It All Started With A Smell

Chapter 3: What A Drag!

It was already troublesome. Ino had wanted to get there early, before most of the other participants, so he had been dragged out of bed long before he would have liked to be. They had sat around in a room that was quickly filling with mean looking Genins that were at least two years their senior. They knew going in that they were the rookies but Shikamaru had not realised that the others would be so much older than they were.

Ino didn't seem fazed by any of it and simply kept looking towards the door every time it opened. Shikamaru sighed, realising the only reason she had insisted they arrive so early was so she would be able to spend as much time as possible with Sasuke. As he grumbled at the thought of lost sleep because of Sasuke he waved off Choji, who was offering him chips. It was far too early for junk food. He stayed seated, resting his head on the table and wishing he could go to sleep.

A high pitched squeal broke the slumber he was drifting into. Sitting up with a yawn he saw that Ino had disappeared. He looked at Choji, raising an eyebrow. His friend nodded towards the entrance. With a sigh, Shikamaru stood up walking with Choji to find the third member of their team. The last thing they needed was for something to happen to her. As they drew closer to the doors Shikamaru stopped, observing the scene in front of them. Ino had found Sasuke, and was half hanging off the boy whose posture was tense as she argued with Sakura. Naruto though, was doing the unexpected. He had stepped back, taking himself out of the line of fire of the two girls arguing.

"Oh, it's you guys," Shikamaru stated, recovering from the scene and walking forward with his hands in his pockets. Naruto looked surprised. "I knew this was going to be a drag but I didn't know it was going to be this lame."

"So all three stooges are here," Naruto retorted.

Shikamaru felt something burn in his stomach as Naruto looked at him. "Hey, you know what, pipsqueak-? Ah, forget it, you're a waste of time."

Naruto scoffed at him, looking unhappy with him. Ino saved him having to think of something to say.

"So, Sasuke's all mine." She pulled the skin under her eye as she stuck her tongue out.

"Well, well, what do you know," Kiba laughed as he walked up to the others with his team in tow, Akamaru sitting on his head. "It looks like the whole gang is back together again."

"Oh, hi, Naruto," Hinata greeted breathlessly. When Naruto turned his eyes onto her she turned red, looking down.

Shikamaru felt an emptiness appear in his stomach, which was odd, since he had eaten breakfast. It wasn't a comfortable feeling either, the emptiness sitting heavily around his abdomen.

"You guys too, huh?" Shikamaru frowned, trying to keep the growl from his voice. "Man, everyone's here for this stupid thing."

"Yep," Kiba boasted, "Here we all are. The nine rookies! Hahaha, this is gonna be fun. At least, for those of us good enough to make the cut." He looked at Sasuke, making his meaning obvious. "Right, Sasuke?"

"Kiba, be careful you don't get overly confident." Sasuke smirked as Ino started to get mad behind him.

"Just wait, we're going to blow you guys away." Kiba pulled his shoulders back. "We've been training like crazy."

"What do you think we've been doing?" Naruto snapped, frowning at the boy with a dog on his head. "Sitting around picking daisies?" He pointed at Kiba. "You don't know what training means!"

Shikamaru chose to not mention that he had seen Naruto's team having a picnic. Mainly since Choji had told him about his conversation with Naruto where the blonde had gotten a bridge named after him. He didn't know how though. Besides, he had just started to feel better and the last thing he wanted was the troublesome experience of being yelled at by Naruto.