Chapter 5 : Toad Spirit

Time passed by and Shikamaru kept on training. His interaction with others after his memories awaken was only kept to his parents at best. Almost all the time he spends on grinding. Something he was having a very hard time doing as the original Shikamaru's personality was holding him back, but he still does.

Another important thing that he wasn't letting others know about was his sudden motivation to get stronger, in front of others, he still behaved like that one lazy genius Nara.

His mother still thing that Shikamaru was lazing around somewhere out there.

His friends still think that Shikamaru is sleeping in class while either reading something or practising chakra control.

And finally now was the time to complete his entire one-month training plan. 

He was standing there in the forest, far away from the hassles and puzzles of the village, alone and meditating.

He has completed all the goals he set for himself in the last 1 month. Getting better in Taijutsu, Physical fitness, shuriken throwing, water walking tree walking and much more. He was able to achieve it.

He was by no means the best out there but he was average now, this when included with his 200 + IQ was enough for at least to make him survive the Konoha Crush.

But there was still one thing which was left, the exact reason why he was here. To summon and tame his second spirit.

He got up slowly and made a hand sign, " I need to tame the next shinigami, Let's call them spirit as I am not using any curse energy here but only chakra to summon them. 

The rabbit is only good for distraction, I need something better," Shikamaru muttered to himself and sighed.

Seeing that his shadow started to move and the spirit started to appear, he got ready.

"A toad," Shikamaru's eyebrow twitched, he really wanted a stronger spirit but whatever.

Taking out a kunai he threw it towards the Toad but it was able to dodge it by hoping out from this place and with his long tongue got away from him. 

"Tch, it's never easy, is it," Shikamaru chidded and ran after the frog. Just like the rabbit, this frog or toad, he's not sure, is just not an attack-type spirit. He tested out and knew that if he ordered them then they would attack as the Rabbit would bite but that its, this frog is also the same a non-combat oriented spirit.

He ran after the insanely fast toad, trying to hunt it down but there was no catching up to the fast toad. 

"Alright, come out rabbit," Shikamaru seeing that there was no way to catch up to the toad, could only use his spirit to handle this situation. 

With that said, he summons the rabbit, he summons multiple rabbits out or to be exact it was one rabbit which makes the illusion of multiple of its kind and all of them start to run around frantically. For a second even Shikamaru was stunned at the sudden emergence of the rabbit army in front of him.

"Shadow Rabbits Emergence," Yes that is a good name. 

According to the scroll he got about this technique, the spirits will get stronger as I train them. Not to mention those spirits which are tame later are naturally strong and harder to tame than those that I tame right now. The higher the numbers, the stronger the spirit. This rabbit is the first summon, meaning it's the weakest out of all of them.

But it still worked just like he thought, as hundreds of white rabbits obstructed the toad's way and almost encased him.

Shikamaru didn't waste any time and extended his shadow towards the toad. But just like before it jumped off and with the help of his long tongue which extended 8 times more than his body, warped around a branch of the tree and like swung out.

"Oh come on," Shikamaru ran after the toad as the rabbits again started to enter his shadow.

Then it took him another 3 hours and more than 4 tried to corner the damn toad. 

"Huff... huff, I'm not letting you out this time," Shikamaru said as he took out one kunai and rushed out but this time he had a plan. 

Just like he thought the toad was faster and avoided himself, but at this time the shadow of the toad which was enlarged started to cast thanks to the setting sun. Shikamaru smiled as he was puffed away in smoke.

It was a clone a normal clone technique (not the shadow clone technique but a normal illusion clone). 

Shikamaru who was already waiting in the shadow, extended his shadow and connected it with the taod.

"Finally," the toad stopped away and fell face-first to the ground. 

"You're my summon a spirit from now on, is that clear," Shikamaru said and with his words, the toad spirit started to dissolve in the shadow merging into his own shadow.

"Phew, finally done. Now I should be able to handle anything up to the chunin exam at least. Before the exam though, I better get ready," 

While going back Shikamaru also tested to bring out the toads with different size and fortunately this time he was able to summon more toad and was not limited to one.

"Yup it depends to the spirit whether I can summon multiple of same kind or whether I can change there size by putting more Chakra in them." 

The toad summon allow him to do that but others rabbit don't.

----

Next Day.

This was the last day of the academy and Shikamaru just like how he was doing for the last month, got up early and went on to train before finally reaching the academy.

upon entering the academy, Shikamaru saw way less students present there than it should have been. Less than 15 in total and out of those 15, 9 including him was from Konoha 12.

"Shikamaru, you are finally here, what took you so long," Ino put her two small slender arms around her waist and asked with narrowed eyes. 

"A black cat crossed my path, so I have to take the long way around," 

At this, Ino's eyebrow was raised and she looked at Shikamaru, contemplating whether she heard a joke from Shikamaru or he was just too lazy to explain why he was late.

'Well, at least he didn't say Troublesome.

"Shikamaru, try these new chips, it's just hit the market," Choji showed his brand new chips package and even handed over one chip to him.

Shikmaru naturally took it and upon eating just sighed, it was nothing like the modern world but still, he didn't point it out on Choji's face, in fact, this one fact was his hidden card against Choji.

He had to improve his future team's power and train them, Choji wouldn't work with normal training methods, but ...

but what if the food is involved? 

"Heheheheheheehe, I will have a kung fu panda of my own,"

As he was daydreaming, soon the class started and Iruka entered the class. All 15 students started to showcase the academy's three jutsu.

The situation happens just like in the anime, where all the clan heirs pass except Naruto. Shikamaru too was easily able to pass the exam.

The exam was pretty simple, all the students had to perform 3 Jutsu. Replacement, Transformation and lastly Clone.

Everyone was able to do all three Jutsu except just one.

----

(5 Hours Later)

Shikamaru was running towards the forest, actually, he was just acting like he was training but in reality, he was looking for Naruto.

He sends both his toads and rabbits to find Naruto. But neither of them was good at tracking or finding. 

"Sigh,"

But they had numbers on their side, and with so many toads and rabbits, he sooner or later was able to find where Naruto was. Well, at least his general location.

xxx

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