Naruto's Different Path

Chapter 14: Team 10

-5 Days Earlier-

"When are we going to get there?" Ino cried out for the fifth time after they were assigned to border watch duty.

"For the fifth time Ino, we're almost there. We just have to walk a little longer before we get there." Asuma replied to the whining girl.

"But we already walked a lot! Why don't we take a break?"

"Ino, could you stop complaining for five minutes? You're being so troublesome."

"WHAT WAS THAT SHIKAMARU?!"

Shikamaru shook his head and mumbled "troublesome" before ignoring Ino's rants in favor of walking towards the border. After ten minutes, Team 10 had finally seen the border patrol shack. With Asuma in the lead, he led his team towards the shack and knocked on the door. The door opened partly and a chunin poked his head out to see who knocked.

"Ah! Hey, our replacements are here Mitsuo!"

"Finally! I can now go home and take a nice long bath." The now called Mitsuo packed all of his belongings and was walking out of the door before he caught sight of Ino and stopped to place a hand on her shoulder. "You're going to love this kid. Good luck!" He said with a grin on his face. "Come on Renjiro! Let's get out of here!"

"Yes sir!" He laughed out.

The genin of Team 10 were watching the two chunin walking towards Konoha. Shikamaru and Choji shrugged their shoulders and decided to get down to work so they could head back home sooner. Ino was left alone outside when she suddenly had enough.

"NOOO!"

-3 Days Later-

Team 10 was walking through their regular border patrol routine earlier in the morning. With Asuma leading his team with full awareness, he turned to look back at his genin squad. Choji was the most awake and alert out of the genin. Asuma chalked it up to him being the most energetic out of his bunch unless it came to cloud watching or shopping. Ino was already complaining about how she looked due to being woken up earlier and due to her drowsiness couldn't make herself that presentable. And finally there was Shikamaru. The lazy Nara was practically dragging himself along while still half asleep. Asuma would've admired the boy's laziness if it wasn't a mission that happened to be their first C-ranked.

After this mission, he'll definitely take their training up several notches when they get back to the village. Asuma shook his head and turned back to face ahead of them when he barely caught a glint from a kunai thrown at him. Acting and thinking quickly, he pulled out a kunai of his own to block the thrown projectile. If he would've jumped out of the way, the kunai thrown at him would've just struck Choji since he was right behind him.

The clang that came from the kunais snapped the rest of the genin out of whatever they were thinking and pulled out kunais of their own. Choji and Ino were a bit terrified at their first real chance at combat with enemies who were not afraid to end their lives. Shikamaru kept up an annoyed demeanor but on the inside he was quickly thinking of different ways the situation would play out and how many of them were in their favor.

'What are the right moves in this scenario? Think dammit!' Shikamaru had to block a kunai that was thrown at him from one of the hidden shinobi. Right then, the hidden shinobi decided to come out of hiding and surrounded Team 10. 'Of course it had to be Iwa shinobi! Ok the enemies revealed themselves so now I can get a better look at them.' He eyed him carefully trying to find any weakness that he could find from just a glance, but came up empty. He tried to take a step back, but a kunai embedded itself into the ground just barely missing Shikamaru's foot.