The Two Fawns:
Chapter 2: Life and Welcome to the Academy

Playing with her older brother Shikamaru had been kind of difficult. The boy had been a lot more interested in sleeping than playing or anything for that matter. Despite his lazy facade Shikamaru, Yoshiko had found was incredibly smart. Back in her old world he would be the next coming of a science prodigy. (Yes, old world. Jean placed the pieces of the puzzle together; this place was swarming with some sort of ninja who can hop from roof to roof that will put most acrobats to shame, they can throw sharp stars at wall targets with deadly accuracy that will make many archers back home cry, they can breathe fire and vanish with a puff of smoke that will make the magicians green with envy)

Luckily for her with such a smart twin brother, appearing to be slightly more mature beyond her years hadn't seemed suspicious with a family famed for their intellect levels. She was not immune to childish behavior though. Smart might be scratching the surface with the crazily complex methods her father can come with in terms of strategies. She concluded that her father must be some sort of person in charge of the military strategies with men hopping into her house late at night sometimes. She was sure they can sense her presence but they hadn't paid her much heed; with the adults talking her mother would often ask her to help her serve the tea or snacks. She often ran rather than walk away from them. Cowardly but something screamed danger to her when they were around. Shikamaru hadn't really showed much interest in pretty much anything, often choosing to sleep instead or look at the clouds from their shared bedroom.

She became rather close to her father since she often questioned him on the many different herbs that grew in the forest surrounding their clan grounds. The curiosity in her was like a kid in a candy store when she found all the different types of Nara herbs as well as the many books on the herbs and the mixtures to counteract many poisons and the making of a whole new variety of poisons. Her father was a really patient man who helped her out with the samples gathering. She likes to experiment with the different herbs, mixing them to got a new concoction with her father's help and counteracting the basic poisons.

Being part of the Medical Corps required high intelligence, great chakra control and a lot of knowledge on different herbs, healing seals and the different medical equipment. Sealing and medical journals was a little too advance for her at the moment (she's always on top of the class for Biology but that did little to help her understand those scrolls), hence working on herbs and chakra control was her few options.

She would often wait till the weekends before asking him for his company. Shikamaru would spend time with their father by playing Shogi with him before dinner. (She would sometimes join in on the side of her twin but despite his sharp mind filled with fresh tactics and her analytical skills, they were no match for their father.)

Currently she was waiting in the Jonin Standby Station with her mother for her father to be done for the afternoon to bring him lunch. There were other Jonins or Chunins around: some were smoking in the room, some were in the middle of some sort of conversation, some were busy reading and some were snacking away. She became closer to her mother via helping preparing the family's lunch and dinner. Well being a five year old, her mother didn't exactly trusted her with knives or hot things, she was often allowed to arrange her father's bento or the fruits or mochi that were to be served as dessert. Shikamaru was currently at home taking a nap again.

She had made the bento into a shape of a bunny with leaves of lettuce surrounding the bunny that was made of rice. Her mother had made omelette that became a bow tie for the bunny, the broiled tuna was placed at the other side of the bento in another leaf of cabbage. The dessert that was homemade mochi was in another bento that was meant to be given to the other occupants of the room as well.

The other Jonins were lack of another word- slightly intimidating. It hadn't helped that Yoshiko was a lot shorter than them and they were all dressed in full gear. Her mother had wanted her to be less antisocial around her father colleagues since she had a really funny habit of darting away like a frightened bunny when they were around.

Looking around she picked the easiest option. One Chunin was busy eating syrup in the room and he was the least scary of the five occupants she can see and one of the younger ones as well. With her mother pushing her gently forward; she walked carefully towards the Chunin.

"Umm..." She let her presence be known to the Chunin although she was sure any Chunin worth his rank can tell that she can coming.

"Yes?" He looked from temporarily from his syrup.

"Oji-san would you like some mochi?" Most likely he was not that much older than her but the word Oji-san came first rather than Nii-san.

Luckily for her, the Chunin had not really noticed her rather funny way of addressing him, instead he was looking through the rainbow arranged mochi. She had arranged them all in seven colors with the white ones being the clouds at the foot of the rainbow colored ones. That Chunin definitely has a sweet tooth.

"It's Kotetsu, little fragrance." He had sure to slow down his name when speaking it. Okay he did notice it. Nicking two white mochi, he quickly popped them in his mouth while the four year old looked at him incredulously.

Little Fragrance? What sort of nickname was that? Till it dawned on Yoshiko, her name meant fragrance. No wonder her mother had always made sure that she smelt like flowers by placing lilies or roses or any flowers with scents in her hair. For the moment, she had bunches of baby breaths woven into her bun to match with the white dress she was currently wearing that had the Nara Clan symbol sewn onto one of her sleeves.

After Kotetsu, most of the other Chunins and Jonins had been quite easy to approach after her practice with him. Pass them the box of mochi, wait for them to pick a couple and move on. She learnt quite a few names while passing them the mochi: Genma, Asuma, Raido, Izumo, Gai and Kakashi.

"Oh Yoshiko!" Her father had finally finished his work. Yoshiko ran up to her father and gave him the bento with a slight grin. That bento had taken longer than usual with all that extra effort she had to put in to decorating it.

~Page Break~

His little daughter had made it a point to visit him along with her mother everyday during lunch while Shikamaru awaits their game of Shogi back home. Shikaku wondered what kind of shinobi they would both grow up to be. Shikamaru was extremely lazy but a natural genius when he sets his mind to it. Yoshiko was clever but she hardly wish to voice her opinions, preferring to go with the flow. Seems like both his children had inherited the Nara trait of being extremely passive. Yet they can be quite tenacious when they have a clear goal in mind: Shikamaru wanting to beat him in Shogi and Yoshiko wanting to become a medical ninja by the direct route of joining the Medical Corps.

Shikaku had signed the twins up for the Academy. Knowing Yoshiko, she will be hiding behind books during the break times while Shikamaru would either accompany his sister or take a nap. Though Shikamaru was the older twin by a few minutes; he hadn't seen the situation where the younger sibling would tag along the older sibling, Yoshiko had been rather independent. Shikamaru too seemed to trust that Yoshiko can handle herself.

Shikaku had not introduced his children to Ino or Chouji yet as he preferred the duo to make friends with the other two children on their own accord. Friends made with little interference from the parents often last the longest. Judging from Shikamaru's character he will get along fine with the other two children; Yoshiko however may get along better with the elder Uchiha kid with their shared interest in books and dango, that would be if Yoshiko is in the mood to speak to Itachi. Unfortunately, that boy will not be in the academy being a newly made Chunin. Shikamaru and Yoshiko had not been social butterflies; it took his wife a lot of energy to get his little girl to interact with his colleagues as it would seem from the skittish behavior displayed by Yoshiko.

Yoshiko had fallen silent next to him, her nose buried within the depths of a book on chakra control. It was a simple book; it was supposed to be an Academy Level instruction book with a lot of colorful drawings on Chakra that she will be learning in three years. Shikaku saw no problem with Yoshiko's interest on Chakra; he had been teaching his two children the Shadow Possession Technique for the past few weeks after a tree walking exercise and water walking exercise. Yoshiko had taken chakra control training like fish to water however, she had run into quite a lot of problems with the Shadow Possession while Shikamaru had not been really bothered by the level of difficulty in the jutsu except his chakra control was not as good as his sister's.

Shikaku had encouraged Yoshiko to practice the basic jutsu for the Nara Clan more often, but only in the presence of a trained adult which was him or Yoshino. Shikamaru and Yoshiko had fared quite well in Taijutsu training, decent but he wouldn't call them experts in that form of ninja art, in an Academy class they would be able to pass decently but they won't last a minute with a trained ninja.

Once he finished his lunch, both his wife and daughter waved to him before departing for home. That reminded him, he was supposed to get their ninja gear ready for tomorrow! He had forgotten all about it, Yoshino had been reminding him all week about it. He doubt Yoshino had no backup packs but he did not wish to get his ears chewed off when he gets home.

~Page Break~

"Shika tomorrow we will be in the Academy. What do you think they will make us do?" Yoshiko was currently resting in their shared futon with Shikamaru and her looking up at the ceiling.

"Knowing you, no one can make you do anything. Hmm... The academy... What a drag..." Shikamaru yawned before turning to face his twin. Yoshiko was close to her twin, that she can say with sharing a room with him and a womb with him for nine months, she can quite comfortably say that she can predict most of his reactions and read him better than most. But she will never be the one whom her brother will spill his guts to and knowing her brother, he needed a friend that could understand him even better than she could.

"And knowing you, you will put in minimal effort for everything since its a waste of your time." She smirked at him.

Shikamaru chuckled, "yeah little sis, seems like we both rather understand each other. But I still think that you are like mom. Night."

"Night." Yoshiko turned to her usual spot on the futon and promptly fell asleep.

The two Nara children slept comfortably in their soft bed with the windows open that showed the many stars shining bright outside and the gentle glow of the moon. Konoha was seemingly asleep as well. It was a peaceful night for the Nara twins with neither caring that they would soon be entering the Academy for the first time in a few hours.

~Page Break~

"Good Morning
Good Morning
We've talked the whole night through
Good Morning
Good Morning to you
Good Morning
Good Morning
It's great to stay up late
Good Morning
Good Morning to you
When the band began to play the stars were shinging bright
Now the milkman's on his way and it's too late to say good night
So, Good Morning
Good Morning
Sun beams will soon smile through
Good Morning
Good Morning to you and you and you and you
Good Morning
Good Morning
We've gabbed the whole night through
Good Morning
Good Morning to you"

The alarm blared at the twins along with the loud singing of their mother who was currently knocking something against her frying pan. Shikamaru groaned, turned and rolled deeper into the blankets. Yoshiko too had the same idea where she burrowed into the blankets with her head being non-existent from the exposed side of the futon.

"Wake up! It's time for your first day at the Academy!" Yoshino shouted brightly. Well her two children surely favored their father with their very Shikaku style of avoiding mornings; by hiding in the blankets and continuing to snooze. Unfortunately, Yoshino was extremely experienced at handling people who cannot wake up in the morning.

She drew back the curtains, exposing the sun to hear the hissing all to similar to a cat's that was Yoshiko under the blankets before a very disheveled Yoshiko crawled towards the bathroom. Yoshiko was easy, she can never sleep with the lights on. Shikamaru however was another story.

"How troublesome..." Came the reply to her in the blankets.

"Shikamaru Nara!" With a slight pull, Yoshino pulled out the blankets that covered her son's curled up form. Yet Shikamaru persisted and continued his stand on the futon. Holding a small garden watering can, Yoshino poured a small amount of water accurately onto Shikamaru's face. That woke him up.

Shikamaru made a beeline for the bathroom after hastily wiping his face on the blankets to avoid his mother's screeching in the morning. A woman's screaming was definitely not welcomed in the peacefulness of a perfectly beautiful morning!

~Page Break~

Within a short period of thirty minutes the two Nara siblings were sitting on their respective places for breakfast. Breakfast was simply rice, miso soup, seaweed, tofu and some egg rolls. Shikamaru gave a yawn. He had been able to catch forty winks while his sister was being pulled into the room to be dressed up for school.

Shikamaru secretly pitied his sister. The look of horror on her face when she was forced into yet another red dress was positively comical. Red had been their mother's favorite color and it obviously was not his sister's. The dress was indeed pretty, but the amount of time spent to get into it was not worth the trouble.

Shikamaru had thankfully been spared from the clothing torture since he had quickly slipped himself into a simple blue shirt and grey shorts. His father had visible cringed when he was yelled at by his mother by forgetting to buy a set of training senbon for them. Well senbon was Yoshiko's preferred weapon, but she won't really care if there were no senbon. That man was a hen-pecked husband, something his father will never admit but that fact was glaringly obvious to both himself and his sister. Women, what a drag...

Shikamaru signed again. Oh man, so his little sister would have to play doll for his mother from now on. Pity she's a girl. When they were done for breakfast, their father held their hands and brought them to the Academy since it was near his workplace along with the two carrying their too big lunches with them.

~Page Break~

The classroom was noisy and in the state of utter chaos. Yoshiko hadn't really liked it. Noise and her never mix well. Her father had registered their names for the Academy and promptly left them to their new sensei Iruka.

Iruka was nice with his wide friendly smile, Yoshiko could sense warmth in his chakra with no sense of danger in it. Unlike other Jonins who have an edge of danger in their chakras no matter how friendly their chakra had been in their state of ease (Kakashi's chakra had been fuzzy and felt a bit like static, Gai's had been solid like a block of concrete, Asuma's was quick moving and slightly on the hot side, Anko's was fiery and unrelenting), Iruka was bright and warm like the sun. Yoshiko had been learning how to sense chakra from the books she had found in her father's study a few months ago when he began to teach them how to control their chakra. Sensory skills had been quite easy to master with her father's help. Concentrating chakra in her mind before sourcing out for other forms of chakras had been the basis of sensory skills. First stage is to be able to identify familiar sources of chakra in front of her. She cannot track people yet nor identify people by their chakra but she can definitely sense their differences when they are around her hence she was around half way through the first stage of sensory skills.

Shikamaru had opted to sit next to an Akimichi boy at the back of the classroom with an Inuzuka boy and his white puppy. Yoshiko looked around the seats with girls. There was a girl sitting alone on the second row.

"May I sit here?" She asked the girl. She must be another one of the clan kids. Hyuga definitely with those classic white eyes.

"Y-yes." The girl gave a slight stutter. Yoshiko sat down on the seat next to the girl with short dark blue hair.

"I'm Nara Yoshiko." She held out a hand. Get the introductions done and over with, plus she felt that the girl can be a great friend from the book on herbs she was reading before she came to her. Another fan of botany.

"H-hyuga Hinata, n-nice to meet you N-nara-san." Hinata held her hand out for Yoshiko to shake. They were dressed completely in opposites. Hinata was in a cream sweater and pants along with the protective wire meshing as her inner layer with her short dark blue hair neatly combed. Yoshiko was in a dark red dress with the same protective wire meshing under her dress and her long brown hair was tied into two pigtails held by red ribbons.

Hinata appeared to be the type that didn't mind the peace and quiet, hence Yoshiko grabbed her book and started to continue her reading. She was on the topic of using everyday plants to treat burns when Iruka called for the class to pay attention while he called their names. Yoshiko paid the man no heed as she continued to read her book pausing only to raise her hands when he called for Nara Yoshiko after Shikamaru had predictably half-heartedly raised his hand when his name was called.

It was only when he started his introduction to the Academy, Yoshiko placed her book away and gave him her attention. The first day of the Academy was going really slow with a basic intro to the different types of ninja tools that a ninja would use. A Kunai and a shuriken, how to use them and the target practices that they will be having. Yoshiko knew that they will not be allowed to handle real weapons till their last year before graduation but it would do no harm for her to ask her father to start changing her blunt weapons for his sharp ones a year or two before graduation.

Hinata too paid attention to Iruka during his explanations. Iruka demonstrated a couple of times by illustrating on the white board the methods and directions to throw the Shuriken to hit the target the right way. Apparently throwing the shuriken at a 45 degree angle would ensure that the target hits the right point, that was information that Yoshiko had not known from her numerous practices with her father. Her father had allowed her to practice on her own, only stepping in when she is in the risk of stabbing herself with a kunai or cutting herself with the shuriken. He had told her to figure out how to throw the shuriken. Kunai had been easy, a 90 degree throw for maximum accuracy. Shuriken however was a lot trickier. Grabbing her pencil, she quickly wrote down the tips that Iruka gave for the shuriken.

After that lecture, the bell rang for lunch time. The lesson had went on smoothly without much trouble or drama. Her other table partner was a boy with dark hair, pale skin and onyx eyes. She hadn't really took much notice of him since he probably entered after she had sat down with Hinata; she didn't really take note of his presence.

Opening her lunchbox, she almost signed at the sheer amount of food that was present. Obviously her mother had expected her to share her lunch with her newfound friends. Ugh there was so much tomatoes and so few dango! The cherry tomatoes were acting as the tops of the mushrooms on her bento. She hated the tomatoes, she could get Shikamaru to eat them for her. There was no way she was wasting her food or risk getting screeched and nagged at but she didn't want to intrude on her brother on his afternoon nap. It would be awkward for her if he didn't awake.

Oh well... Yoshiko flipped her book open again to last page she stopped on. She didn't really flip the page with her hands but instead she made use of the chakra strings to flip the page. Unnecessary but it totally forces her to work on controlling her chakra, too little chakra will not have the page move at all, too much chakra will tear the page. Plus she often gets paper cuts, flipping the book with chakra was a lot better.

"That's good chakra control." The unknown boy piped up.

"What? Me?" She hadn't noticed him next to her. She hadn't been paying attention to her surroundings. The boy had not moved from his spot on the seat next to her. Hinata was busy with her book.

"Yeah. I see Itachi nii-san doing it with his sword sometimes. I haven't seen anyone doing it while reading before though. I'm Uchiha Sasuke." He grinned before handing out his hand.

"Itachi? The Uchiha genius? Heard of him from father but I didn't know he was your older brother. I'm Nara Yoshiko. I'm glad to meet you Uchiha-san." This boy seem nice. It was highly amusing that he puffed up his chest up when she addressed him the same way she would have address Itachi. She held his hand in a light handshake.

"What book are you reading Nara-san?" Sasuke was definitely a lot more chattier than Hinata. Yoshiko found herself at ease with this boy who too enjoy reading although his main hobbies were training and taking walks in the forests surrounding Konoha.

"Really?! There are wildcats in the forests?" That was new. Wildcats were hardly found in Konoha. Apparently they like mountainous ranges and the mountains that Konoha had were the mountain holding the faces of the Hokages.

"Yeah. Nii-san found a few of the orphaned kittens and had to take care of them in the Uchiha Compound. The litter had recognized his scent and decided to follow him everywhere." Sasuke had a high regard for his older brother, almost everything he talked about involved Itachi one way or another.

Sasuke sounded quite delighted to have made his first friend in the Academy. His father had told him specifically to mix with the other clan children; he had thought it would be really hard but Yoshiko was quite easy-going. Except she likes her books too much but Sasuke didn't mind the periods of silence where she would be reading. At least he was being given her fullest attention when he spoke to her. Itachi was always the only thing on his father's mind with Itachi being the future head of the Uchiha Clan. He found himself liking it to be referred to as Uchiha-san by associates but he would preferred a close friend to call him by his given name.

Yoshiko continued speaking with Hinata as well as sharing her lunch with the shy girl and Sasuke. Sasuke had been quite delighted to find that many tomatoes in her lunchbox hence offering to trade her tomatoes for his sweets that he apparently didn't enjoy.

Lunch went by quite quickly for the Nara twins; one taking a nap on his desk while the other was busy exchanging her tomatoes for sweets and giving a certain Uchiha a little too much food, not that the other boy complained since he particularly enjoyed the many cherry tomatoes he had gotten while discussing different herbal mixtures used by the Hyuga and the Nara.

When it was time for them to go back home, their father was waiting by the gates for them. Yoshiko made a quick beeline for her father while Shikamaru trotted behind slowly.

"How was your day?" Shikaku asked the twins as they both held on to each of his hand. Shikaku did see his son making friends with Choza's son and Tsume's son while his daughter was talking to Hiashi's daughter and Fugaku's son.

He nodded in acknowledgement to the various clan leaders when they arrived to pick their children, with most of the clan children mixing together would mean a potential political alliance with the various clans in the future.

The younger Uchiha had comically forgotten to return Yoshiko her picture book, running up to him, the young Uchiha had turned a shade of crimson before handing his daughter her book with a small bow and a mumbled 'Nara-sama'.

Shikamaru was walking in a slow leisurely pace and staring at the sky while Yoshiko was looking around her and observing the shop keepers closing down their stores for the day. He wasn't really expecting an answer anyway, plus his wife would be the one bombarding them for answers. He rather have some peace and quiet with his two children before getting home.

Of course, almost nothing will ever go according to Shikaku's plan. One of the shopkeepers had been making a loud commotion, attracting the attention of Yoshiko while Shikamaru simply tagged along with his sister when she suddenly ran off in that direction. The commotion too sparked a crowd to start gathering around the shop.

How will you react, Shikamaru and Yoshiko? Shikaku wondered to himself. Knowing Yoshiko's personality and Shikamaru, they will never sanction or support such behavior. Whether they would do take action or sit on the fence remained unknown to Shikaku.

"Go away Demon Child!"