Chapter 39: Chunin Exams (11): Shikamaru Nara.
Disclaimer: I do NOT own Naruto. Naruto is the work of Masashi Kishimoto.

"HA!"

"UNSEAL!"

Just as the battle fan was one inch away from Tenten's spine, a chakra-metal hand shield appeared in a puff of smoke between her body and Temari's fan.

'Too close!'

BANG!

Tenten's body flew like an arrow toward the edge of the arena. While in mid-air, she twisted her body using extreme agility and chakra to land on the ground with grace while clutching the chakra-metal shield on her left hand.

'The shield is too thin, it actually bent after being hit by a fan…'

Tenten sighed. Chakra metal is too expensive and the shield in her hand is only 25% chakra metal.

'Her fan should also be made of chakra metal, otherwise, it wouldn't be so strong…' She looked at Temari's lean body. '…and light.'

POOF!

"WHAT?! UNSEA—"

Seeing Temari disappear in a puff of smoke, Tenten reacted after a second of delay.

BANG!

"UGH—COUGH!"

But she was a little too slow.

"Gotcha," Temari smirked.

BAM! SPLASH!

Tenten's body slammed on the muddy ground below. The water had been absorbed by the soil at some point and turned the ground into mud. Above Tenten's body, Temari landed and stomped on her unconscious head.

BAM! CRACK—

Then, she used her fan and slammed it on Tenten's back. Genma frowned when seeing this and quickly stopped the match by announcing.

"WINNER! Temari of the Hidden Sand Village!"

After Genma announced the end of the match, the crowd turned rowdy. Not because of excitement but instead disappointment.

"She's so weak!"

"Why is she in the quarter-finals?"

"What a waste of time!"

"BOOO!"

Hearing the crowd around them, Neji and Lee frowned. Just as Lee was about to stand up, Neji tugged on his arm and shook his head. "But Tenten-san—"

"Leave it be. Nothing will happen even if you stand up for her. Besides, how can you even stand?" Neji said with a cold tone as he glanced at the crowd. He can understand their disappointment, but why should they throw trash toward his teammate?

"Let's go to the medical staff and see if she's okay," Neji suggested and stood up, not seeing the disbelieving look of Rock Lee.

'Neji-san, Neji Hyuga, is going to visit someone in the hospital? Did I wake up in the wrong world?' Lee wiped his eyes for a few seconds.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing! Let's go see Tenten!"

Lee smiled when Neji looked back, but once Neji turned back to keep walking, the smile on Lee's face vanished and was replaced by a frown. 'What is happening to the world?'

The Neji he knew wouldn't care about a dying person, much less an injured one. Just look at when he was crushed by Gaara. Neji didn't care about him at all!

Lee sighed and pushed his wheelchair to follow Neji to the hospital.

Inside the Kage box, Hiruzen sighed while the Kazekage hummed. "Temari is qualified, but Tenten has a glaring weakness. I don't agree to promote her for the time being," the Kazekage said. Danzo nodded, while Hiruzen gave his own comment of agreement.

"Let the next match begin, the crowd is getting restless," Hiruzen ordered and an ANBU appeared next to Genma to convey his command.

"The next match shall begin. Benjiro Suzuki and Shikamaru Nara, please come down to the arena!"

"Damn it," as he grumbled, Shikamaru walked down the stairs and after reaching the center of the arena, he saw Benjiro standing there with a smile on his face. 'I have to fight this guy? Damn, why is it so troublesome?'

"Well, let's do our best, Shikamaru-san," Benjiro said and flashed me a smile.

'Very troublesome,' I grumble aloud.

It all started on one unfortunate day. The ninja academy had just started, and the instructor was like a talking rock.

'So troublesome, why can't I just watch the clouds? There's no point in this anyway, it's just a waste of time. It's better to train your chakra control or something than listen to lectures.'

Before my mind wandered into oblivion, my eyes caught the sight of a golden glimmer. When I turned my head, I saw a boy with the brightest blue eyes, the purest smile, and the shiniest golden hair.

But something about him felt off. Like he was wearing a white suit in a room full of people wearing black suits.

'He's… strange. He moves differently.'

It was funny, and if I said my thoughts out loud, I'd probably laugh. But I was certain, something was not right with the way Benjiro walked.

'It's fine if he doesn't make noise when walking, but the way he walks… ugh, what a troublesome guy.'

Each move Benjiro made was too natural. If I had to explain it, it was like the difference between a person who tripped and a person who purposely tripped but is pretending that it was an accident. Unless they were an expert, there will be inevitable flaws.

As I watch Benjiro talk to our classmates, seemingly enthusiastic, I begin to get bored and closed my eyes to sleep. 'We're training to be ninjas, who cares?'

"Hello! I'm Benjiro Suzuki, may I know your name?"

Suddenly, a voice snatched away my drowsiness. I lifted my head up with a groan and introduced myself with a tired voice. 'So troublesome. I'm so sleepy… what is he trying to do?'

The conversation looked normal, but to someone like him, it was far from that.

'He's probing for my information,' I thought. There was nothing special about me except my smart brain, so I had nothing to hide. Sure enough, he stopped the conversation and went to talk with another kid after narrating all my skills and information.

'Oh, I see,' when he began talking to a red-haired boy, I realized what he was doing. 'He's judging everyone's strength. Tsk, so troublesome. Why'd he want to do that in the first place? It's useless.'

Thinking that thinking about this pointless mystery is equally useless, I decided to take another nap.

"Oh? What's that?" Benjiro's whisper rang inside my ears and I tried to cover them. Then, another voice entered my ears and I halted.

"Oh, it's called Fuinjutsu…"

"Fuinjutsu? I heard it can be used for evil," Benjiro said in a hushed tone.

'Fuinjutsu? I heard something similar from Dad… I don't really know what it is.' Intrigued, I make the worst decision of my life. I listened to their conversation.

"No, Fuinjutsu is… why are you curious, anyway?" The other boy asked. From the corner of my squinted eyes, I see a glimpse of red hair. 'If I'm correct, his name is Naruto Uzumaki… Uzumaki, it sounds familiar.'

"Oh, I'm curious because I've seen it before. Look, it's in my tongue," Benjiro said and both of them went silent. I assume that Benjiro is showing his tongue to Naruto, nothing weird. Totally.

"Uh, there's nothing?"

"…huh? There's definitely something there, look again!" Benjiro said, but his voice was shaking for some reason.

'Why does he sound excited?' I kept this in the back of my mind for now. I hated troublesome things and would rather lay around and watch clouds all the time, but I like solving puzzles as much as I like shogi, and Benjiro is an unsolved puzzle.

"There really is nothing," Naruto said and they went silent again. "I'll be going," Naruto said and broke the silence, but Benjiro didn't reply. Hearing the footsteps next to me and the sound of a bag being placed down, I realized that Naruto sat next to me.

"It's gone… it's really gone…!" Though it was faint, I hear Benjiro whisper with his voice trembling.

'Weird,' I thought but before I knew it, I fell asleep.

The next day of class, I waited for Benjiro to enter class like a python waiting for prey. Next to me was Naruto, who was reading a book about Fuinjutsu. 'Damn, what are those?'

Even if it was to save my life, I couldn't understand a single paragraph in the book.

CLACK—CREAAAAK—

Suddenly, my eyes darted toward the door and saw a familiar golden haired-boy walk in. The door was brand-new, so it shouldn't creak open like that but for some reason it did.

'Something feels off,' I turned to look through the opened door and saw another kid with a pale complexion and a smile engraved on his face like a drawing.

'Who's that?' I wonder in my head when Benjiro lifted his head to bid the person goodbye. He even bowed toward the older kid. Seeing this, I narrowed my eyes.

'He's treating him with respect,' I thought. The pale kid looked similar to our age, so the way Benjiro treated him was a little odd, but not groundbreaking. It just meant that another clue was presented to me.

What was strange was the smile on Benjiro's face.

Yesterday, the first day of class, Benjiro was smiling like a kid going to a park for the very first time. He looked at everything with shining eyes like it was his first time seeing them, and although he probed everyone's information under the guise of greeting them, as the day passed, I observed that he was genuinely curious about everything.

Now, he didn't even glance at the window.

'He spent half the day yesterday looking out the window with yearning,' I mused. Then, I saw him talking to everyone, just like yesterday.

'He feels different.'

Strictly speaking, Benjiro looked the same as yesterday. The way he talked, smiled, moved, and walked… nothing changed, but his aura was different.

'His smile looks so fake and his eyes look so dull. It's as if his soul was sucked out of his body.'

Intrigued, I decided to watch a little bit more.

Suddenly, something clicked and I squinted my eyes to observe Benjiro's mouth.

"…yes, I like tomatoes too…"

When his mouth opened, it felt like the world had slowed down. From inside his mouth, I notice that his tongue is a little swollen, and I saw ink on its surface as if someone wrote on them. Seeing that, I recalled what I did last night.

Because I was curious as to what Fuinjutsu was, I asked Dad and he gave me a book with a brief introduction to Fuinjutsu. I still remember what he told me when I asked him for the book.

"If you don't understand it, don't worry. Just skim through everything and you'll get what you want," he said and opened a folder. It seemed important as his eyes focused on the folder.

Listening to his advice, I skimmed through the book and after I was done, I had a headache.

'I can't believe that Naruto can read this with relish,' I grumbled and recalled what I just read.

Apparently, there was a thing called a Cursed Seal. It can manipulate people to act in a certain way. For example, the Prisoner's Seal is a cursed seal that placed a constant faint genjutsu on a prisoner, keeping thoughts of escape away from their mind. There's also a seal called Word Restriction Seal and it forbids a person from speaking a certain word.

For some odd reason, the ink on Benjiro's tongue reminded me of those cursed seals.

'No, it shouldn't be the case… right?'

When I was about to trash the idea, I remembered Benjiro's behavior yesterday when Naruto said that there was nothing on his tongue.

'He was overly excited at the time... Is it really a cursed seal? It makes sense why he would be happy if it was suddenly gone…'

Dying for an answer but not wanting to act, I waited agonizingly for Benjiro to talk with Naruto. When he did, as expected, that Fuinjutsu freak talked about the seal on Benjiro's tongue. 'Though I'm surprised he saw the seal in the first place. His head was buried in the book the whole time!'

I didn't dislike Naruto, despite secretly adding the "freak" next to his name. But being able to read those Fuinjutsu books… if he wasn't a freak, I don't know who is.

"Benjiro, do you remember the seal you were talking about? You said it was on your tongue. I remember now that there's a certain seal that disappears when not being used…"

Before Naruto could finish rambling, Benjiro clamped his hands to the redhead's shoulder and smiled kindly. "I don't remember that at all," he said and walked away without turning back.

'What a rude guy,' I thought as I watch that shocked Naruto clench his teeth and try to stop the tears from falling down his face. '…and what a fragile guy,' I sighed and approached Naruto.

"Hey, wanna go watch clouds together?"

'At least something came out that day,' I thought.

I got myself a good friend.

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