Naruto: The Crimson Error

Shikamaru chuckled; he had expected this, but Choji's response was still too amusing.

"I wonder who will win," Ino sipped on her orange juice.

Shinobi are technically considered adults and have a legal loophole for drinking alcohol and doing "adult" things while being technically underage.

However, she couldn't do it as she was a clan heir and didn't want to face the side effects of doing such things.

People do such actions in the first place because a shinobi's life is just hard and unpredictable.

You could die any second now.

By the kunai thrown in your head by the bartender, the woman you were playing with killing you in your sleep, your teammates making plans and killing you.

Dying by kunai going through your backside or even your genitals getting hurt due to that.

Anything is possible; the only thing common is premature death.

Even Hokages are not excluded from this fact.

Three of the four hokages until now had already died in their twenties and thirties.

Hiruzen was the only one who had been in power for so long and lived up to nearly 69 years of age.

That is considered an achievement in the shinobi world as the average life span is barely 20.

Hiruzen has also lost one arm until now, so his life as a shinobi is mostly over, well, as kage technically.

Anyway, back to the scene, Choji ate with gusto; no, it would be more appropriate to say that he inhaled food like there was no tomorrow.

Shikamaru was starting to regret saying that he would pay.

Today, it seemed Choji was surpassing his limits by a huge margin.

Shikamaru's estimates of how much Choji would eat were dependent on how much Choji's appetite would increase since he last saw him and how hungry he might be after travel.

They were broken by a large margin.

Choji had been stressed about whether he would be able to eat anything due to fear of two S-ranks attacking them in the desert.

So, he had been hungrier; it was technically stress-eating.

So, he naturally was going to surpass his limits today.

"Is Sora still in Sand?" Ino asked.

Hanabi had asked Asuma, and she also wanted to meet him as he had been ambushed by two S-ranks to make sure he was fine.

"Yeah, he should be. He is currently busy with the mission he has, so he won't be able to meet you guys until tomorrow. You guys would have to meet him after the chunin exams," Shikamaru said while eating.

He had finally learned the art of talking while eating.

"Uhh, why are you talking like that?" Ino was disgusted as the food was being thrown out of his mouth.

Choji also spoke while eating, but Choji was skilled enough not to let bits of food go out of his mouth in the first place.

As expected from the Akimichi heir.

Ino would have beaten Shikamaru if those bits of food had reached her, especially her face or hair.

She had just cleaned her hair from bits of sand stuck due to the travel in the desert.

Shikamaru had also thought about this and didn't want to be beaten, so he had oriented himself such that it wouldn't happen.

He is a smart man.

"I am learning to be more time-efficient as I don't have to pause in between eating to talk," Shikamaru said while still eating.

Choji gave him a thumbs up.

Maybe he would give Shikamaru some pointers some other time.

As currently, Ino was really looking like she would erupt with any wrong move.

"Haha, I didn't know you were learning so many different things. What have you been up to in Sand?" Asuma chuckled.

"Wait, what about Sora? Was he hurt?" Ino asked before Shikamaru could answer Asuma's question.

Ino glared at Asuma; he should first ask the more important questions than the trivial ones.

Asuma rubbed his head. "My bad, I think he is definitely fine if he is attempting the mission." Asuma had come to know what Sora's mission was when he had exchanged information with the Suna Jonins.

So, he was not worried.

"So, you know his mission? Is it confidential?" Ino asked Asuma.

"Not really, but you guys will know tomorrow. Anyway, yeah, he is fine; he didn't have any scratches on him when I last saw him," Shikamaru answered for Asuma.

"That's a relief. What do you think about this attack?" Ino wanted to know what Shikamaru thought about this.

Shikamaru is one of the smartest people she knows and has decent information on Sora to make predictions.

So, she was curious about what he thought about it.

Shikamaru paused his barbecue eating and looked at the stick.

"I think something big is going to happen soon, or it has already begun," he blankly said.

This prompted the other three to stop eating and look at Shikamaru.

As it seemed something serious was going to be said by Shikamaru, judging by his demeanour.

"Why do you think something big is going to happen?" Asuma asked.

"Well, I would say it's just a hunch," Shikamaru smirked and resumed his eating.

The other people almost dropped the barbecue sticks in their hands.

"What do you mean by that?" Ino lunged at Shikamaru over the table.

The barbecue stick with still some pieces was coated in chakra aimed at Shikamaru.

The latter had already jumped back, such that the chair he was sitting on tumbled backwards.

Shikamaru used that as a springboard to jump and attach himself to the ceiling with chakra.

"Your temper has become shorter since the last time I saw you," Shikamaru teased while he was sitting on the ceiling with his hands in a familiar position.

He was using shadow possession jutsu to stop Ino from moving.

He doesn't want to make a big scene here.

"You did that intentionally, didn't you?" Ino looked at Shikamaru who walked down through the side wall.

He would have preferred to jump directly, but that would mean he would lose contact with his shadow, undoing the jutsu.

"Maybe~, weren't you supposed to have good control over your emotions?" Shikamaru made Ino sit on her seat and made his chair straight again and sat on it.

They were sitting at a table attached to the wall, and Shikamaru had already put a silencing seal and a seal which created visual genjutsu for people to not see here.

Shikamaru undid the jutsu as Ino had calmed down and probably wasn't going to attack him.

"You chose this table because you wanted to do exactly this, right?" Ino said. She had gone through the time when they entered the shop and how he led the conversation.

Asuma smirked. He really had so many reasons to feel proud; his genins were learning and applying so much about bluffs and deceit this early on.

They would thank themselves in a few years as in spy missions or long missions, what Shikamaru did would be fatal as one person maybe can go with a few days of memory of what happened, but not over weeks of his moves.

That also, some bluffs or some not.

People generally can't unless they are suspicious from the start and are questioning your every move.

For that, you first need to know who is suspicious.

"Maybe~ You make it feel like I have already seen the future or something beforehand," Shikamaru shook his head playfully.

"You can't, but you could direct us to the future you want to see by your actions," Ino recalled one of her previous conversations with Shikamaru about how he predicts a person's actions.

If he had enough data, he could really be close to the answer.

"Yup, I could. Maybe I directed you to do this, or maybe it is all a coincidence; you will never know," Shikamaru smirked.

"Hmph, I can get what you are trying to do. Anyway, what did you mean by something big is going to happen?" Ino brought everyone back to the main question.

"Well, the two people were from the same organization and seemed to be teammates," Shikamaru increased the power of the silencing seal.

This mode will consume some chakra, but the security it provides is really good.

"And?" Asuma asked.

Choji was eating while listening.

He can't stop eating for long; food will get cold.

"Well, they were from the same organization as the two people that you and Kurenai confronted after the Invasion."

Asuma choked on the drink he was drinking.

He should have known that something like this was going to happen.

In the back of his mind, he now suspected that Shikamaru's timing of words was intentional with when he sipped.

"Hmm, who?" Ino didn't know the context.

Choji was also in the same boat as her.

"How do you know about that? I thought it was confidential?" Asuma asked him.

"I have my sources. Anyway, that's not the important part," Shikamaru redirected about how he got that information.

"Oh, yes, it seems there is an organization with S-ranks colluding for something, if what you say is true," This was the conclusion Asuma had arrived at.

***

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