Chapter 5: Meeting Choji

Meeting Choji for the first time was quite interesting, to say the least, he was very kind and a happy kid.

The two of us were eating at a small Dango shop with our fathers, Shikaku and Choza, Choji was dressed in short black pants and a green T-shirt with the Akimichi clan symbol on its back, Choza, however, was fully decked out in armor that a samurai would wear, he also had the typical purple markings that every ninja of the Akimichi clan would have painted on their faces once they reach Genin rank, and one word to describe him was large, he was a full head taller than my own dad and at least twice as wide.

"Hey, Shikamaru! Have you tried out the spicy bacon dango yet? Or the sour lemon dango?"

I sighed lightly as Choji had been asking me about all the things I eat and to be fair after listening to that for multiple days it got very boring, "Choji, I don't eat things like this often as I need to keep a healthy diet if I want to be a ninja."

Choji just looked at me with absolute terror on his face, "Huh? How? These all taste too good and dad always says that we need to eat a lot so we can be strong."

I just deadpanned at him, "Yeah but you're an Akimichi, you need to eat to use your family's Hiden Jutsu, but I don't and I can't even eat as much as you in the first place."

Choza who had been listening to us talk, "He's right you know, not everyone eats as much as we do, and it is for our Hiden, after all, you can't become a giant if you don't eat, but Shikamaru is also right, a diet is very good for someone's body, all that junk food you eat is unhealthy."

Choji just looked down at this and Choza chuckled at his son's antics, "Now, now, no need to feel down, junk food does have a lot of calories so I guess there is one good thing to them."

My father just sighed at us, like he always did, "Choza, you shouldn't be corrupting Shika into eating junk food, you as well Choji, but Shika and I will have to leave, don't want to make his mother mad by being late, you guys should come over some other time and maybe Shika and Choji could train together a bit."

Choza looked a bit surprised, "You have already started training him?" To which my father just sighed tiredly and nodded.

Choza smiled at my father and said, "Well then we'll come by soon, now come on Choji we still have that new BBQ place we have wanted to visit for a while, let's go."

Choji cheered at this and they both left the shop.

"So Shikamaru, your mother asked me to bring you out to the forest, you will be having survival lessons with her, that's why I let you have so many treats today."

I was fairly surprised by this, but it was something that I would need for the future, it wasn't only Danzo and Madara that I had to watch out for, I had to be able to survive in the wild by myself in case that I'm on a mission that isn't anywhere near civilization and I would need to learn what things I could eat outside in the wild, I would also need to learn how to make a fire, set up a tent, and how to prepare meat.

We left the dango shop after paying for the dango we ate and headed to the forest that was owned by the Nara clan, our clan was well versed in medicinal herbs and making medicine, we also kept a very large medical encyclopedia, while I haven't been able to read it until now perhaps this was the chance that I was looking for.

Medical jutsu or Iryojutsu was a very interesting thing, it allowed a person to heal another, a cut that would take weeks to heal can be healed in mere moments, broken bones could be healed in minutes, although there were limits to how far Iryojutsu could heal a person, people like Tsunade could heal injuries that could be critical to one's ninja career.

For example with Lee for all intents and purposes his ninja career should have been over the moment Gaara crushed his arms and legs into mush, but with Tsunade's medical techniques he could continue with his career.

After walking back to our compound, we entered the forest, and I would soon realize that this wouldn't only be some simple survival training, no this would be much more than that.

~~~~~

Introducing Choji, he will also be much stronger in this fic than his canon counterpart, the rest of the Konoha 12 will be introduced at a later date and yes it is 12 not 11 since Sasuke hasn't defected.

In the future Shikamaru will be learning a lot about Iryojutsu and medicinal herbs and maybe Ill include some Wuxia pill making (I wont) but who knows