

"Alright class, proceed slowly to...er...wherever you're supposed to go during a fire..."

The class proceeds to run past him out the door at high speed, shouting "Yay, fire, no school!"

Just great thinks Shikamaru what a lousy job, I pity Iruka-sensei now, looking after Kiba and Naruto...

He finds the whole academy standing in the playground. Someone with a loudspeaker shouts out "Shikamaru, the headmaster wants to speak to you in the top right corner of the playground now!"

How troublesome...how am I going to explain this...Shikamaru thinks to himself, then his genius brain goes to work.

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Now please review or I probably will give up the story!