A/N: This one didn't change much Remember how I said date will be important? Well, they are about to be important in the next few chapters, you will understand why when we get there. Sorry again to all my old readers and people reading this for the first time. I know it is changing and I will be working quickly with the information I have now. But enjoy the first few chapters again?

Please leave a comment, question or a thought!

Chapter 11: Training Grounds

June 18th:

A few days pass and I am at the training grounds waiting for Shikumaru. I am waiting for a surprise attack from him. I put up my bubble and wait.

Maybe I should try hand to hand. I am a little rusty with it and would maybe like to fight against Lee one of these days. That might actually give Shikumaru the upper hand here. I don't want to repeat what happened last time I fought Shikamaru. Hand to hand is something I need to review, since some people fight in close combat, such as Naruto and Hinata are good examples of that.

Then again, fighting something else would be good. He isn't too good with long range fighting since his shadows have a fixed amount of distance they can go. And staying out of his range would be easier. But I need the challenge, I cannot only rely on staying out of range. Some people are too fast, even for me to get out of range. Therefore, it would make sense to try to fight closer to someone.

I hear the rustling and then sense him. Shikumaru's shadow comes out from the bushes and tried to get me. I jump back and get out of his range, marking the place, and unlike when he fought Temari the sun is in my favor since I went south to avoid his range from increasing since there are no trees west, only the post. Plus, there is no way for him to reach this far. I decide maybe hand to hand, most middle and long range forget to work on close hand to hand battles.

"Nice move," he comes out from the bushes and yawns.

"Cleaver hiding in the bushes," I reply.

I wait. Shikamaru is trying to figure out what he should do next. I know that he is going to try to get me with his shadow, so I should jump and try to attack him. He doesn't know what I am going to fight with.

He crouches and starts with the shadows again. I jump up and run toward him, ready for an attack. I stop in my tracks, I glance down to see that he split his shadow since he figured that I would try attacking him. He gets up and starts to walk over to me and I have to walk the same way he is. I begin to formulate in my head. He will become cocky and act all high and mighty with pinning me down, but there is a way to break it, by will power.

He has a look of victory on his face, only he doesn't know that I have one or two tricks up my sleeve. I was ready with being caught. I think I have and idea of what to do.

"Don't try," he states simply, "As someone who also uses shadows you should know that as you get closer to the caster the bond gets stronger."

"You also forget that I have many things I can use," I mumble, knowing he isn't right.

Wait, do I know how to use shadows?

"Tsk, only a handful of people know how to break this. And that is limited to people in the Nara family." Shikamaru says.

"Well, I learned a lot of things. You're father taught me a lot," I smile.

Shikamaru stops. This is a shame. I know how to do a lot of things.

I feel my arm moving to him and I know he is moving it. I feel some movement of my own freewill. He places a hand on my shoulder and my hand is on his shoulder; he smiles believing he won this match. I narrow my eyes. Focusing my chakra through my body.

Quickly I break the jutsu and spin around and sweep his legs and jump back away from him. He yells, not expecting me to do that.

"How the hell-" he starts.

"I told you before, I know how to fight," I run back up to him and try to hit him.

He blocks my hit and jumps back. I go after him again and for a while we have a hand to hand combat fight. He jumps into a tree and releases his shadows again. He puts me on defense again. I dodge for a while waiting for him to run out of chakra.

With all my dodging I can see him get frustrated and rushing some moves that could get me. Making sure I try to figure out what he is planning. There is no way for me to tell since he can change plans so fast and figure out who he is fighting against.

Shikamaru knows how to stay cool under pressure.

I jump back out of his reach, forcing him to come out of the tree. We pause for a minute, I see he is having fun as I am. Fun, what a strange word for me to think, something I haven't thought about in a long time.

He jumps down for the tree and walks toward me slowly. I try to stay of his range but I know I cannot go into the trees with a lot of shadows. That's when the plan hits me, I know I have to act fast in order for it to work. I seem the smug look on his face and know that he isn't thinking about the fact I can be fast when it comes to this kind of thing.

Now I understand why Kakashi put him as my partner. We both watch and see what the other person is going to do. Which makes us good against each other. We can challenge each other. There is a lot of things that can happen. We both are good about bouncing back and forth.

"Running out of options?" he reads my thoughts.

"Not yet," I say.

I jump up and over his head, when I land I charge him. Only he is ready for this one since he knows I am only fighting with my fist. He blocks my kunai and ducks when I punch him. He sweeps my legs this time and I fall to the ground. I roll and jump back up before he can try anything and get behind him, kicking him into the lake.

"Had enough Shikumaru?" I tease.

He pops his head out of the water and glares at me. I start to laugh as he chuckles. He gets out of the water, completely soaked and still laughing a bit. I lay down in the grass and Shikamaru follows me down. I look up at the cloud and see that not many are out, which gave me the advantage, which works out fine for me.

"That was nice. I thought you would have fought with something else," he comments when he gets next to me.

I needed to remind myself of hand to hand.

I shake my head, "I need to work with fighting hand to hand so why not try it?"

"Well, I need to work on hand to hand than," he looks at me.

"I will change it every time we train you know," I state matter-of-factly.

He glances at me than glances at the ground, not knowing what to say. I giggle, knowing what he could be thinking. I leave in a few weeks to go spy and maybe actually training with someone will help me a lot more than just hitting things while they break. After a while we part ways and I decide to take a nap before dinner.

Since when do I nap?