Nara Shikamaru!
Disclaimer: I suppose since these are required, I must say, "I do not own anything of this fic but the idea!"
xii — investment
"Yatta!" exulted Kagome, leaping upward for joy. "I won again!"
Asuma arched a curious brow at his defeated (albeit calm) student, and Chouji paused with his hand hovering above his half-finished bag of chips.
"That's another dinner you owe me then, Shikamaru-san!" the raven-haired young woman noted mirthfully, her hands clasped behind her back. She was grinning from ear to ear as she skipped away from the wooden veranda, leaving the three remaining shinobi behind. "I'll be at the usual place by six!" was her chipper call in the distance, before she vanished completely from view.
"Oi, Shikamaru… aren't you getting kinda rusty?" asked Chouji warily, inspecting the shogi board before them. "Even I could've countered her last move."
Shikamaru responded with an insouciant shrug, laying back against the paneled floor with his fingers interlaced behind his head. "Maybe I am."
Blowing out the nebulous smoke of his cigarrette, Asuma knowingly smirked.
No, Chouji, he thought to himself in mild amusement, he just has something else in mind to win other than a board game.
The faint smile tilting Shikamaru's lips attested to that.
A clever man commits no minor blunders.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Author's Note: Such a sneaky little genius!