New Direction II

With the late afternoon's sun casting long shadows over the Nara grounds, Shikamaru sat with his father under the porch of their home, thoughts awhirl with the new information that had reached him that day.

Sasuke Uchiha, the one and only academy student to be pushed ahead, the one who graduated early, had become a chunin in Suna, the advertising born of his last match against Neji Hyuga confirming the rumor mill, which is a shinobi village proved to be a devastatingly effective method for information to travel on.

After somewhat careful consideration, Shikamaru placed his piece on the board in a way that should allow him some breathing room from the unyielding assault carried forth by his father, the Jonin Commander Shikaku Nara.

The social landscape of their class hadn't changed all that much since Sasuke Uchiha first skipped a year ahead, the hype about his skill had always been there, and the girls that felt like they had to fall in love with the epitome of shinobi closest to their age had been troublesome even when they were only seven years old.

The mystique of being the best of the class died a bit when Sasuke disappeared, only to grow back as rumors and whispers of admiration when he kept jumping ahead, the second time with another uncommonly pretty academy student in tow.

Shikamaru had been distantly aware of all that, in the same way, he was aware of how the world seemed to follow the same patterns: academy, genin, routine of D-ranks, maybe chunin after a couple of years, career of some kind, maybe specialization, and that was that. For most people.

It wasn't until he agreed to follow Kiba in his ill-thought attempt to infiltrate the Uchiha compound that Shikamaru's perspective shifted to consider the why. Why would someone push so hard to keep going? After all, responsibilities would come eventually, one might as well enjoy the ability to have no worries as long as he could. Shikamaru surely was down with that.

After all, gifted as he was with an extraordinary brain, coasting through the academy left him time to relax, and there were very few worries to spoil a perfectly good day. Sure, from time to time he lent a hand to Choji, helping him through a certain topic, but it was a very minor hassle, and one he did voluntarily. After all, helping the Akimichi meant that he would have more free time to spend hanging around, just enjoying the quiet.

Like most Nara, Shikamaru was lazy because he was already busy with his thoughts, and an endless chain that kept building itself, whether the young genius kept his eyes closed or open. He didn't try in the Academy because he didn't need to, the answer fell into his hands as soon as he read the questions, the exercises were easy to accomplish if you took your time, and given the speed at which his brain naturally linked information, Shikamaru had a lot of time to figure out what he needed to do to keep the damn leaf sticking to his forehead.

Shikamaru was only nine and half years old, but he had already realized that whatever expectation of intelligence his clan had for him, he would naturally exceed it. And he wouldn't need to try.

Then he had seen the Uchiha, a few months after he had graduated, appearing out of nowhere, with no forewarning about his presence, blood-red eyes spinning tauntingly as he measured Shikamaru, Choji and Kiba, immediately finding them wanting.

Besides the words exchanged during the BBQ, what had struck Shikamaru was the result of his observation, besides the crippled hand of the older genin, who nevertheless had kept going, there was a... air, about both the Uchiha and the Hyuga, even if the latter felt too far from the ground to look down at the Nara.

Beyond the words of Kabuto, beyond the genjutsu of the Uchiha that had him play against himself, beyond the casual disregard, beyond the faint memory of scars that crisscrossed the knuckles of the Uchiha, proof of countless hours spent striking a wooden post, there was a casual comment, something that Sasuke had let out more to buy time before answering than to actually say something: "What is the point of being alive, if I don't even try?"

"You're distracted." Shikaku's voice cut the silence in which his son had been thinking, accompanied by the wooden *clack* of a shogi piece being placed on the board.

"I'm..." Shikamaru didn't know what to say, the word of the Uchiha resonating in his head now that the rumor mill had confirmed that he was a chunin. Chunin before he's 10 years old.

What is the point of being alive, if I don't even try? It was an uncommon way of putting it: effort not for the sake of a result, but for the sake of being able to try. It had been a while since that strange meeting with the Uchiha, his team and the two older Academy Students, but the memories of the crippled Kabuto or the spinning Sharingan didn't leave a deep enough impression on Shikamaru.

After all, it was both obvious and unavoidable that at some point you met a stronger opponent, be it in the shape of a mission that couldn't be completed or in a simple lack of chakra necessary to overwhelm someone. Shikamaru knew about bloodlines, and while Sasuke had casually flaunted his, there was nothing about clan pride in him. His reasoning about doing more than necessary was simply because he could, and so he owed him to himself, or something like that.

It wasn't like Shikamaru could divine an entire personal philosophy from words casually muttered.

The young genius blinked, the porch where he was playing shogi with his father returning into focus before his eyes, which traveled to Shikaku Nara, Jonin Commander of Konohagakure no Sato. The same man who had asked after Sasuke, employing all of his experience to not let a hint of his actual thoughts emerge.

"I'm... bored, father." the words came tumbling out of his mouth, and weren't those the truth? Everything he ever did since he first started the Academy, all of it, was... coasting by. Just... existing, like a tree or a hill would. Breathing, eating, saying 'troublesome' like it justified his lack of any effort whatsoever, sleeping, and searching the peculiar state of mind that allowed him to not think about anything, everything he ever did, all of it, it amounted to... nothing.

The only unnecessary thing in which he had put something recalling effort was occasionally helping Choji study, and Shogi against his father.

Distracted by those revelations, which came to be as he had started to think about how Sasuke, who wasn't even ten yet, was already a chunin, he didn't realize that he kept talking: "What's the point of me going at the Academy if I already know more than half of what we're being taught, and I can figure out the missing pieces by simply thinking about it? If I graduate, I can start learning the Kagemane, and I can start... doing something, and be like you, and help the village, and..."

"Enough." Shikaku's voice was uncharacteristically serious, there was no shade of the 'troublesome' comment that would have usually classified the current conversation, there wasn't a hint about the way in which the Shikamaru's father felt, in this, he was the Jonin Commander of Konohagakure no Sato.

"Why do you think the Village was founded for?" the question was somewhat rhetorical, and before Shikamaru could comment on it, still somewhat cowed by his father's tone, the older Nara kept talking: "Besides the security for the whole clan, that managed well enough during the Warring Clans Era, alliances among clan were already known. The Nara, Akimichi, and Yamanaka were traditionally friendly with each other, but even then, friendly didn't mean trustworthy."

"Senju and Uchiha founded the Village, soon after the Sarutobi, Shimura, Nara, Yamanaka, Akimichi, Inuzuka, Hyuga, and Aburame joined in, with Nidaime-sama, the Hatake joined in, even if they've always been in a small number. There is safety in numbers, and with the Academy, the adults could focus on protecting the Village while the children were still protected and learning what they needed to survive and shield the village on their own once the time came." the Jonin Commander reiterated.

"Besides for the basics, children were thrown to war since they were five, or six." the jonin spoke somberly, the shogi board mentally cast aside as he focused on the conversation: "With the creation of the village, that no longer was necessary."

"I thought it was after the Uchiha massacre..."

"Itachi Uchiha gave a clear example, and a useful excuse." Shikaku shook his head, his dark eyes boring into those of his son with an intensity that the latter had never seen before: "As I've said, when the village was founded, Shodaime-sama envisioned a future in which children could be exactly that: children. With the Village System, we have the luxury of sheltering our children a little longer, and that luxury is a formidable and fundamental part of what makes our shinobi willing to die to defend the village. A place where their families can live, safe, with no risk of being gutted in the night."

The older Nara seemed to flinch at the intensity of his own voice, but he didn't let up, hunching forward slightly as he observed his son: "Also, our understanding of the mind has progressed, and a shinobi lifestyle has devastating effects on a child's mind, effects that have consequences throughout the entirety of their lives. If the only thing you're ever taught is how to be a hammer..."

"... then everything becomes a nail."

"Yes." Shikaku started deeply in his son's eyes

"There have been several genin graduating early..."

"In a time of war, it is still allowed for some academy students to be sent to the front once they master the necessary, basic skills." the older shinobi spoke somberly, the intensity of his previous words starting to leave him, "Now that we're at peace..."

"But we aren't at peace, not truly, otherwise we wouldn't send shinobi out in the field at all, and Sasuke and Neji..."

"Their situation is peculiar, both have faced enough trauma that there was no recovering their childhood, keeping them together was the next best thing, making them feeling useful and accomplished the only way to ground them." the jonin tilted his head, "The last true prodigy to have graduated before his time was quickly shuffled in ANBU, where he became a captain a 13."

"13..." Shikamaru breathed out, stunned by that piece of information, "A 13 years old, leading an ANBU team?" he tried to imagine it, the difference between himself and his father combat-wise. The young genius was nine and half years old, which meant that to reach the Jonin level at which ANBU captains were, he would need a learning curve that more closely resembled a straight, vertical line.

"He had the skills for it." but the bland tone in which that was said brought Shikamaru's attention back to his father, perceiving that there was something that wasn't being told out loud.

"And..."

"And you know how he ended up." Shikaku reiterated, "The kind of work ANBU shinobi perform is not for children, and mentally he was deemed to be solid enough. That mistake cost us almost the entirety of the Uchiha Clan, and weakened the Leaf as badly as the Kyubi attack did."

"But..." the younger genius tried to argue the obvious: only because one apple went rotten, it didn't establish a pattern.

"Stop reacting and start thinking!" the older Nara almost hissed: "Think Shikamaru! Why won't you be allowed to graduate early, despite the fact that you can arguably master the necessary skills?"

With the prodding of his father, the confusing emotions and admittedly half-assed impulse that had made Shikamaru consider actually applying himself in order to jump ahead of his peers were cast aside, cold logic and inescapable facts rising to the forefront of his mind in a well-organized sequence: "The Kyubi attack, we lost the Fourth and a lot of manpower, and just as we rebuilt, we lost the Uchiha, arguably the strongest clan in the village... Konoha is... weak."

"But that's exactly it!" Shikamaru wanted to pull his hair out: "How much more can I learn with years on the field, how much can I help with experience to refine sheer training? How..."

"Your year has more Clan Heirs than any since the very founding of the village." Shikaku cut his son's reasoning before he could keep going on that line of thought: "Nara, Akimichi, Yamanaka, Hyuga, Aburame, Inuzuka. Should you all reach your potential, not only you'll guarantee the strength of Konoha, but your children will have well-adjusted parents, something that would be put at risk if you were allowed on the field at an age smaller than 12."

"But..."

"But nothing." Shikaku shook his head: "Peace as we know it is a simple lack of open hostilities, intelligence is the key for any conflict, so our shinobi work to grant us intelligence, to thwart the other Villages' attempts to gain a true insight of our strength, to keep resources from our enemies. As long as we can, we'll protect you without coddling you, allowing the optimal rate of growth that allows for minimal risk of your sanity."

"So, the best I can do is... nothing." Shikamaru summed up, sarcasm bubbling into his tone as he actually passed a hand in his hair in frustration.

"You're speaking from your heart." Shikaku nodded slowly, his gaze softening minutely as he took in his son: "But in shinobi matters, the greatest asset the Nara can give Konoha is their mind, it is not in our nature to be a frontline fighter, that is no doubt what you're envisioning yourself as after hearing about Sasuke Uchiha and Neji Hyuga. We act from the shadows, give it time, and you'll find that being in an Ino-Shika-Cho team is the best thing that could happen to you."

The hands of the young genius clenched into tight fists, frustration bleeding in the tone of his voice as he objected once more: "What if I don't want to be held back? I'm not... I'm not like my classmates, you know that, everyone with half a brain knows that."

His father shook his head, cutting the legs at Shikamaru's last objection: "You're at the Academy to learn, learn how to be human, that is something that the fieldwork you're lusting after right now will try to destroy, you have to learn how to forge connections with the other clan heirs, apply yourself, since you want to, but push your efforts towards bringing together the clan heirs, and you'll do more for Konoha's welfare than anything you could accomplish at your age on a genin team."

Shikamaru felt his jaw clench in actual rage, having to exert a conscious effort to relax his hand enough to grab his King, turning it face down to declare his surrender, before he rose from his seated position and walked out of the house.

"Troublesome..." the echo of Shikaku's voice seemed to hound him as he walked in the village, his fisted hands deep in his pockets and a frown etched on his face.

With the sunset burning the clouds in brilliant orange and soft pink, Shikamaru walked, his prodigious brain going over the conversation he just had with his father. A conversation that amounted to 'do not rock the boat'.

Was it a warning? An order? Something more, he felt it, being lowered over his shoulders, like a weight that was both an excuse.

Ino-Shika-Cho. His mind supplied for him. He could do nothing, as he had always done, and everything would fall into place, he would graduate, be placed with Ino and Choji, and act as the backbone for the clan politics simply by virtue of being a tight group. What is the point of being alive, if I don't even try?

It went deeper then than now, now that he had been all but explicitly forbidden from applying himself to the shinobi arts. Not a word had been spent on his will to give his all to actually learning something. Nothing was said about his necessity of making his own choices.

Did he want to apply himself? He could play at herding cats with his classmates instead of the felines.

Sasuke didn't have a clan to direct him the way his father had, the Uchiha pushed himself for the sake of doing it, because he wouldn't feel alive if he didn't give his all. Because the Last Uchiha was implicitly supposed to be the one to avenge his Clan, and he had to prove that his family wouldn't vanish in the night.

Shikamaru already has his life planned out.

By others. He recognized in the safety of his most private thoughts.

He had nothing to prove, no ambition to conquer because of necessity.

Don't I? He asked himself, and with that thought, he found himself slowing down, his feet scratching the dirt roads of Konohagakure no Sato as he came to a stop.

He didn't need to do anything, only coasting along, and it would be the best he could do.

Doing nothing is the best I can offer. For the first time in his life, Shikamaru actually wanted to punch something.

Offer to whom?

Standing still under a sunset that slowly gave way to the evening, the first stars blinking into existence, Shikamaru answered his own question: Myself. He brought his hands out of his pockets, looking at them as if it was the first time.

I owe it to myself, to do my best.

Then his thoughts turned back towards the discussion he just had with his father, or better yet, the rather one-sided talking down.

I owe it to dad, and the clan, and the village, who planned out my life, to prove them wrong.

While the sun was starting to set down, I moved alone along the sandy beach that covered one of the edges of the small lake within the chakra compound, my naked feet sliding over the sand while I tried to be conscious of each grain of sand.

That part of my training, which was turned to the refinement and sharpening of my sense of touch, wasn't going particularly well, the only thing I could tell was that the ground was uneven and soft. Once again, my perfectly average abilities will surely be what brings me to the top of this world.

I moved painfully slowly through one of the several katas that I had memorized thanks to my Sharingan, exhaling with every single mock punch, kick or burst of movement.

Sure, burst of movement meant that I started to angle my body for a backflip by letting a single leg rise up as I arched my back, my balance and strength of core muscles the only thing keeping me from simply falling to the ground.

With a low intake of breath, which was the result of a conscious effort made by moving my diaphragm, I relaxed my muscles and concluded the nth repetition of the kata.

Chakra was always moving. To perform a ninjutsu, after a sequence of hand seals or outrageously skillful shape and nature manipulation, the energy rolling in a shinobi's pathways was expelled in order to perform a certain task.

But as I had discovered when I first started my manipulation of Fire Natured Chakra, the first impulse of any jutsu started in the belly, the place where chakra was actually built up before being directed.

Besides Genjutsu, but that was likely an effect born of the bullshit bloodline that was the Sharingan, the hand-seals shaped the amount of chakra that one built up in their belly, as if they were taking a deep breath. Only instead of taking in energy from the outside, you simply coalesced the life force that constantly rolled and weaved within yourself.

When that energy was shaped and expelled, for example traveling through the chakra pathways to reach the mouth to become a fireball, the chakra in the way of the jutsu was simply pushed away. And some simply circulated away along the pathways, some, was simply expelled unknowingly through the tenketsu that acted almost as a relief valve. Finally, a very minor part of that chakra was instead spewed in front of the fireball itself, affecting the jutsu in a way you couldn't control, since you hadn't molded it nor was your focus centered on it.

As a proof of concept, I performed a single half Tiger hand seal and spat a basketball-sized fireball into the lake, where it went up in a flare of steam.

I brought my hands in a full Ram Seal, thinning the chakra on the path that went from my belly to my mouth by simply moving it around, feeling it ripple across my pathways like warm water bringing energy to the muscles, energizing my body, and trying to keep the natural movements of my life energy from interfering, I switched to the mentality necessary to generate Fire Natured chakra.

The heat pooled in my gut with a familiar shiver of barely restrained hunger that I did my best to suppress, and as I performed a Tiger hand-seal, I moulded the chakra, letting it build along the course that went from my belly to my mouth.

Raging hot energy roared from within me and reached the base of my throat, where it failed to burn me from within and kept running ahead: just as it reached the middle of my tongue, I also exhaled a lungful of air.

The chakra turned into a literal flame and exploded out of my mouth faster than ever, perfectly directed as I had willed it, and the fireball slammed into the waters of the lake, setting them into harsh waves because of the displacement of mass due to evaporation.

"It's not that it has exploded." I shook my head, as I lowered my hands, my Sharingan tracking and comparing the differences between my half-assed fireball and my last success: "The point is that the fireball was way less diluted by the chakra that it would have naturally mixed with as it reached my mouth, and thusly that while it was slightly smaller because there was less energy in the jutsu, it was purer, and the fire burned hotter."

I spoke out loud trying to figure out if there was a flaw in the reasoning that supported my experiments: "Some chakra contaminated the Katon, of that I have no doubt, but it was a very small quantity, and most of what had instead 'corrupted' my earlier jutsu wasn't wasted in this case, because I have 'prepared the way' so to speak."

Enunciating that theory aloud as I reached for my jian, which had been waiting for me embedded in the sand, I once more tried to slip into the half-conscious state that allowed me to keep aware of my body while I focused on my chakra at the same time. With the familiar weight of the blade I had forged when Kakashi actually started to train Team 7 in my hand, I started another kata, intended for a one-handed blade.

The real question is, can I form a fireball directly in my mouth with no build-up in my gut? I quickly discarded the thought, returning to the current sect of exercises meant to finally prove or disprove my more or less baseless speculation.

My breath was immediately evened out, only to start following my movements in a precise manner, before I started moving, I inhaled, and held my breath for a split second, imagining it build up as it was a jutsu.

Thrust with the jian. Exhale.

Sweep with the left foot as I brought my arm back from its extended position. Inhale.

Right elbow snapping up with the blade in my left describing an arc in the air. Exhale.

Step forward. Inhale.

Knee thrust, blade cutting horizontally to keep the opponent from jumping up, a kunai appearing in my right hand ready to be thrown. Exhale.

Another step, kunai brought up to parry from above. Inhale.

Downwards slashing motion with the blade, right foot spartan-kicking the invisible opponent. Exhale.

Spin to keep momentum. Inhale.

Back kick. Exhale.

Starting position. Inhale.

I stilled once I completed the incredibly short set of movements as slowly as I could, knowingly and consciously stopping myself from molding the chakra. And yet, as I moved, I had felt something. A simmer, something even fainter, of chakra moving as if naturally following the momentum generated by my breathing.

"When I reinforce my limbs with chakra," I spoke to myself once more, "I do more or less the same thing I did for the first fireball: I push the chakra in my limbs, obviously without changing the nature or actually shaping it outside the body."

To apply that 'proof of concept' to the taijutsu, I simply needed to ingrain the breathing with muscle memory, so that I could use the chakra that was already running in my limbs to reinforce them, instead of pushing chakra there all the way from your belly.

It was a simple concept: chakra always moves. Taken to its logical extreme: by moving purposefully, the breathing in perfect synch with each action, the chakra in your body would naturally reinforce the body.

There would be no need to make the chakra surge through your body to break through a hold, wasting in through the tenketsu that acted as a relief valve. The strength of your body would then be the optimal one you physically can handle.

I remembered the few chakra burns through my feet the first time I had started training on my own: the action of letting the body regulate the chakra flow... not unconsciously, not automatically, but independently, or at least, depending only on your breathing, was indeed possible.

And that meant that one didn't need to consciously shape chakra to power up one's own body. That was how Lee managed to become a shinobi in the manga.

But I could manipulate chakra within my body, I was aware of what happened when I let go of the tight rein I had on the life force that rolled within me. With a training process that was simply time-consuming instead of actually tiring or dangerous, I could push my body to the edge of its capabilities without risking tearing my ligaments asunder like I did with that first Shunshin on Team 7 first C-rank mission.

"I only need to get Neji to observe and..." I stilled as I spoke to myself, my enthusiasm dying as quickly as it had come now that my mind returned to a topic that I had carefully avoided for the past few days.

Neji. I thought, and the name was enough to bring irritation towards myself to the forefront of my mind.

The fucker at the base of my indecision. The friend that I found myself with.

I gritted my teeth in annoyance, my half-zen state completely gone now that I remembered how I managed to accomplish such an improvement in the few days since our return from Sunagakure no Sato: after the exams, that all of Team 7 obviously passed, we were given an entire week off to celebrate.

My celebration had included holing myself up in the Uchiha Compound and training until I fell unconscious, my knuckles splitting against the wooden posts and my wrists scraping with each movement because of the too much shurikenjutsu.

After the first day in which I had basically hurt myself for no good reason besides the not thinking about whatever shit I was going through, I had returned to my philosophy of training smarter, and not harder. Thankfully, my speculation on Lee's ability to become a shinobi had paid off and allowed me to throw all of my focus into breathing exercises, meditation, and optimization of the Fire Manipulation I was so familiar with.

What do I do? I asked myself, and for the first time since I first awoke the Sharingan, I didn't now what direction to take.

The scraping sound of a sandal down the slope that led to the lake made me whip my head in that direction, Sharingan blooming in my eyes as I focused on the new appearance.

Then I blinked, the surprise enough to make the Sharingan disappear once I had checked for illusions: "Of all the people that could break in the Uchiha Compound, I didn't expect you."

Then my eyes darted around the newcomer: "And since the Akimichi isn't with you, I don't know why you're here, no BBQ tonight, but you know that much, isn't that right, Shikamaru?"

The Nara walked down the slope until he too was standing on the sand, his eyes level with mine despite the yawning gap in power between us.

"Yo," he started, trying to sound casual, but the heavy frown on his face cut off whatever levity I felt I could use to make the Academy student scram out of my property, "I... I don't know what to do."

I blinked again, trying to pluck out of my metaknowledge anything that could explain the current situation, only to come up short: "What?"

With a sigh that wasn't accompanied by a 'troublesome', the Nara started to talk.

Shikamaru: he's a genius, but he's still nine and something years-old. It is somewhat easy for him to be influenced, extremely so by a peer that is so captivating as our MC.

I hope I managed to make the chat between the two Nara sound right. I mean, Shikamaru has been brooding about the whole skipping ahead in the way a supergenius does: meaning in the background.

The way I envision his way of thinking, he doesn't put a conscious effort to evaluate something that it isn't directly in front of him (shogi), but with new info, reasonings that he isn't wholly aware of jump forward.

And as I've said, he's nine.

Opinions?

I know that this particular change comes a bit out of left field, but I didn't want to write only about Shikamaru 'thinking', that would not only have given away this particular development, but also slowed down the pacing of the story, I preferred summing up the reasnoning at the beginning of this chapter.

As always with the change in perspective, I'm not sure about how it feels, is by force and design a bit disjointed, we jump from Nara-Nara in their compound to training-alone-MC.

Ideas?