Troublesome Fate
Part 2: Battle Tactics
Author's notes: Hope to do more of this soon, but I got a lot of other things to take care of too, mainly finding another job. There's really no yaoi for a few chapters, but there is a lot of fighting and killing things. Wheee.
Shikamaru had fallen into a quiet routine of training, visiting the hospital to see Chouji during his recovery and playing shogi with Neji while still having time to relax and watch the clouds in between caring for the deer. But Konoha finally reestablished its defenses and were able to organize the new genin and chuunin teams. After saying goodbye to Naruto and the three Sand-nin Shikamaru headed for the administrator's offices and waited his turn outside until he was finally called in.
"Now then, as a chuunin, you will be expected to act as a leader and example for genin to follow. You must be able to operate not just in a team, but also independently. Most of your missions will be with your main team, but you may be grouped with another team should special circumstances arise. In addition to team missions, you may also be given solo missions if it is determined that you will be able to handle them. While it is expected that you continue to improve your combat skills, after a year you are also free to request a new team arrangement, specialize as a chuunin teacher, a chuunin team captian, field medic or ANBU. You are also free to take the jounin exam. Your new team member's names are Yakushi Yumi and Hagane Roka and your team captian is Namiashi Subatsu."
"What happened to their old team member?" Shikamaru asked.
"He passed the jounin exam. One of your team members will summon you in the morning. Good luck."
After Shikamaru left, one of the administrators turned to his superior.
"Akira-san, are you sure it's a good idea, putting him with such an advanced group?"
"Don't worry, if Subatsu-sensei can't get him to make the most of his potential, then no one can. Nara can go far, he just needs the right motivation."
"I thought you looked pretty good and lean when you were discharged, you sure know how to rebound back to your original size, huh?" Ino asked as they ate as Chouji's favorite BBQ restaurant, which Asuma had decided to treat them to in order to celebrate everyone's recovery from the hospital and the completion of Shikamaru's first mission as a chuunin.
"Since your appetite is back, I assume you're feeling all better?" Asuma asked.
"I'll be ready to train after I finish eating, Asuma-sensei." Chouji replied.
"It just won't be the same without the three of us. You better be able to still hang out with us, even if you are now a chuunin." Ino told Shikamaru.
Although Ino at first had hated the fact that she hadn't been on the same team as Sasuke when they had all graduated from the academy, they all eventually became close and just as they were really starting to develop as a team, Shikamaru was now being reassigned to a chuunin team since he was the only one who had passed the exam.
"Being a chuunin's just a title and it's not like I'm leaving Konoha or abandoning all of you, we'll still have our days off. They're having the chunnin exams again soon anyways, I'm sure you two will pass it on your next try, then they might put us back together again when they reorganize the teams." Shikamaru replied.
"By the way, I heard your captain is Namiashi Subatsu, used to be an ANBU captain, but it seems he's getting on in years. Better train hard, I hear he's a real slave driver." Asuma told him as he pulled out another cigarette.
"Who else is on your team, Shikamaru?" Chouji asked between bites.
"Yashuki Yumi and Hagane Roka."
"Yumi took care of me at the hospital and she snuck me chips." Said Chouji, looking as though he had the beginnings of a crush.
"I wondered why you seemed so motivated to train all of a sudden, Chouji-kun. The Hagane family buys a lot of flowers from my family's shop they're in charge of the funeral home in the Northern part of Konoha. My dad told me they raise the birds that deliver messages too." Added Ino.
"Shikamaru, there's a girl at the door for you. Honestly, you're a chuunin now, you should at least be able to get up on time." Shikamaru's mother kept hectoring him as he tried to snuggle back under the nice warm sheets.
"Shikamaru, if you don't get up right now, I'm going to pour ice cold water on your head!" Nara Minako yelled.
Remembering the last time she had done it, Shikamaru shot out of bed.
"Okay! Okay! I'm going!"
He opened the door to see Yumi,. Her white medic outfit was visible under her chuunin flak jacket, with her large medical kit tucked neatly up against her hip. A large naginata, a type of large curved halberd was strapped to her back.
"Hey I'm Yashuki Yumi, I remember you from the hospital, Shikamaru right? Subatsu-sensei sent me to get you."
As they jumped across the rooftops, the topics they discussed jumped around from talking about each other, to jutsus, to deer, since Yumi really liked animals. To Shikamaru, she seemed to have a combination of Ino's confidence without her pushiness and Naruto's cheer without being completely loud and annoying. He knew they'd get along fine. The conversation shifted to his new team.
"Roka's kind of a wild fighter and when he's not training he's usually partying, but he knows his stuff and once you get to know him, he'll fight by your side right to the end. Oh, but I should warn you about Subatsu-sensi, he's very strict, but if he likes you, he's very loyal and trustworthy, if he doesn't like you, well, don't worry, I know he'll like you. But he has a little of, well, an odd appearance." She fiddled with her skirt a bit as she finished, it seemed to be a nervous habit of hers.
"I heard he used to be an ANBU." Shikamaru said.
"He was until, how can I put this? You know how most older shinobi often have some kind of scar or old wound, he has a bit of a deformity from when a mission went sour. It's quite bad, but please try not to stare."
As they finally reached the training area, Shikamaru caught sight of Subatsu, he looked like he had suffered severe burns a while ago. The entire left half of his face, from his nose onwards, was horribly scarred, the skin uneven and buckled, his ear an almost entirely melted off and misshapen mass. The scarring and buckling ran right down his shoulder and onto his left arm, which had only three claw-like fingers, the pinky and ring finger cut off. A pair of katana blades were sheathed at his lower legs. Yumi introduced him and he started asking Shikamaru questions right away.
"I know the Nara clan uses shadow ninjutsu, do you have any besides that?"
"Beyond the basics, no."
"Do you have any specialized training in weapons beyond basic ninja tools?"
"No."
"You're going to specialize in a weapon and you'll be learning more jutsus later. Let's just do some light sparring for today so I can see what level you're at, any ninjutsu or tools you have with you are fair game. Roka and Shikamaru first, then Yumi gets the winner."
Yumi leaned her naginata against a tree and Roka put his coiled whip on the ground. Shikamaru sized up Roka as they faced off. The first thing you couldn't help but notice was that he managed to look quite intimidating despite the fact that he was very thin, almost gaunt in fact. His black pants and grey top seemed to hang off him, while his medium length black hair hung around his face in a straggly way. Shikamaru quickly used his shadow, while Roka cut his finger and summoned a swarm of crows. Shikamaru tried his best to fend off the crows with nets and smoke bombs as they cawed and pecked at him before using Kawarimi no Jutsu to switch himself with a log.
"That won't do any good, my crows will find you." Roka said as the large black birds began to circle around looking for him.
"What's going on? He can't have gone far!" He yelled at the crows as they circled and cawed back at him, unable to find their target.
"Well, go high up then! He's around here somewhere!" Roka ordered.
"Mokudon no Jutsu!" Roka performed another summon, springing up vines everywhere.
Deciding to take high ground, Roka kept bringing up more vines from the ground on the while standing on top of the largest one he had made. Suddenly, he realized that he couldn't move.
'My crows didn't see him at all, how did he catch me?'
"How did you evade my crows? No one has ever been able to hide from them." Roka called out.
Roka felt his head turning around but it didn't help, all he could see was his shadow leading to the ground as his crows perched on the vines.
"Where are you? I don't get it." He called out.
"I'm right here." One of his crows on the ground said, before turning into Shikamaru in a cloud of smoke.
"I didn't know you were that good at Henge no Jutsu." Roka knew Subatsu was able to really change his size when he transformed, but he didn't think that Shikamaru was that good at it.
"You didn't ask me." Said Shikamaru as the shadow leading from Shikamaru's shadow, up the vine to Roka's shadow became more evident.
Roka responded by whistling, giving the order for his crows to attack with full force, but before they could reach him, Shikamaru performed a series of hand seals causing the other chuunin to mimic his moves. Roka suddenly realized that Shikamaru had memorized the very hand seals he had used to summon his crows, but since he had already called out all his crows, all he was doing now was wasting his charka while nothing happened to Shikamaru since he didn't have any summoning abilities. All the crows disappeared in a puff of smoke as Roka's charka level dropped below what was needed to keep them there. Despite having the advantage of more field experience and stronger jutsus, he was now pinned by Shikamaru, unable to move and without enough charka to perform any techniques even if he could move.
"You're not going to do what I think you're going to do, are you?" Roka asked.
"I could choke you a bit, but I think I'll save my charka for the next fight." Shikamaru smirked as he took one step backwards, sending Roka crashing to the ground.
"Ow." Came Roka's voice as he pulled himself out of the mass of vines that he had summoned at the last minute to brake his fall.
"When will you learn not to be so reckless? Your turn, Yumi." Subatsu ordered.
Shikamaru knew better then to use his Kage Mane no Jutsu right away, since Yumi had seen what he was able to do now, so at first they simply used basic techniques such as Kawarimi no Jutsu. Shikamaru finally managed to knock Yumi backwards with a well-placed explosive note and then tried to grab her shadow. Suddenly, she performed some hand seals.
"Tsuchi no Jutsu!" Small sharp walls of earth that went up to about the waist sprang up from the ground to disrupt the shadow.
Shikamaru manipulated charka into his feet to jump over Yumi's head, then tried to extend his shadow behind Yumi to trap her as he landed. Just before it reached her she saw it and quickly used a smoke bomb. A set of kunai came out of the smoke at him, which he easily dodged before sending his shadow at the source to try and catch her, but Yumi quickly jumped above the smoke and performed another series of hand seals.
"Katon no Jutsu!" she cried as a wave of fire came shooting out in a wide scatter from her hands. The flames had barely left her hands before she rushed another set of seals.
"Kaze no Jutsu!" Yumi then used a blast of wind to whip the fire into an inferno, burning all the vines and nearby cover to prevent Shikamaru from adding them to his shadow.
With nowhere else to dodge, Shikamaru hurled himself at Yumi's landing spot inside the smoke cloud, performing one last set of hand seals and then drawing a kunai. Roka and Subatsu heard some loud clanging sounds. When the smoke cleared, it looked like Yumi was the winner since she had managed to knock Shikamaru's kunai from his hand, but then Shikamaru activated his Kage Kubi Shubari no Jutsu.
"I don't recommend doing that." Yumi warned as the shadow hands reached up to choke her.
"What the hell-" Shikamaru said in surprise, as he felt like he was being choked at the same time.
"I was able to pull off one last ninjutsu too. My Mane no Jutsu makes the attacker feel the same thing as their target. I developed it a while ago, but didn't think it would be very useful until I heard that you were joining us."
"I guess I can't choke you then and I really don't like fighting girls, though you fight pretty well." Said Shikamaru.
"I just don't like fighting in general, let's call this one a draw." Replied Yumi and they both put their kunai away.
Just as Yumi had warned him before hand, they all sat down and Subatsu proceeded to discuss their strengths and weaknesses and mistakes they had made in their fights.
"Roka, you have to stop being so reckless, fighting by simply tearing up the battlefield is not always the best solution, and it shouldn't be your first one. Yumi, it's good that you've improved you charka control but you still need increase your stamina. Finally, I see that you're a good tactician, Shikamaru, but you still need other unique ninjutsu besides the basics and your shadow abilities and don't be inhibited about fighting someone or what you should be doing based on gender, it's how you fight with your hands, not what's between your legs."
Yumi suppressed a giggle at Shikamaru's slightly irked expression. Suddenly, a large falcon with a message tied to its leg swooped down and landed on Roka's arm.
"We're needed as back-up for a mission in progress at the edge of Fire Country. We're to go for a briefing at Godaime's office right now, then we leave tomorrow to rendezvous with Anko-san, who will give us further information on the situation." Roka read out.
It was well known in the village that it would be years before Konoha completely recovered from Orochimaru's attack, so genin and chuunin were being assigned to higher missions then they normally would have been given before not just for more money to rebuild but also to keep face and not appear vulnerable to attack.
"This is a big A-Rank mission other chuunin and jounin have already been working on, they've requested backup. A warlord by the name of Nobaru has been kidnapping citizens and terrorizing villages to the far southeast of Konoha. The Leaf-nin there had been posing as magistrates attempting to secure the release of the hostages and had learned quite a bit about the warlord. He's got numerous thugs and missing-nin from various countries to work for him, we also suspect that he has many sound-nin on his side. We also have reports that he's managed to breed and tame a large herd of unusually vicious horses, reports say they've never seen anything like it. Your current objectives are to assassinate the warlord, apprehend as many missing-nin as possible, destroy the horses and free the hostages."
"I wish I could hang out for a bit, but I've got dance classes today, then I promised my parents I'd help with the night shift at the hospital. See you tomorrow." Said Yumi as she ran off.
"She's always busy doing something. What about you Shikamaru, do you have anything to do right now?" Roka asked.
"Just watch clouds I guess." Shikamaru's laid back answer made Roku raise an eyebrow.
"Watch the clouds?"
"My friends are all training, my dad's gone on a mission, my mom's busy running errands. It's just what I like to do when I've got spare time."
"Well, it's good to relax a bit before a bit mission. Come on, I'll take you out to dinner, my treat." The older chuunin offered.
"Sure, Roka-san."
"You can use Roka-kun, since we're working together, we should be on friendly terms, same for Yumi-chan, we use Subatsu-sempai with our captain , since he used to be an ANBU. We're going to get called for a lot of missions since Subatsu was an excellent ANBU captain in his prime and Yumi's an excellent medic." Roka said as they sat down and read through the menu.
"A friend of mine has a crush on her."
"Better tell him not to waste his time. Yumi's nice, but between her missions, her dancing, her work at the hospital and filling in at the bookstore, she hasn't really got time for romance."
Roka's information worried Shikamaru. He wasn't quite sure what to tell Chouji, neither of them had any experience with relationships…
The arrival of the waitress to take their orders broke Shikamaru out of his thoughts.
"I was told your old team member became a jounin, what's he like?" Shikamaru asked after ordering the same thing as his teammate.
"I'm afraid Kamizuki Nozumi didn't pass the jounin exam as you were told, he died on a mission. He was pretty old, doing well as a fortune teller, but he came out of retirement after the attack during the chuunin exams to help deal with the desperate ninja shortage. He had a really odd special ability Yumi called it clairvoyance, I believe. He could predict things about a day or so before they would happen. He told us he knew he was going to die on our next mission, but not to worry; he felt it was his time. Sure enough we were attacked and he took a hit. The blow wasn't fatal, but the shock resulted in a heart attack, there was nothing Yumi could do. A shame too, he was a really cool guy." Roka answered with a sigh.
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"It's all right, he was ready for it and didn't have any regrets. So, any other questions?"
"How come you use a whip?" Shikamaru asked as the waitress arrived with their drinks.
"What's wrong with using a whip?"
"I always thought of it as a woman's weapon." Shikamaru replied as he sipped his tea.
"That's a new one. Everyone's got their own reason as to why they think it's kind of strange that I use a whip, Yumi said she thought it was kinky." Roka answered with a laugh as Shikamaru choked on his drink.
"I don't know why I decided to specialize in a whip, I guess I just found that it complimented my abilities. I like having a wide range and I'm more about being quick then strong. Subatsu insisted we both train with weaponry when we were put on his team, you'll have to as well. Do you have any idea what weapon you want to specialize in?"
"Haven't really thought of one." The lazy ninja answered with a shrug.
"You know, my older brother told me about what you could do during the chuunin exams. I think you'd do well with a chain and sickle."
"How come?"
"Just think of how much further you could reach your shadow, all you'd have to do is whip our your line, and stick out your shadow a bit, then all someone else has to do is swoop in and take the other guy out and if you learned to use it right, you could hack right through someone's armor."
Their conversation ended as the waitress arrived with their orders.
'It may be troublesome, but this time I'll make sure the mission is successful.' Shikamaru thought as he quietly poked at his food.
Author's notes: Those fights were a bit of a pain to figure out, but I swear some of the fight scenes in this series are starting to piss me off. I like watching fights with Shikamaru since he uses his head, but lately all it's becoming is power-up-and-bash-the-other-guy-senseless-through-sheer-brute-force ala Dragonball Z.
Here's a little info on my original characters and techniques from the manga, or that I made up myself by piecing whatever words together. If you're completely obsessed with the manga/anime and have good memory (or some combination thereof), you'll probably recognize the family names, but for those of you who don't, Namiashi Subatsu is the elder brother of Namiashi Raido (Jounin with raised scar on left side of face extending from nose to ear), Yakushi Yumi is the cousin of Kabuto and Hagane Roka is the younger brother of Hagane Kotetsu (Chuunin examiner with bandage over face). Kamizuki Nozumi is/was a relative of Kamizuki Izumo (Chuunin Examiner with bandana who appears with Kotetsu).
Tsuchi no Jutsu – Earth technique, calls up a wall of earth that can be used to defend or attack. A weaker version of Sandaime'version of Doton: Doryuuheki (Earth Type: Mudslide Barrier)
Katon no Jutsu – Fire technique, shoots fire from the hands. Similar to Sasuke's Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Flame Type: Powerful Fireball Technique)
Kawarimi no Jutsu - Body switch/replacement technique
Kage Kubi Shubari no Jutsu – Shadow neck choke technique
Mane no Jutsu – Imitation Jutsu, I made this one up, basically the attacker has the same damage inflicted on them as they are inflicting on someone else.
Kaze no Jutsu – Wind technique, can be used to cushion a fall or be combined with other elemental jutsus to increase or change their power.
Mokudon no Jutsu – Wood technique, causes vines to spring up that can grip the enemy and slow them down. Basically a weaker version of Shodaime's Mokudon: Jyukai Koudan (Wood Type: Forest Genesis)
I gave Roka and Yumi elemental and low-level summoning abilites, but their powers are nowhere near the level of the Hokages, they're just a few steps shy of jounin level.