Chapter 19: Anbu training

The commander was sure of one thing, Shikamaru was a monster, the first thing that surprised the commander was Shikamaru asking for more training, while they were definitely not going to go easy on the kid they wouldn't give him the full Anbu course since they believed that the kid would die if they did but if the kid himself asked for it then they would happily oblige.

The second surprise came a month deep into training, the commander and Shikamaru's trainers realized that the kid wasn't just some 1 in a hundred-year genius but more like a 1 in a thousand years monster, anything they taught the kid would be sucked up by him like water to a sponge, Anatomy? Took Shikamaru an hour to memorize, Techniques to kill a person the fastest way possible? mastered within a day.

In one single month, Shikamaru had learned and excelled in almost a quarter of the stuff they taught to Anbu, normal Anbu would only specialize in a couple of things, like assassination, the Anbu with a snake, spider, panther, and some other masks Shikamaru wasn't aware of were specialized in assassination and learned the things related to that and only took the most basic courses of the other specializations, Shikamaru, for example, had the knowledge required to specialize in assassination, while he was obviously a lot weaker than someone that would specialize in it he had the knowledge that was needed.

The commander had the best assassination masters come in and teach Shikamaru one things that they couldn't beat Shikamaru at was erasing their presence, the Nara clan techniques that his father had him memorize included the technique needed to erase their presence entirely while Shikamaru could only do it for 15 seconds that was enough for a good assassin, the reason that he could only completely erase his presence for 15 seconds was that the technique required one to stop breathing and to stop their hearts momentarily, his father could do it for 5 minutes but Shikamaru only for 15 seconds that was because the concentration needed to control the technique was far too taxing on Shikamaru's mind, he needed to control his blood flow to not die, while chakra could help his father said that it was better to not rely on it like a crutch since it would only be a disadvantage to him in the long run, his father for example could use the techniques for 30 minutes with chakra and Shikamaru for 1 minute.

The technique also included methods that didn't require one to completely stop one's heart it was still a very useful technique for assassination since he could erase all the sounds he made, except for his heartbeat, but the special technique of the Nara's was still better than what the other Anbu showed him they did teach him many ways to eliminate a person they also taught him how to use daggers and kunai in close combat, another thing that he excelled at was the tanto, all Anbu were required to carry a tanto and Shikamaru could confidently say that he could use a tanto as good as a master.

While he never managed to beat an Anbu he had impressed them unimaginably and some Anbu even felt that Shikamaru's technique was better than theirs which pissed many of them off making them train Shikamaru even harder than before.

Currently, Shikamaru was learning the art of infiltration and spying, the person he was learning from had a mouse mask.

Mouse was explaining things to Shikamaru "In order to successfully infiltrate enemy ranks you will need to know how to act inconspicuous and you need to learn how to blend in with the crowd if you for example need to infiltrate the ranks of a bandit group you will need to act and please their leader you will need to do everything as the leader would expect you to do, and once you infiltrate the enemy ranks you ruthlessly slaughter them in their sleep and watch as they hopelessly try and beg for their pitiful and meaningless lives." she said in a ruthless voice

At that point, Shikamaru had realized that his teacher was a complete psychopath, while none of his teachers were mentally stable until now at least they didn't voice it out loud, while Mouse clearly enjoyed torturing her enemies while Shikamaru didn't necessarily mind having a psychopath as a teacher he had never dealt with a person like her so he was left standing there in awkward silence and Mouse had apparently noticed this.

She coughed into her hand and apologized "ahem, it seems that my not so kind instincts had taken over but you will understand in the future once you realize how disgusting those bugs are that call themselves bandits, anyway anywhere you will attempt to infiltrate will be different as you wouldn't be able to join an enemy village just by appeasing their requirements if you aren't born inside a village you will be under scrutiny during your entire stay in said village at least if it is one of the hidden villages, we only have a couple of Anbu that have managed to successfully infiltrate and integrate to another villages ninja system, they provide us with valuable information that has saved many lives, while the chance for you to get such a mission is slim to none you will most likely need to infiltrate places during normal missions in the future."

Shikamaru spent around three weeks with Mouse, in those three weeks he had come to understand that infiltration wasn't just information gathering and spying, many ninjas that they sent spying on different villages were simply acting as civilians and observed the situation of a village as the village's main priority was to keep their villagers alive during a war it was crucial to know the state of the civilians, the enemy ninja could cause unrest and spread false rumors among the villagers making them doubt their own villages strength, and civil unrest was capable of causing untold damage to a village from the inside, if merchants refused to sell things then villages would be screwed since most villages relied on merchants for their economy.

Shikamaru had spent a lot of time simply learning the mannerisms of different villages and learned how to control his emotions and how to act around different people, how to determine who was the leader amongst a group and learned how to read the body language of others, he had also learned that Mouse was the best spy the village had ever raised so he was certain that whatever she taught him would be incredibly valuable.

Mouse was very impressed with Shikamaru, she never had to explain things a second time and Shikamaru was very talented at acting, even she would be fooled by him as he had managed to avoid her in a crowd and managed to get back to the Anbu HQ without her being aware of anything he had done, in the training mission she had given him he had managed to exchange the information with his contact without raising any suspicions and got away from her, he had done everything perfectly and Mouse told Shikamaru that he had learned everything that she had to offer him.

With that two months had passed and all Anbu were now aware that this kid was a monster who they could train as hard as they wished, many Anbu had taken advantage of this and Shikamaru had to go through torturous training in many things, after another 4 months he had managed to learn the simplest thing from tracking down to the most complicated things like excavating information from someone (torture) to his surprise he had even learned medical ninjutsu from Frog, Shikamaru was very impressed by his medical knowledge and ha learned many intricate things about the human body and even got to dissect and torture someone which he had not enjoyed as his first time was very messy and bloody and in the end, he was covered in blood making him look like a little pineapple haired demon.

He had also learned the Mystical palm Jutsu which was the very basic requirement to become a medical ninja, Frog had also taught him the chakra scalpel jutsu which increased his deadliness significantly, in theory, the chakra scalpel was simply forming and sharpening chakra around one's hand which made it easy to cause internal injuries.

Shikamaru was now in a meeting with the commander and the commander seemed very impressed with him "So Blank, you have managed to complete the special training in six months and now have another six months to hone your skills until you graduate into becoming an Anbu operative, you can request anyone to teach you and as long as they accept they are free to teach you whatever they want, you are now the youngest and first person to complete the special Anbu training."

Shikamaru smiled under his blank mask, he had worked himself to the bone in the last six months and had learned all of the things that Anbu had to offer, he now had the theoretical knowledge but his strength wasn't nearly enough to become an Anbu, he could confidently say that no Genin could stand before him and he was certain that he could beat any Chunin that he would come across.

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This chapter was basically just Shikamaru mastering all the shit in anbu, I would put him at high-chunin level but not quite Jonin level yet, he will now get a very special teacher and finally learn some offensive jutsus and he will start mastering weapons as well in the next chap.