Chapter 3: Teaming Mix-Up

It has been about an hour after Asuma, his father, and Kurenai had left after telling him the news. Chouji left a little bit after that also. He had to go home and prepare for a training trip with his dad for a couple of days.

Shikamaru stared hopelessly at the clouds while lying on the ground, admiring them for what they are. He just laid there, almost lifelessly, for an hour before he started to move and get back up on his feet.

"So it'll be three days till graduation and two days till the genin teams are set up. Hokage-sama usually decides the teams by the day after graduation, so I won't know till then. I hope I don't get stuck with any troublesome kids. Hopefully, the students I get will be from Iruka's class: they seem like a good bunch. Way better than Shigome's class and definitely better than mine's."

Shikamaru started to take a walk down by the food market, the busiest place this time of day. He didn't want to depress himself, so he wanted the noise of random people to cloud his thoughts. It didn't work as well as he thought it would. As he was about to let out another sigh, a particular loud noise to his right caught his attention.

"What? You might as well cut off my arm if you're gonna charge that much! I know another place down the street that doesn't even have anything in their whole store that could cost that much!" yelled a young, short-haired girl. She showed aggressiveness like no other person her age.

"Stop holding up my line if you're not going to buy anything!"

"Who said I wasn't going to buy it? Just lower the price, and I'll buy it!"

The meat-seller looked very agitated, as he attempted to plead the girl to get lost. She just continued trying to bargain the price.

Shikamaru finally stepped over. "Tsuzuku, stop continuing this troublesomeness and just buy it or leave already."

She turned around and noticed her teacher and finally decided to give in. "Fine," she said as she reached into her purseand handed the money. "But I better get a discount next time I come!"

Shikamaru decided to walk his student home so she can't be a harm to anybody else. She enjoyed the company and kept talking on and on to him. He wasn't really paying attention, so he didn't really care. His thoughts were still focused on his recent troublesome promotion.

"I can't wait to graduate. Finally, a step into the real world to kick some ass! Imagine in a nicely decorated black suit, I'll look so cute! And by the end of the year, the whole village of Konoha would know my name!" she spoke with excitement. She finally noticed that her teacher was very "out of it", so to speak, so she asked "So Shikamaru-sensei, is everything alright?"

"Hmm? Oh yeah, I'm fine," he replied. Tsuzuke smiled and continued to talk.

They finally reached her home as they said their good-byes. Shikamaru stared at the sky and predicted the approximate time it would be now.

"I might as well get home."

The days passed by pretty slowly for the young, lazy jounin. He just rested in his small apartment without going out much. A person that doesn't know him very well would think he would be depressed from just losing his job, while it is just the opposite of that.

Soon he attended graduation day, because he was a teacher. He told his class some last words of advice to prepare them for their new journey as shinobi.

"You little troublesome brats are on your first step into the real world. You will probably face a lot of hell and a lot of problems. But I' am positive that all of you are very capable to deal with them head on. In the words of Yondaime Hokage-sama, "Let not the troubles consume you, but the big picture..., the final goal blind you." So you guys, even when it gets tough, even when it seems impossible, stop and think. 'Are you willing to go as far as it takes to finish the job?'"

The class took his words close to heart, as they say their good-byes the last time as academy students.

Soon the second day after graduation came. Shizune, Tsunade's assistant and friend, rushed to Hokage's office. She saw Konoha's grandest ninja off in a deep nap.

"HOKAGE-SAMA?"

Tsunade slowly started to stir. She wiped drool off her face as she looked up to her assistant.

"Eh?"

"The teams, Tsunade..., I mean Hokage-sama. Have you set them up yet?"

"What nonsense are you talking about, Shizune?"

"Graduation was two days ago!"

"Yeah I know, I was there..."

"Well, today is the day when the new genins get assigned into 3-man cells, remember?"

"Oh that!" she replied followed by a yawn. She pulled out all the new genins' profiles in the drawer and started doing some hand seals after she put them on her lap. She whispered a couple of words, and the profiles were all shuffled. "Done. Now, you can just now record the teams on a sheet of paper."

Shizune's jaw dropped as she saw at how her job was so lazily done. "But you have to analyze their strengths and weaknesses and try to create a well-balanced team. And we never had former academy students from different classes in the same team due to tradition. You know all of that, Hokage-sama!"

"It'll be fine. Mixing it up just gives all of them a chance to know each other better and learn something new from each other," Tsunade replied as she was about to put her head down to drift off to sleep. "You should hurry..."

Shizune looked at her watch and jumped. She grabbed the big stack of profile and hurried to give them off to the teachers.

Meanwhile, the teachers (in their own classes) waited for the list of teams for their class.

"(sighs) Tsunade is extremely slow this year. She's just delaying the inevitable of giving me three kids to age me a couple of decades."

Then he heard a voice on a megaphone. It was so loud that it could be heard all over the school. "All rookie genins and their teachers are to report to the field outside to be assigned to their teams."

"Outside? That's new..."

They all started walking outside in an orderly fashion and stood in line in front of the teachers and Shizune.

"You know what's going on Shikamaru?" Iruka asked quietly.

"No clue," he replied.

"This year, Hokage-sama saw that it would be beneficial to mix things up a bit after a somewhat long discussion, weighing out the possible pros and cons. The reason why I called all 3 graduated classes out here is because we plan for genins from different classes to team up to further understand each other and strengthen the unity of Konoha," Shizune stated.

"She sure knows how to make last mine Hokage-sama sound good," one of the teachers joked among the other teachers.

Soon, one by one new teams were made. Some children cheered in joy, some cried in agony, and some were just indifferent.

After the ceremony finished, Shikamaru and some of the other teachers walked up to Shizune.

"It was good how Hokage-sama managed everything in time," joked one of the teachers.

"Heh yeah, but it would've been nice if I didn't have to rush everything at the last moment," she replied with a laugh.

"But you finished all of the work, regardless of the situation," complimented Iruka.

"Well, thank you."

"So..., sine I'm a jounin and all now, where'e the list that says which team is assigned to which jounin," joined in Shikamaru.

"Oh it's right...," she started before she paused to search through the stack of papers, before realizing something.

"She didn't make one...," she said. Shizune dropped to her knees, and Iruka immediately helped her back up.

"Now everything is a disaster now! I thought I managed to handle all of it, but I failed..." she noted in a tired voice.

Shikamaru let out a sigh. "I guess you and Hokage-sama are lucky that we have a night before the jounins have to meet up with our new disciples."

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Everything is just so stressful today..."

"Yeah, those kinds of days can be a real pain in the ass. Especially when it comes at you unexpectedly," said one of the teachers.

Shikamaru nodded as he waved good-bye to all of them.

"Yep, just a night before everything becomes troublesome. I was getting used to staying close to home most of the time too..." he said to himself.

The next morning, Shikamaru woke up nice and early. He was eating a cup of ramen before something knocked (more like pecked) on his door. Shikamaru reluctantly got up and opened the door.

It was a pigeon with a letter attached to its leg. As soon as he untied the letter, he routinely patted it on the head to tell it to go away. He shut the door and opened the letter to read it.

Nara Shikamaru, your disciples, Team 14, are at the training grounds. You are to meet with them as soon as you receive the message. And as a rookie jounin, be sure to test them for them to be a part of Rookie 9 by the 15th of the month at the latest.

Hokage

Shikamaru sighed as he cleaned after himself at the dining table. Then he went into his room and grabbed all necessary weapons. He wore his new jounin vest over his usual fish-net shirt and headed out.

"Team 14? I wonder how troublesome will they be..."