ANBU boot camp

Chapter 3-

Hiruzen was an early riser. He had to be as Hokage of the Leaf village. He sent the two Chūnin night guards home, so they could get some sleep, then walked through the doors to his office. He stopped when he saw someone sitting on his desk reading a file.

"Well it is good to see you, Mai, how have you been?"

The woman looked up and smiled. He always liked that smile, it was so warm and friendly. It always amazed him that she could have that smile despite everything she had been through.

'Morning Hokage-sama, sleep well?'

"About as well as any Hokage can with Chief around,"

She nodded as she knew that meant 'not even close to good'.

'He is here to help...and fix the mistakes'

The Hokage just nodded as he went to sit in his seat. Once he had settled into his chair she handed him the file she was reading. Going over it thoroughly, his eyes widened, and he looked up at her.

"Why did no one ever think of that?"

'Cause people got lazy,' was her reply.

Hokage again nodded as he continued to read through the file and made some notes. When he finished he looked up at her again? She had not moved as she waited.

"This war...do we know who?"

Shake of the head.

"Where?"

Another shake.

"When?"

"No... we know only that it is coming.'

"It will be hard to mobilize the village and get them ready. As it is now we would have to be attacked with heavy losses before the village finally realized..." he spoke before she interrupted with another smile.

'Did you forget...Chief is here, he take care of that,'

And with that, she hopped off the desk and kissed his forehead before slipping out the window.

Yoshino Nara, the mother of Shikamaru, was headed to her son's room to start the chore of trying to wake him up. If she was lucky she would complete that chore sometime in the next five hours. As she opened the door and was about to start her well-established rant she stopped. The room was empty. She knew Choji had stayed over last night and she'd expected to find both boys passed out in positions that could only be achieved by two boys trying to stay up far later than they should.

But they weren't, they were not in the room...then she noticed said room had been cleaned. Once her shock ended she quickly turned and headed for the kitchen where she found her husband reading some early reports and drinking his tea. The fact that HE was up and moving this early had her worrying greatly.

"Shikaku, our son is..." she started to speak when her husband just lifted a finger and pointed at the fridge.

On the fridge, a note was pinned,

'Went out training with Choji, back by dinner, no need to make us lunch' Shika.

"Ok," she tried to understand. "What is going on, why...who...how?"