Nara Shikaku didn't pay much attention to Shikamaru's little sche.
'Trying to monopolize the info? Wishful thinking,' he mused.
This ti, it wasn't just the two of them taking part.
At most, it only ant Shikamaru got his hands on the details a little earlier.
Shikaku refused to believe his son could solve this whole ss with just a small head start.
If it were really that simple, the Hokage wouldn't have summoned both of them, let alone treated this as their first test.
As the current acting head of the Nara clan—self-appointed, obviously—Shikaku had to head back and inform the rest of the family.
"Eh? We get sothing this good?"
"Lady Hokage, we love you!"
The n, won, old, and young of the Nara clan all got fired up the second they heard that kind of reward was on the table.
Anyone with eyes could tell the clan head himself wasn't the least bit sad about possibly losing his position.
He had his sights locked on that first-place privilege too!
Since that was the case, nobody needed to hold back anymore.
As for self-awareness?
The Nara clan didn't possess such a thing.
In the past, everyone in the clan had just pretended to be lazy or incompetent to dodge work, so nobody actually knew anyone else's true skill level.
And board-ga skills? That had absolutely nothing to do with real strategy, scheming, investigations, or problem-solving.
Otherwise, the greatest tactical genius in the modern world would just be so champion gar.
The entire Nara clan mobilized.
Aside from the elderly who had already retired and the toddlers too young to walk or talk right, everyone marched out and tracked Shikamaru down at the training grounds.
He had only just finished wringing the details out of the others.
"Third Uncle, Fourth Uncle, everyone... you're all here."
Shikamaru hopped down from a wooden post and tossed over the scroll he'd been scribbling on for a while.
"You didn't pull so bullshit trick again, did you?" Shikaku asked, catching the scroll and eyeing his son with heavy suspicion.
"Dad, you can doubt my intelligence, but don't doubt my character..." Shikamaru scratched his head.
"Your character is exactly what I'm doubting! You little brat, just to slack off, you even pretended to be one of those 'gay' during the Chunin Exams! You disgraced the whole clan!"
Shikaku cut him off on the spot, seeing right through the petty sches and tricks his son had pulled back then.
That wasn't just his strategic brain talking. It was because he knew his kid.
Forget liking n—Shikamaru wasn't even that interested in won.
His whole dream of getting married and having kids existed mostly because he didn't want to stick out and invite even more annoying pressure to settle down.
That, and a basic sense of duty to the clan.
Now that a golden opportunity to officially slack off had dropped into his lap, would Shikamaru let it go?
Hell no.
Even Shikaku himself wasn't about to let it slide.
Once he earned that god-given right to be lazy, not even his wife would have the authority to stop him.
He'd be slacking off under official Hokage orders.
It would be a right he'd won fair and square!
And so, acting on their profound distrust of Shikamaru, Shikaku and the rest of the Nara mob interrogated everyone all over again about what went down.
After hearing the rundown, Shikamaru could tell a lot of them had their own questions but didn't want to ask them out loud in front of the competition.
Their faces were painted with hesitation.
So, Shikamaru threw out a suggestion.
"If any of you still have questions, write them on slips of paper. They can answer, and then you'll get your slips back.
Oh, and you only get to ask one person one question each. Otherwise, you'll work them to death.
Though honestly? I'd advise you all to just give up. I got the best intel, and I already have a lead."
'This kid...' Shikaku felt like Shikamaru had morphed into a different person.
Just to win the right to slack off, he was showing so freakish sharpness!
'Since when were you this aggressive, Shikamaru?'
The information-gathering phase wrapped up.
Relying on the fact that they were the sa age and forr classmates, Shikamaru monopolized the key witnesses and hauled them off.
The rest of the Nara clan headed ho and started reviewing the intel like they were grinding through exam questions, trying to squeeze clues out of the text.
Shikaku watched his son use such shaless tactics to win, but he didn't lift a finger to stop him.
'Lady Hokage never said we had to prove their innocence. She never said we had to uncover the full truth either. The only requirent for this mission is to resolve the damn matter.' A sly smile spread across Shikaku's face.
If Shikamaru was going to hog all the key kids, then he would just go knock on their families' doors instead.
...
anwhile—
"Shikamaru, what do we do now? Throw a bone here!"
Inuzuka Kiba looked downright miserable.
Naruto was a genuine gay, so it didn't matter much if his reputation went down the toilet.
But Kiba wasn't!
"I'll help too," Hinata chid in.
Her thought process was simple: 'If we can prove Kiba is innocent, then maybe we can prove Naruto isn't actually a gay ninja either.'
"On the surface, the tiline of events doesn't give us an obvious breakthrough. So let's start with the one unknown," Shikamaru said.
"You an..." Shino calmly touched his face.
"That's right. That Edo Tensei body part. We need to find out exactly who it belonged to. And..."
Shikamaru swept his gaze over everyone present.
"At the end of the day, there were only so many people at the scene. The culprit might very well be sitting right here among you."
"Among us? Shikamaru, don't go spouting weird crap like that!" Kiba looked around at the others, his alarm spiking.
"The biggest problem right now is still that Akamaru didn't pick up a third person's scent on the underwear," Ino pointed out.
"Exactly. So we've got two tasks now. First, head back to the original cri scene and inspect it again. Second, go to Agakure—to that Edo Tensei gathering spot—and track down the person who had contact with Sasuke."
Shikamaru laid out the ga plan.
The group trekked back to the spot where the whole ss had gone down that morning.
Shikamaru bent down and muttered a few words to Akamaru.
The dog barked, darted off, and trotted back a short while later.
"Well?" Shikamaru asked.
"Woof woof."
Akamaru nodded.
A nod or a shake of the head didn't require anyone to be fluent in dog. The answer was obvious enough.
Instantly, Shikamaru's eyes sharpened, a sly smile creeping onto his face.
"What is it?" the others asked, hooked.
"I found the flaw." Shikamaru turned to Kiba.
"Kiba, according to your intel, you ca here looking for Naruto. You and Akamaru used Fang Over Fang to track Naruto's scent through the air, and then at a certain point in the sky, the trail just cut off. Right?"
"Yeah. So?"
"The weird part is this: I had Akamaru try to track Sasuke's scent from when he took off this morning. Even though a lot of ti has passed and most of his scent should've faded, if it did fade, it should have done so sowhat evenly.
But what Akamaru found was that Sasuke's scent vanished the exact sa way Naruto's did—they both just abruptly cut off at a specific point in the air."
"What?!"
Kiba's face contorted into sothing ugly.
"Don't tell Sasuke and Naruto, those two gays, are trying to slap that label on us too so people won't discriminate against them?!"
The more Kiba thought about it, the more plausible the bullshit seed.
He ground his teeth in pure anger.
"That is entirely possible."
Even Shino gave a slight nod, showing he agreed with Kiba's deduction.
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