Chapter 13: Loud Mouth-Slacker-Glutton and Tomato
Team 10 were at the Nara forest. Their parents insisted that they pick up antlers together as a way to strengthen the bonds between them. And Asuma left them with instruction that they should also train. An hour went by and Shikamaru found himself laying on the grass next to a pile of antlers, when he was supposed to be training with his team. While Chouji was sitting on a rock eating chips. And Ino was practicing her Taijutsu against a tree.
"Shika." Ino spoke as she stopped beating up the tree. She walked over to the lazy teammate that Asuma dumped on her. Asuma had left with some lame excuse about how he had to run to the blacksmith and pick up his weapon.
"What?" Shikamaru asked, while very aware that Ino was in one of her bossy moods again.
"Get-your-ass-up!" She commanded, placing her hand on her hips. "You know what I heard as I was passing by the Ramen place? I heard that Team 7 can walk on trees! Do you not care that we're being bumped towards the bottom of the list? We're so not relevant right now! Which is why we aren't being sent on C-missions! It anguishes me to be on this team right now! You guys are so uncool!"
Chouji looked up from his spot, and stopped stuffing his face. He appeared to be hurt over her words.
Shikamaru's eyebrow furrowed. His narrowed brown eyes glared at his nagging teammate.
"Big deal. It's not like anyone expects much of me anyways. Not my mom, not my dad, not even Asuma-sensei. Besides, I already improved on my Taijutsu, so why don't you cut me some slack?" Shikamaru murmured darkly.
She took a deep breath as to calm herself. But released a screeching sound before she spoke.
"I've had it with you!" She said as she stormed away from the Shikamaru.
"Hey Shikamaru…I know Ino is being really bossy, but that's because you don't cooperate much. And it seems like she really wants us to be successful. She acknowledges that the whole team needs to be good for her to be good." Chouji said, after he got over his hurt feelings. "Aren't you being a little selfish? And she also called you Shika, which is obviously a nickname." He pointed out.
"You make me feel troublesome when you're right." Shikamaru said as he stood up from the ground to go follow after his disappearing teammate. When Shikamaru found her, she was hugging a deer. The animal ran away when Shikamaru got closer, as if sensing the negative energy in the air.
"I'm your teammate Shikamaru…not Sakura." She said, almost hurt.
"Huh?" He asked, confused as to how she even found out about that.
"I know you trained with her instead of training with me. Asuma-sensei told me." Ino said. "How do you think that makes me feel? You know how I feel about her! Did you do it to spite me?" Ino's eyes watered as she blinked back her tears. She was normally bold and lively. And seeing her like this while knowing he was the cause of her tears, made him feel compromised. It wasn't in his nature to be brooding and burdensome to others. He felt guilty and less of a man. His father would definitely be disappointed in him.
"Ino stop." Shikamaru said awkwardly. "You're being presumptuous."
She glared at Shikamaru as he shifted his weight on one side, feeling uncomfortable.
"This is humiliating for me, so I'll say it once. I'm sorry, okay?" He said. "So let's go back and try to get this tree exercise down so that we don't become the Leaf Village's dead last." Shikamaru shoved his hands inside his pocket and turned around to go back to where he came from.
Shikamaru didn't see the devious smile on Ino's lips.
'I found his weakness.' Ino thought to herself. If she had known all it took was a couple of glistening tears on her cheek to get him to feel guilty, she would've done it earlier!
Yoshino dropped by the Nara forest, with Inoichi and Shikaku trailing behind her. The only one missing was Chouji's father because he was out on a mission at the time. The three witness the next generation training together, trying to get down the chakra exercise. The three genin paused at the appearance of the adults.
"Shikamaru, is that all you got?" Yoshino said, while shaking her head. "When your father was your age, he was already a Chūnin." Shikaku placed a hand on his wife's shoulder and shook his head. He normally doesn't confront her, but they agree that there were lines they shouldn't cross when it comes to parenting. They made a vow not measure Shikamaru against Shikaku's great accomplishments.
"Troublesome, just take the antlers and go." Shikamaru murmured to himself, but she was too far to hear it.
"Daddy!" Ino ran towards Inoichi and hugged him. He picked her up and pecked her on the cheek.
"Keep it up, you're doing great managing your team. You're a born leader, Ino." Inoichi said proudly.
"I know, daddy!" Ino said, as her dad placed her down.
Yoshino opened up a sealing scroll on the ground, next to the antlers. And Shikaku helped with placing all the antlers on top of it, and sealed it. Chouji never stopped being amazed over such magic every time he witnessed it.
"Wow, I wanna learn how to do that, that way I can seal all my food and chips inside." He said, his interest had peaked so much that he stopped eating chips. Yoshino smiled kindly at the young chubby boy, earning a glare from Shikamaru; who barely receives those kinds of smiles from his mom.
"Asuma will teach it to you, I'm sure." Yoshino said. "But if you ever get impatient, just come by on a weekend and we'll work on it." Her eyes then landed on Ino. "You're also welcome too, of course." She said.
"Thanks Mrs. Nara!" Ino said politely.
It was after the three adults left that Asuma finally returned from his trip to the blacksmith. Trailing close behind him was a timid creature that could be mistaken for a mouse. Asuma stood before his team, who were obviously confused as to why Hinata Hyuga was there with him.
"Don't worry, I got your folks' permission before bringing her here." Asuma said as he saw Shikamaru's eyes narrowing dangerously at him. "This little tomato rolled out of a bush while I was on my way back." He explained.
"A-A-Asuma-sensei!" Hinata said, while her face turned into the color of her nickname. Ino and Chouji laughed. It seems no one escaped Asuma sensei and his nicknames.
The scene made Shikamaru cringe inwardly, as his fears were realized. Hinata Hyuga had become a stalker. She probably stalked Asuma and accidentally got caught because he was a Jounin, so of course he would be aware of a mere genin following him around. Shikamaru didn't even want to know of how the situation had actually played out.
Something similar to what Shikamaru imagined happened. Asuma had walked out of the blacksmith's store, and he noticed a constant flickering chakra following him. When he approached the chakra, he found Hinata on a tree. She lost her balance from the tree she was on, and landed gracefully on a bush. Asuma then shifted next to the rustling bush and spoke to it.
"I see you completed the walking tree exercise. That's nice." He praised the rustling bush. "So did Kurenai send you with a message or something?"
"I-I-I want to help t-team 10 with their t-training!" Hinata said. "S-So could you r-request me?" She blurted out in a fit of panic. Hinata didn't think she was going to get caught by Asuma.
Together, they went to team 8 training grounds, where Kurenai greeted her boyfriend by placing him under a Genjutsu of her kissing him on the cheek. She dispelled the Genjutsu right away, as he smiled.
"Can I borrow Hinata so she can motivate some of my students?" He asked her.
"Yeah, of course." Kurenai said. "In return, can I borrow your team one of these days? I want to put team 8's tracking to the test."
"Yeah. Sounds reasonable." Asuma replied. Thus, that is how Hinata ended up there at the Nara forest.
"Hi-na-ta!" Ino skipped over and hugged her. "Oh my god, I think I've gotten taller than you!" She said, as she stood shoulder to shoulder to measure herself.
"I don't really see the difference..." Hinata said.
Chouji was the only one that asked Asuma-sensei why Hinata was there. The older man looked at the blushing genin and nodded to her.
"Why don't you show them what you can do, Tomato?" Asuma asked. Hinata made her way, almost robotically, to a tree. She took a deep breath to calm herself otherwise she wouldn't be able to control her chakra. She laced her feet with Chakra and leaped high in the air to land on a tree branch. That had been impressive enough. But she took it a step further and walked under a tree branch, while upside down, like a bat.
"If you can do it, then I bet it'll be a piece a cake for me! After all, I was kind of better than you!" Ino said, with a wide smile on her face. Chouji moved his chips to the air, as if toasting to Hinata's accomplishment with a glass of wine. Meanwhile Shikamaru looked slightly baffled. It had been two weeks and a few days since he had last seen her, not that he was counting or anything. How much had she improved since then?
Shikamaru walked to up to the tree with a serious expression on his face. He tilted his head and looked at Hinata. She had shifted her position so that she was now sitting on the branch of said tree. He was aware that his laziness was hereditary. And he loved and embraced his lazy personality wholeheartedly. But being surrounded by work-oriented and overly hyped genins, forced him to hike along for the journey.
He pulled out a kunai from his pouch to use it in order to help him not fall on his back. His other friends followed his example on different trees, by pulling out a kunai to help break their fall.
"Byakugan!" Hinata activated her Byakugan upon seeing Shikamaru repeatedly fail. "Y-You're not using enough Chakra." Hinata said. "T-Try to increase the flow."
"Yeah, yeah, that's easier said than done." He mumbled while glaring at the enemy tree.
"My turn! Hinata, watch me!" Ino said with confidence. She ran up to a different tree, and was able to stand against it for more than three seconds, before stabbing the trunk with a kunai.
"I-Ino! You were amazing. Just keep trying and you'll get it in no time." Hinata said. Her eyes were assessing Ino's chakra floating through her. Ino was right when she said she was basically as good as her when it came to chakra control.
"Me next!" Chouji said. But each time he tried, he ended up shattering the tree in half.
"Y-Your expelling too much chakra Chouji. Try using less...like a lot less." Hinata replied.
Asuma made his way towards a tree and leaned against it. He pulled out a cigarette pack, tapped it, put it in his mouth and lit it up with his favorite custom made lighter. The lighter was from the time he was one of the knights who protected the Feudal Lord of the Fire Country. He smiled to himself as he took a drag and watched Hinata do her best to help team 10 get it right.
Shikaku told him that there was a way to make chakra exercise easier for all of them. But Asuma stood by and didn't say anything to see if Shikamaru would get an idea of how to make the whole process much easier.
Shikamaru groaned for the umpteenth time since he had started the exercise.
On his last attempt, he didn't even bother breaking his fall by stabbing the kunai on the tree. Instead, he allow his back to connect against the ground as a grunt escaped his mouth. He lay there, blinking, while looking up at Hinata. The sun made her hair look like the color of the night sky. It danced along to the breeze that blew past her. He was openly staring at her, testing his theory of her being oblivious. She kept her attention on Ino, while ignoring Shikamaru and thinking he was merely looking at the sky. But that couldn't have been it. Hinata realized the sky was covered by the thick dense of trees and leaves.
Her curiosity got the best of her as she began to feel insecure. Hinata glanced down, with an innocent look on her face. When their eyes met, his face remained impassive, but his heart beat sped inconsequentially. He didn't break eye contact, and waited for her to look away.
She looked away after thinking that Shikamaru was just looking at the leaves dancing above the forest.
Asuma was still leaning against a tree, when his eyes drifted to the lazy boy who seemed to be trying to burn a hole through the tree branch Hinata was sitting on.
"Hey, Slacker, get off your back, will ya?" Asuma said.
Shikamaru grunted, before closing his eyes. "I'm trying to decide whether this fruitless training is worth the effort or not. It's obvious I'm not going to get it down right away, since my control isn't on par with Ino's."
Asuma let out a sigh. He was disappointed that Shikamaru wasn't using his head to figure it out.
Was he placing too much faith on the boy? Could it be that Shikamaru is just good at Shogi, but not good at actual real life strategies?
"If that's how it is, then why don't you spar with Hinata? Taijutsu and Ninjutsu are allowed." Asuma replied.
Hinata's attention snapped towards Asuma. Her heart swelled with happiness at the mention of her name. The way he said her name was enough to for her heart to beat instrumentally, with Asuma as the orchestrator.
Asuma heard from Kurenai that his father had gotten involved with the Hyuga's leader. Hinata had been missing from training for two weeks, so Asuma wanted to see if she had improved in any way.
Pretty soon, Hinata was off the tree and next to Shikamaru. She offered her hand to help him stand. He rolled his eyes before accepting it.
"Sensei! Can I watch?" Ino asked. By then she had been able to take five steps up the tree without falling. She was close to the top. Upon seeing this, Asuma thought why not.
"Then I'm coming too. I get scared if I'm out here by myself…" Chouji said.
"Why the hell not." Asuma replied with a shrug.
The four genins followed Asuma towards a clearing in the middle of the forest. Hinata and Shikamaru made their way towards the center. They stood a few yards away from each other. Hinata took a weapon out of her leg pouch, and looked towards her curious opponent.
"W-We'll start when this stabs the grass." She said, and tossed the weapon in the air. Once the battle began, both genins leaped backwards, but over different reason. Shikamaru was being a bit more cautious because Hinata had gotten better at chakra manipulation. And Hinata knew that there was something similar about both Neji and Shikamaru, and the way their eyes look during a fight. They both look like they were scheming something.
Finally making the first move, Hinata laced her feet with chakra, and zigzagged across the field in only five leaps. She noticed the ghostly surprise in his eyes, when she was inches away from him and landed a strike. But thanks to the wonder of substitution, Shikamaru managed to sneak away.
"Go Hinata! Beat that lazy bum!" Ino yelled from the side line.
"Don't listen to her Shikamaru! You're our man, sensei and I are rooting for you!" Chouji said.
"Byakugan!" She said. Instantly catching him trying a sneak attack from behind. She shielded his punch with her forearms, and sent him flying a few feet with her palm strike.
'I can't get close to her like before.' Shikamaru thought. So he decided to change his tactics during the seconds it took for him to get back up his feet. His hand moved fluently as he created the signs for Yin release.
He manipulated the movement of his shadows and readied himself for the impending assault. Each time she tried to get close to him, he didn't let her, as she almost got caught. Eventually she remembered the kunai stabbed on the ground, which Shikamaru was standing close by. Hinata thought back to the spar she had with Naruto and how he had used it since it was part of the environment.
When their eyes met, she smiled innocently. This didn't settle well with Shikamaru.
His eyes shifted to the kunai next to him, but he had been too late to react. Hinata substituted her location with the kunai, and was in front of him within seconds. She sent him flying again, this time with a kick, as his body just barely avoided a tree.
When he got up, she had disappeared out of his peripheral vision.
'Where is she?' His head moved around until he found her. She was right behind him, and her gentle fist hit a substitution.
'Where is he? Let me guess…behind me!" Hinata swung her body around to face Shikamaru, as she dodged his shadow, by running up against a tree. When she leaped off, she landed in front of him.
Shikamaru dodged her strikes, while never breaking his hand signs. A falling leaf made him take notice of his environment; they were near enough trees now. Which was in his favor. There was an overabundance of shadows he had at his disposal to control.
He noticed a particular tree with two holes, no doubt made by some animal that decided to make it its home.
On the outside, he looked disinterested, but he was fighting himself to hide a smug smile. He manipulated his shadows in hopes of getting her to corner herself against that tree. Hinata did a side aerial to avoid one of his shadow that kept spreading in size.
But then she ran up to a tree, falling into Shikamaru's trap.
She was standing with her feet against the trunk, watching as Shikamaru just stood there.
"T-Tree climbing is kinda nice…isn't it?" Hinata said as she turned off her Byakugan. He figured that was her way of taunting him. In turn, he finally couldn't hold back the smug smirk from forming on his lips.
"Yeah, I bet it is." He replied, smiling wickedly.
Unbeknownst to her, his shadow snuck inside the hole of the tree. When it came out of the tree, and near Hinata's location, she didn't notice the slithering snake-like shadow. By the time she did, she tried to leap away but couldn't because she had already lost control of her body.
Shikamaru knew the event that would quickly follow, which is why he had been standing by. Hinata's shadow had been captured, this meant she would lose complete control of her chakra prompting her body to fall from the tall tree almost immediately.
Shikamaru pushed his legs forward in time to capture her in his arms. But he fell on his back, because he had misjudged her weight or his strength.
'That. Hurt.' He grunted in pain, still on his back while his eyes were closed.
To save himself from the embarrassment of looking at her, he kept his eyes close as Hinata lifted herself off of him. When Shikamaru opened his eyes, he saw Hinata kneeling next to his body, with her palm aim at what was no doubt a very vital area on his neck.
"S-Shikamaru, I guess I win." Hinata said, while pressing her palm gently against his throat, as if showing him where she would've strike to kill him instantly.
"Aa." He said with a smile, looking almost too happy for someone who lost. Somewhere along the battle, he gave up. He had thought of so many ways of defeating her, but what was the point? He was a strategist that had barely gotten any better at Taijutsu. While she obviously exhibited tremendous improvement overall. It wouldn't have been fair if he had won. So he had decided to lose on purpose in hopes that she could see her own progress by defeating him.
His hand clasped around the hand that was still pressed on his neck. And the sudden skin contact while outside the battle, shocked her. Shikamaru didn't let go even though he was just as confused as to why he reached out to her in the first place.
But he was quick to think of some reason to explain why he held her hand.
"Troublesome, this is your fault so help me up." He said.
Hinata couldn't see how any of this was her fault, but she got up, and tighten her grasp around his hand as she helped him off the ground. They both let go in unison.
"So Shika, do you see now why we can't be left behind?" Ino said as she approached the two with Chouji and Asuma behind her.
"That wasn't too bad, Tomato." Asuma said, while grinning at the blushing genin. He knew Shikamaru had let the girl win, but even if she had lost, it doesn't change the fact that she improved maybe by fifteen percent.
"Can't wait to be able to leap and fight on trees." Chouji said, excitedly. "Let's go back to our training spot." He turned around and started marching back towards the place they left their ninja bags. Everyone turned to follow Chouji except for Shikamaru. The lazy boy walked over to Hinata's forgotten weapon, and inspected it in his hand in a thoughtful manner.
'Troublesome,' Shikamaru thought to himself. 'I was letting myself be swayed by the energetic idiots around me, that I didn't stop to think of the easy way out of this.'
"Ino wait," Shikamaru said, loud enough for the group that was walking away, to stop. "Watching Hinata substitute herself with a kunai made me remember your mind technique transfer." Shikamaru said while walking up to Hinata and handing her back her weapon. Asuma's eyebrow went up in interest. Ino looked as though she had also figured it out.
"You think it could work?" Ino asked doubtfully.
"What are you two talking about?" Chouji asked, while lost. He knew Shikamaru hated to explain stuff, but that didn't shy him away from asking.
"Well it's like this, with Ino's mind transfer technique, she can help us catch up to her almost immediately. Her chakra control is really good, so she'll be able to control our body and communicate with us. She can show us the exact amount of chakra we need to stand and walk against a tree. Therefore efficiently cutting our training efforts by 90%."
"I don't want you guys leeching off of me, but I'll do it." Ino said, reluctantly. After all she was the one who wants her team to be badass.
"Shikamaru! You're a genius!" Chouji said, as he patted his friend on the back.
"No I'm not." Shikamaru said, humbly. "But my father is."
"Shikamaru." Asuma said. And the seriousness of his voice made the Shikamaru glance up at his teacher. In the background, Ino tugged on Chouji and Hinata and pulled them away to give the two time alone. Once the three genin were out of hearing range, Asuma spoke again. But this time, he was less demanding in his tone. "Do you understand that your team needs you just as much as you need them? From now on you will take training more seriously. There's no going back. You'll train when I tell you to train. And you'll rest only when I say you can."
Shikamaru felt awkward to be spoken to in such a way. Asuma looked concerned, the same kind of concern he often found in the expression of his father.
"I guess I have to apologize to you too just like I apologized to Ino." Shikamaru replied. "I'm sorry Asuma-sensei. I'll try to be more…tolerable." Asuma rolled his eyes and chuckled.
"Sometimes I get the feeling that you want to hide who you truly are." Asuma said. "It took me a few tries to figure out that your I.Q is over two hundred. You're a genius, and it's like you purposely try to hide it even from your parents. Why's that Shikamaru? And don't brush me off like you always do."
"Look…I just hate being the way I am…it's like I'm forced to do something with my life just because of this inherited gene which I didn't ask for. Plus I find myself getting further away from my friends as my mentality is becoming adult-like. But guess what, I don't fit in with the adults because I'm a damn kid." Shikamaru said bitterly. Asuma seemed taken back, but he quickly hid his surprise.
"Let's talk some more over a game of Shogi tomorrow." Asuma said. Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. "Don't give me that look. You're probably thinking 'what do you know?' But guess what, I don't exactly fit in either with my peers even though I'm an adult. Probably has something to do with being the Hokage's son. What do you make of that?"
"They're probably afraid that you'll get them into legal trouble if they ever get on your wrong side." Shikamaru said as he looked away.
"So you see, being an adult doesn't mean you'll always fit in." Asuma said. "Sometimes your problems follows you into adulthood. Take it from someone who knows and also tried to run away. Quite literally."
"Running away does seem tiresome…" Shikamaru said.
Asuma laughed while ruffling Shikamaru's hair. He then walked past his student and headed to where the other genins were waiting. Shikamaru soon followed after, as he analyzed the conversation that was previously spoken. For the first time since he joined team 10, Shikamaru believed that Asuma-sensei was getting the hang of being a mentor. But what does he know? He's just a kid.