Chronicles of the Lazy-ass Ninja!

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Chapter 4: Interesting Results

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Disclaimer: I'm not Kishimoto, so… yeah that's about it.

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Shikamaru was in deep trouble. For the first time since he entered the academy, the young genius would have to use a pencil to get out of a mess. He was to make sure that he and his teammate Haruno Sakura had a grade of at least "A" for their work or he would have to face the wrath of Naruto. Now, getting beat up didn't sound appealing to the pineapple head, but that wasn't the kind of threat that would move the heart of this Nara. No, the troublesome situation laid in the way the blonde could cause a chain reaction leading to Shikamaru's mother being on his case for ever. But only having to write the answer was only half the problem; He had to make it so his teammate didn't meddle in his work, which left him a dozen of minutes to save his skin.

The young Nara started by taking a look at what Sakura wrote. He had to admit she knew what she was doing. Her strategy was practical and efficient. I wonder if she'd make a good shogi player. He thought that only playing against Naoko would get boring in the long run, but quickly shot down the thought; this wasn't the time to think about shogi. He then pondered on the question for awhile, erased Sakura's answer, wrote is own and then put the Sheet on the Iruka's desk. By the time he had done so, the students were starting to re-enter the classroom. The pink haired student made her appearance instants after the Uchiha's. It seemed she had completely forgotten about the work and the head ache her teammate was giving her; at least until she noticed the spot were she had left her work was now empty. She rapidly marched towards the Nara's desk and slammed both her hands on the hard wood, while lowering her head to the level of the startled boy. They both glared at each other. After a slight moment of silence, Sakura exploded.

- What do you think you're doing!?

- I could ask you the same question. With a scowl on his face

- Me!? You're the one who lost the work sheet!

- Lost!? Damn girl! Can't you see it's on the teacher's desk!?

- Why did you put it there? I wasn't done with it!

- The sheet I put there looked pretty complete to me. Geez, I don't believe you broke my nap for this. Again.

Once again Sakura couldn't argue back. She started walking back to her desk, a little relieved. Yet what Shikamaru said didn't sound right in her mind. She changed direction and went to Iruka's desk. A short glance at her paper was more than enough to tell her something had changed, as she clearly couldn't recognize her own writing on the sheet. She tried to reach for the paper but the teacher's hand was faster. Iruka knew Sakura knew about the rules, so he didn't bother explain that once a work was brought back to a teacher it could not be changed under any circumstances. Defeated, Sakura walked towards her place in a foul mood. Apparently Shikamaru had written his own answers on the paper and gave it back so she couldn't change them. As for why, she had no idea; but she was sure her grades would suffer from it, and so would her teammate.

Minutes passed slowly. One by one, the teams brought their work and separated. Most of them were nervous, some of them, anxious, only a few were confident. Surprisingly the last team to send their work to the teacher was Naruto and Sasuke's. The general consensus of the class was that Naruto had slowed Sasuke down. But even then, the whole class had finished 15 minutes before the time limit, which permitted Iruka to correct the answers of all the teams before the end of the school day. As the class was ending, the chunnin asked the teams to meet in front of him so he could hand out their work. Usually, when Iruka gave work back, he would not comment on grades, but today was different, since missions were an important part of a ninja's life.

I'm very proud of you today: most of you stood to the basics and chose a four men team consisting of a ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu, and medical specialist. While that type team has its weaknesses, it can tackle any situation, including this one. I must also mention Sasuke's original use of the genjutsu specialist as decoy. For that, the team gets an "A".

When this was heard, every half of the class room started to squeal of joy, however Sasuke let out a "Hn". The screeching stopped abruptly; when the Uchiha made that sound it meant that he was not in a good mood, compared to his snicker of superiority he always had when obtaining the best grades of the class (which happened all the time). Most of the class though that he wasn't satisfied with the results, even though he had a notably higher grade than everybody for this work, but raven haired prodigy knew it had more to do with the fact that the praise from Iruka had to go to Naruto, because it's was his idea. And the boy had to admit it was a pretty darn good one too. The teacher continued with Sakura's team, his tone seemed different: "Frankly I didn't expect this of you". At the mention of her name, Sakura flinched, but before she heard the rest of his remark she started to shake her teammate violently, cursing him for pretty much everything wrong in the world. If her grades were low, Sasuke wouldn't notice her; if she wasn't noticed by Sasuke, she had no reason of becoming a ninja; if she had no reason to become a ninja, she had just wasted the last years of her life doing practically nothing. Meanwhile, Shikamaru was desperately fighting for air. It seemed being shaken violently and at ridiculous speed, prevented him from breathing. At that point he wondered if it would have been better to be strangled instead.

- Ha… ru… no… stop… I… can't…

- You! Why did have to go and do that! You messed up everything! Aren't you even listening to all the trouble you've put me through!?

- For their brilliant work Sakura and Shikamaru deserve an A+ !

The pink head was still in the midst of a 2nd degree murder when all of her classmates looked at her in awe. When she finally registered what her teacher had said, she dropped the boy, who gasped and coughed thanking the heavens he was still alive. The girl then politely asked Iruka to repeat what he had just said, because she naturally didn't believe a single word her ears had processed. The teacher cleared his throat, and with a drop of sweat resumed his explanations. "As I was saying, while most of the class though of using an all-around team to perform the mission with a 80 success rate, your team picked a trap specialist instead of a taijutsu specialist, and the plan applied using the team's strength ups the success rate to nearly 90. You guys thought out of the box and chose a team that was perfect for this mission. That's why you deserve this grade.

Haruno still couldn't believe it; A+! A better grade than Uchiha Sasuke! Nobody ever got that in class since… ever actually! She nearly cried of joy and shared her happiness with Shikamaru by shaking the boy who had just gotten up as vigorously as before. No need to mention that this was torture for him and that he wished that he could have just stopped breathing earlier. Note that the fact that she was squealing incoherent things at about 1 inch of distance didn't help.

- We did it Shikamaru!

- Damn… wo… man… I… need… air… Wait, she actually knows my name?

- An A ! Don't you realize what it means?

And she dropped him as suddenly as she picked him up when she realized herself. There's no way that the raven haired handsomeness wouldn't notice her now. She even had her step ahead of Ino; she would never recover from this. She approached the Uchiha, expecting him to congratulate her and comment on her awesome paper: she forgot who she was dealing with. The look Sasuke gave her, almost made her want to hide on underground. Why would he be so angry? Strangely, only the guys had figured out that characteristic of the Uchiha; he hated anyone weaker than him, and he absolutely loathed anyone better than him; charming fellow, really. Since she was a girl, she didn't understand anything at all. The fact that the bell rang confused her even more. Then it hit her; this would never have happened if it wasn't for her grade higher than his. She then looked for the responsible, but he was nowhere to be found.

Shikamaru had played it smart and decided to crawl his way out of the classroom, the idea of being scrambled a third time not very appealing. He also made sure to leave with the paper in hand: he didn't want to do any more work. Not only he knew her teammate was mad at him, but he figured Naruto would be as well: it seemed he had a thing for the pink head. If there is anything worse than a girl, it's probably an idiot falling in love. The pineapple head made a quick rundown of what happened today: he had decided to help someone and this resulted in having potentially three people wanting him dead: Sakura, for destroying the nonexistent chance she ever had of getting Sasuske – People can dream, can they? Naruto, who'd probably think he did it on purpose… even though he was the one to ask him to at least get an "A"; And Sasuke, if he ever discovered who was the author of the "A + " paper; Being beaten by Sakura was one thing; being outsmarted by the deadlast would be really humiliating. Later, at his favorite resting spot, he came to a conclusion.

Being lazy and not doing anything would have actually saved all the pain and trouble I went through.

Shikamaru swore to himself that he'd never do anything for anyone ever again… well, expect for his mother.

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