The boy had hidden depths. Sometimes Shikimaru wondered if he should really continue referring to his classmates as children, especially as they were all older than him, but all too often the appellation fit. Naruto in particular was a child, immature and impulsive despite his goal to become hokage. Graduation to become full-fledged shinobi was barely more than a year away, which meant Naruto had an awful lot of maturing to do in a short period of time. Despite all that, the boy was a trove of secrets.
Shikamaru's lengthy observation of Keiko hadn't revealed much of import concerning her fighting style, but it had turned up some interesting things about her protector. For one, the bullying campaign against Naruto was far more widespread than Shikamaru ever thought possible. He'd thought it was just another case of sadists preying on the weak, but it was something quite different. It wasn't just those at the academy that picked on the boy or avoided him like a dung-covered dog begging for affection, it was civilians too. The behavior wasn't uniform. Not all children treated him poorly until after their parents took them to task, and many recent immigrants seemed to be relatively indifferent to him. It was like there was a giant conspiracy surrounding Naruto, a secret that practically every adult in Konoha seemed to know. In another village it might just be paranoia, but in Konoha if there was smoke there was almost always fire as well.
The more Shikamaru researched the boy the more complicated the case became. Interestingly, despite the almost universal negativity towards the boy, Hokage-sama seemed to dote on him. It wasn't much, just twice-monthly visits and birthday dinners, but it was more than he did for any other academy student bar his grandson. The hokage's favoritism wasn't due to Naruto's manners (barbaric) or grades (abysmal) and he was about the farthest thing from a traditional genius Shikimaru had seen at the academy. Shika would have guessed that the supposed orphan was secretly the son of one of the Hokage's friends that had died in battle if not for the antagonism from everyone else.
Shika's second hypothesis was less romantic, but far more probable. He'd grown more adept in recent months at spotting hidden targets, and gradually had come to see more and more ANBU tailing Naruto. It was likely they had been watching over the boy since birth, though he had yet to see them intervene in any disputes between the boy and various belligerent civilians. The hokage might be courting Naruto's favor, but he obviously didn't trust him completely. Perhaps for good reason. If Shika was right, Naruto was born in the dark. That was to say, he was born in one of the prisons that Konoha couldn't publicly admit existed. Not only that, he must have some truly awful parents for everyone to despise him so much. Either truly fearsome enemies of the land of fire, or traitors of the highest order.
It certainly explained the actions of Mizuki during taijutsu and meditation classes. Irura was nice enough to Naruto, but Iruka primarily taught theory – not something that directly made Naruto more dangerous. Mizuki on the other hand, well, he was nice enough on the surface. It was a shame he was systematically sabotaging Naruto's efforts to improve. It made sense from a security point of view. The Hokage was trying hard to make Naruto a loyal citizen, but if the actions of everyone else turned him against the village they didn't want him to be too strong to put down.
That only left one question – why train him as a ninja at all? There was really only two options, sentiment or a bloodline. Sarutobi might play the kindly grandfather role well, but Shikamaru was too cynical to believe his act around Naruto. Besides, the bloodline hypothesis made far too much sense to ignore. After all, bloodlines were rarely inherited unless the parent's chakra was properly developed, and training the boy as a ninja was a straightforward way of doing so. Time would tell just how powerful the bloodline was. Already the boy seemed to have limited regeneration powers as well as an enormous amount of chakra. Shika hadn't noticed in previous years, but now that his chakra sense had grown more attuned he could feel it coming off the boy in waves whenever he practiced a jutsu.
It was a shame that such a good-natured child could be born into such a life, but there was nothing Shika could do for the boy without more effort and risk than he was comfortable with. He would have to speak with Keiko soon, convince her to cease associating with Naruto. Hopefully it wasn't too late to keep her out of the web of the hokage's machinations. Shika himself was already venturing dangerously far. His observations hadn't gone unnoticed. He'd spotted some of the no-doubt low ranking ANBU, but they'd spotted him in turn. He doubted they would be forgiving if he kept digging any deeper into the Naruto mystery. It appeared this particular investigation was at an end.