Chapter 2: Training the basics

Seeing my family for the first time felt as if I hadn't seen them in years, my mother Yoshino Nara was everything I would expect from a loving mother, strict but loving, she had brown hair reaching just below her shoulders and she was wearing casual clothes with an apron tied to her waist, and my father, well he was a typical Nara, in other words, a lazy genius, he was wearing what I assumed was the Jonin uniform of Konoha his hair done in the same style as me, namely; as a pineapple, he had a rather serious look on his was which made him quite scary considering the two scars on his face.

When my mother noticed I was in the same room as them she spoke to me in a motherly voice meaning in a pissed-off voice "Shikamaru! Where have you been all this morning?"

I smiled lightly and sat down next to my father who was looking at me through the corner of his eyes, "I was watching clouds" I replied with the truth no need to hide the truth, not as if they didn't already know what I was doing.

My father decided it was the perfect time to interfere with a long-drawn-out sigh he began speaking, "Shikamaru, although it is a drag for me to tell you, we will begin your early shinobi training today, sigh, now come and eat."

I immediately perked up at that, this was what I wanted, after all, I was already planning on asking my father to begin training me in all things shinobi, and while I did have knowledge about a bit of biology I wasn't much of a genius in my previous life and I never really trained my body, so I didn't want to create any bad habits early on, after all the base of one's power is the most important, without a solid base you would never get more powerful than a chunin.

But I was hungry and I could leave the training to future me.

After we ate me and father left the house after saying goodbye's to mom, we headed to the private training grounds behind our house, it was a moderately sized stone field with forestry surrounding it, there some training dummies on the left side, targets hanged on some trees and a small building that I assumed to be a storage house on the far left side, there was also a little pond in the top right corner with pathways leading to it.

We walked into the middle of the training field and my father turned to me, "First I will be explaining what we will be doing, every week a couple of times we will come out and train together, I will show you the taijutsu form of the Nara clan and I will also slowly begin teaching you specific clan techniques." continuing with a sigh he said, "Originally I wouldn't have started your training for another year or so but your mother was nagging me about when I would begin teaching you and it was a drag to listen to her drone on about you having to train early so I decided to start your training early, you can go thank your mother for that."

As we were talking the smile on my face was slowly becoming more and more genuine and I could feel concern basically radiating of off my father, I guess he also didn't fully trust Danzo otherwise there would have been no reason for him to worry about my training, but with Danzo in the mix, the next couple of years would be hard after all if Danzo had enough authority to get away with killing a ninja from the Uchiha clan who knows what he might do next?

"What will we be doing today then?" I wanted to begin my training but I didn't have much of an idea as to what to begin with, so I looked to my father who looked shocked at my reply, I chuckled at his expression, unfortunately, my joy was quickly taken away as he regained his composure and looked at me with eyes more serious than ever before.

"Shika, why do you have to resemble your mother so much in training? Sigh, what a drag." I was half expecting him to tell me that as a Nara I needed to be lazy but I never expected this reply so I just smiled at him.

"Sigh, I guess I will first show you the correct techniques to use, I will show you some basic katas, that will allow you to train your body while practicing how to throw a punch, I will also show you the correct way to hold shuriken and kunai."

If I was being honest this was already a pretty good start, although I had always liked senbon more than shuriken as they were more stealthy, I guess I couldn't really complain but I could ask for training with senbon as well, and I did exactly that, "Father, can you also teach me how to use senbon?"

Father looked at me quizzically, "why do you want to learn how to use senbon?", he asked to which I replied, "Well I think they are stealthier and cooler.", he smiled at that, "Hmm, I guess your reasoning is good enough although it will be a drag to teach you that as well." he replied with the signature Nara sigh at the end.

Afterward, we began the training, at first he showed me positions in which I would need to stretch to make sure I didn't weaken any muscles, he started explaining how and why I would need to stretch.

"First and foremost a very important thing is proper stretching, it is used to keep your muscles flexible and strong, you need it to maintain flexibility in your joints and if you add chakra in the mix it is even more useful, although I will only teach you the method using chakra when you are older."

He then went on to show me the katas I will need to do for the foreseeable future, they were fairly basic, there were punches, kicks, and footwork involved, there were only two kinds of punches right now, straight punches and hook punches, for kicks there were straight kicks and low kicks, I tried doing a high kick but I wasn't nearly as stretchable yet, keyword being yet, soon I would be able to do all of these with ease.

What was surprising to me was how natural this all felt to me while it wasn't entirely easy it felt much easier than any physical exercise I had done before, I once tried my hand at some martial arts only to discover that my talent was average, which was also the reason I gave up on martial arts only a week after starting, but now? it felt as if me punching the target in front of me was natural and apparently my father also noticed this.

"Sigh why do you have to be so talented at Taijutsu what a drag, your punches are mostly correct now you just need to adjust up and straighten out your wrist, you don't want to break it, your kicks were mostly good although they were fairly weak, the footwork I will teach you will help with that."

The next thing we did was work on footwork, and that included the correct way to run, how to breathe while exercising, and how to increase power in your movement, "The footwork is the basis of all Taijutsu, it is a vital part to your damage output and the better the footwork the better you can dodge, if you can't move around in a fight you will be a stationary target which is easy to hit, it is important to always move during a fight, the scars I have are proof that footwork is vital in a fight, later on, I will teach you more advanced techniques such as making footsteps more silent and how to manage your pace during a fight."

We then went on to Shurikenjutsu and Shurikenjutsu included kunai, senbon, and basically, all the things you can throw, Shurikenjutsu was important when setting up traps and it was also important in fights as you need counters against basic attacks and wasting chakra on blocking some kunai would be a waste.

First of all, I needed to learn all the different ways on how to hold them, and I was yet again surprised at how easy it was to master holding weapons, my father at this point wasn't even surprised anymore, and holding weapons felt much better than punching things.

and like that 4 hours had quickly passed and it was already an hour past midday, it was mid-June so the sun was blaring down on us and it was quite hot outside so we decided to go and take a bath in the nearby river, the rest of the day passed rather normally my father was later summoned by the Hokage who I hadn't met yet, so he had to leave and after that, it was only me and my mother left at home.

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Bit longer chapter, tomorrows chapter will be shorter.