Naruto: Twist in Time

5. Pointless Investigations

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CHAPTER 5
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The next week went by in a blur. Naruto kept surprising everyone by his suddenly increased knowledge in shinobi theory. Naruto himself, had come to terms with the fact that he was in the past, with the power to cause changes, good ones, and also cause a lot of havoc for the friends of his previous lifetime. He was having fun, suffice to say.

Other noteworthy development which occured that week was the persistent observation of whatever Naruto did by his determined stalker - Shikamaru.

Shikamaru was usually a very lazy person, even while playing his favourite game of Shogi. His half-lidded eyes were never awake enough to see his eye colour. Sleeping and cloud watching were the only two things on his to-do list for any and everyday.

But even lazy bastards find themselves a quest of interest.

In this case, that piece of intrigue was Naruto.

Shikamaru prided himself for his amazing observation skills and his consequent deductive reasoning based on those observations. So he knew that Naruto was fairly dimwitted, he knew Naruto practiced alot but never improved due to lack of proper guidance, he knew Naruto's circumstances weren't exactly ordinary but what he didn't know was how in the world could a person change so drastically over a fucking weekend.

He was seriously considering the possibility of soul possession for a second.

So what did this mean for him?

A puzzle to solve, of course.

So then began his investigations. The start was subtle. Side-glancing and seeing Naruto, his mannerisms, his body-language. Finding hints wherever he could. That subtlety didn't last long. By the end of the week, everyone in his class was aware that Shikamaru really, really wanted to have a conversation with Naruto so he could figure this mystery out.

But Naruto was nothing if not a challenging opponent.

Naruto was what Shikamaru called a sneaky snake in the depths of his mind. Every time Shikamaru thought that he had successfully cornered Naruto, Naruto would just...vanish. He would be left thinking how in the world did Naruto manage it and on one special occasion when he shared his theory of Naruto using the body flicker technique with his father and the subsequent laughter and pat on his head that followed told Shikamaru of the sheer absurdity of his thought process.

But Shikamaru didn't think he was imagining it all. He knew what he saw and he believed in what he saw. So this was another addition to the pile of growing questions regarding the former orange menace, Naruto.

After a tiring week of trying to have a conversation with him, Shikamaru was frustrated. He hadn't found any answers, but only more questions, with little to no progress on his theories of what happened to Naruto. He was so tired that he just lazed around and slept the entire first day of the weekend.

Sunday came and Shikamaru felt as lazy as ever. However, his mother, Yoshino was having none of it. After a bit of shouting and ordering, Shikamaru was unceremoniously thrown out of his house with a bag and a list of groceries to be bought home by him.

Shikamaru kept grumbling under his breath about the sheer unfairness of his situation. Because how come mother got to stay home, safe from the hot sun, while he had to walk around a busy market collecting a whole week's worth of groceries?