Board Games and Observation

*A few days pass

Tora had been observing and assisting the Jounin captains assess and train their genin squads.

For team 8, a few days ago, Kurenai had him serve as an enemy shinobi her squad had to track down. Hinata used her byakugan, Kiba and Akamaru used their senses, while Shino sent out insects. When they found him, he would fight them at a chunin-level and the three had to survive until Kurenai would arrive 5 minutes later.

For the most part, Tora thought the team's combat strength was decent. Kiba and Akamaru were quick and annoying to deal, they had good coordination and did well when working together to attack different angles. Shino also realized that Tora may or may not be unsettled by bugs and spammed them all throughout to the exercise, inevitably a few got on Tora and began slowly seeping his chakra.

What really surprised Tora however was Hinata's growth, her increased confidence and faith in herself led to an improvement in her gentle fist. With the cooperation of Shino and Kiba, she was actually able to block one of Tora's chakra points before Kurenai arrived.

'Huh, not bad. I'm curious if she'll get paired up with Neji again in the exams, I wonder how a fight would go this time.' Was Tora's thoughts on this.

Currently, Tora was sitting playing a new board game he "invented" with Shikamaru. He had just finished helping Asuma train the Ino-Shika-Cho trio with their team combat, and they were taking a break.

"Gee Tora-kun, for someone really good at fighting. You can surprisingly make a lot of fun boardgames." Ino commented on the game Tora had just explained.

"Mhm... Your really clever, if only it helped you win a game for once." Choji added.

"You didn't have to add that last part in Choji." Tora closed his left eye in a wince.

To continue his quest to beat Shikamaru in a board game, Tora had already tried different chess variations and checkers. Unfortunately, all of these attempts failed miserably as Shikamaru could easily grasp the game in a few minutes. It was at this point Tora realized that it was hopeless to beat Shikamaru on games that fully relied on logic. Shikamaru on the other hand didn't want to play games that relied too much on chance; so what Tora did was borrow a game called "Game of the Generals" from his old world and turn it into "Game of Kages".

Similar to the more popular "Stratego", it was a game that valued logic but also had elements of deception, bluffing, and misdirection. When Tora explained the rules to him, Shikamaru nodded in thought of how the game somewhat simulated the information gathering aspects of shinobi since the ranks and power of the game pieces were hidden from the opposing player.

A few minutes later, as they were playing, Asuma walked over and looked at Tora.

"So Tora, are you finally planning to take the Chunin exams or ask Hokage-sama for a promotion? " Asuma inquired.

"Yeah, Tora. I mean, we were having trouble fighting you earlier, and we were three people. With your training with Tsunade-sama, you should have no trouble getting promoted early." Ino asked, she was curious as well. It's not that at his age Tora should already be a chunin, rather his talent for medical ninjutsu coupled with what she knew of his combat strength couldn't be denied. In truth, Ino had already accepted that Tora had surpassed their age group substantially.

Earlier in their spar, Tora similarly with team Kurenai, suppressed his level to that of a chunin. Choji who was motivated, was able to reach a higher than normal speed with his human boulder technique. With Ino and Shikamaru distracting him, Choji was able to land a solid hit on Tora which pushed him into a hail of Ino's poison senbons. It was only after he got hit did Tora realize that Choji was only aiming to push Tora and prevent him from dodging Ino's following attack rather than actually do damage.

Ino, while not as gifted in chakra strengthening as Sakura, was able to learn a lot about poisons and needle weapons from Shizune. With her family background as shinobi florists and herbalists, she was able to grow rare flowers which could be made into a paralysis/numbing agent. After getting hit by Choji, Tora wasn't able to prepare for and dodge Ino's senbon which got him slightly nicked multiple times. This surprised Ino however, as those senbon that made direct hits ended up only barely scratching Tora. Regardless, the poison was still able to enter his bloodstream and it was a few minutes after this that his movements eventually got sluggish and he got checkmated by the team's plan.

Finally, Shikamaru, who was able to fully understand the abilities of his team and the habits of Tora, was able to catch Tora in shadow-possession. It was at this point, not waiting for the inevitable mind transfer, Tora surrendered and asked for the antidote from Ino; afterwards he complimented their teamwork and plan.

Tora supposed that their team likely had the best battle chemistry and tactics out of all the genin squads. He was feeling that if they we're at chunin level, he would have difficulty facing this team even if he didn't supress his power; especially if Shikamaru was given preparation time like in this spar. They were a team designed to pick-off single opponents like him with Jutsu like shadow possession and mind transfer.

"That's right, plus your giving me a good spar whenever we fight, it's obvious you don't need to be a genin anymore." Asuma added, referencing the recent one on one spars they had in the past year.

'Sigh.... you, Yugao-sensei, and Hayate-sensei are all monsters in close combat; for you especially after you left a few years ago and became a guardian ninja. Even though I'd say I'm getting close to you guys in the cleanness and mastery of my Kenjutsu and Taijutsu techniques,my ability to properly apply them in an actual battles is still significantly behind. I'd say in Taijutsu and Kenjutsu, I'd only win about 1-2 out of 10 matches with you, and 2-3 with Yugao-san or Hayate-san; and that's only if I use cosmic wrath mode to raise my base stats.' Tora sadly understood the importance of battle IQ and experience when it came to fighting. Even with his cosmic wrath power-up as a trump card, it likely wouldn't last long enough for him to finish fights with elite jounins or quasikage level shinobi.

"...I'm planning to take the Chunin exams held in Konoha at Hokage-sama's suggestion Asuma-sensei." After a pause, Tora replied while making a move using a game piece.

Asuma nodded at this and thought for a bit.

"I see, so Hokage-sama wants to show-off it seems." Asuma surmised.

"Hm? What do you mean Asuma-sensei?" Ino, who was acting as the board game's required arbiter, looked up and asked.

"Haha, Shikamaru, what do you think?" Asuma wanted to see what Shikamaru thought of Tora's promotion situation.

"Hmm... What a drag. like Asuma-sensei said, Hokage-sama wants to show off at the Chunin exams. In reality, you don't really need the Chunin exams to become one if you have tenure and make enough of a contribution. After all, why would kages listen to other villages telling them who to promote to chunin? " Shikamaru explained while making his move.

"Hmm? Then why do we even bother with Chunin exams?" Choji jumped in. He opened a bag of chips as he said this.

"Sigh... Whenever the Chunin exams happen, it's usually a big event with guests and daimyos. You could say that its like a festival dedicated to showing off the shinobi world's best and brightest. The kage are taking advantage of this by sending their best genin to hopefully have a good performance and promote their village to potential clients. Additionally, depending on how strict the rules are, they can use this as a way to beat down other villages." Shikamaru further explained. He then proceeded to move his game piece again into attacking a piece owned by Tora.

"That's your konoha flag piece right? Your too obvious with how you hide it Tora." Shikamaru then said.

(Author's note: You can look up the rules of the game, but long story short; if your hidden flag game piece gets attacked by anything... you lose.)

"Sigh... welp onto the next game. This sucks, well hopefully this game sells like the others. I've been eating way too much ramen, and it's eating into my pocket money. Betting against you in these games isn't helping either." Tora could only admit defeat. Not waiting for Ino to confirm it, Tora flicked over his hidden piece revealing it to be the flag, and consequently his loss of the game.

"Hahaha, well it looks like barbeque is on Tora again tonight." Asuma bellowed and patted Tora on the shoulder; Choji and Ino made a guts pose to this.

"Tell them to put it on my tab, I have a good credit standing with Yakiniku Q. Just make sure to tell them to place it in my personal tab, last time when we ate, you placed it on my family's tab and my little sisters found out when my mom asked me about it. They ended asking me to get them barbeque too." Tora told Asuma, at which Asuma nodded in understanding.

"I'm going to head to the Hokage office Asuma-sensei. See you guys later." Tora nodded and then body flickered out.

When Tora left, Shikamaru looked at Asuma.

"Asuma-sensei, assuming he wasn't holding back. What are our chances against Tora?" Shikamaru asked seriously, this caused Ino and Choji to widen their eyes as they had not yet realized Tora was suppressing his combat level. However, Shikamaru had his suspicions after spending a good amount of time hanging out with Tora. He acted too care free after losing their spar, if Tora did lose after giving his best, he would have shown some level of frustration like in their board game matches.

"Hahaha, I've been gone a few years, so it took me by surprise how much Tora improved. After I left, Kurenai told me that he chased after Hayate and Yugao for help in his training. Then the moment I come back, he comes running to me asking for a serious spar." Asuma replies without answering Shikamaru's question.

"Oh, how'd it go Asuma-sensei? I'm curious how well Tora did against you." Ino asked.

"Don't tell me you lost Asuma-sensei." Choji added.

"Well, after the spar he was basically on the floor bloody and unconscious. So no, he didn't win." Asuma explains.

"...But?" Shikamaru asks after a pause.

"But, I can tell you now. As you are now, unless all of you genin from Kakashi and Kurenai's squads team-up and set a trap, your not beating him." Asuma answered with complete confidence.

'That kid would just keep getting up, his durability is insane; I needed to fully infuse my chakra blades to actually hurt him. Though I could still dodge his attacks, I already felt that getting hit by them was bad news. That one time I tried to block his punch left me with a painful bruise. He's implemented grappling too, he keeps trying to grab me whenever he has the chance. I've seen him try it on clones and he's got a pretty good grasp on slams, throws, and basic chokes. Once he puts everything together, he's going to be dangerous, hell he's deadly to anyone below Jounin now.' Asuma thought back to their spar.

This caused silenced among the three genin after confirmation from their sensei about their sparring partner's power. After some time, Shikamaru finally broke it with a sigh.

"Sigh... What a drag."

Author's Corner

Hey Guys!

I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

We basically had a more slow slice of life chapter this week. Originally there was another part added on to this but it was a totally different scene and tone so I decided to move it to next chapter. Regarding more of Tora's powers, I am planning to add more but I've been doing my best to control myself and not have him "collect" numerous powers that may just end up just getting lost-in the shuffle. I want to focus more on hyping up his current stuff before adding more; especially since we still haven't really explored Scarlet Rot Release or even mystique peacock yet.

Thanks for reading!

Question for you guys, what are your favorite Naruto Fanfictions? Currenty, I'm reading "Better Left Unsaid" by Kenchi618, I'm enjoying it a lot end may end up borrowing a few ideas from it.