Cap3:)

Looking back, perhaps that was done as much out of my own selfishness as it was out of my obedience to my parents' principles of becoming a good shinobi. I, like any other child, wanted to be recognized for my own brilliance. It was my own little backhanded way of showing off. Of course, at the age of six, one does not really think of the reality of the moral implications of one's actions. I had simply convinced myself that I was doing the right thing, no selfishness involved whatsoever, because all the adults around me believed so. My dad got what he wanted, and my mom got what she wanted. End of story.

It was halfway through the first semester when the signs that I was more than simply different started showing. Every written test, I always finished first and always got a perfect score. Not just one or two minutes ahead of the next person, either – sometimes the difference was as much as half an hour, depending on how much we had to write and how much shown work was demanded for the calculations. Multiple choice tests I could literally finish in seconds. A lot of these questions were common sense - if I didn't know the answer, I could easily reason it out.

I will give myself the benefit of the doubt and say that I was not finishing quickly on purpose for the sake of proving my own superiority to my classmates, as most children would do, but rather, to prove my own ego to myself – and to my parents. I liked games, and so to me, every test was like a game, and my score was determined by how much time I had left. Besides, the more time I had left, the more time I would have to go outside to the Academy playground and train by myself. I knew that sitting for a few more minutes to check my work would not help me any more than not checking my work, whereas exercising my muscles would. One of my father's many philosophies, after all, had been those born blessed with a superior mind must still work like anyone else to develop a superior body. And, as my mother's work ethic always taught me, take advantage of every second you've got – and so I did.

My raw strength had been just the same as all the other students', but when it came to things like technique – how to most efficiently distribute power – I had an edge. I was a fast learner, a fast mover, and highly coordinated, and so physically I could deal out more damage than the rest of my friends even though we all were more or less on the same level strength-wise. And so no matter how many shuriken Sasuke Uchiha, the runner-up, threw, no matter how many ANBU Naruto Uzumaki, the dead-last, outran, the Academy teachers soon pronounced that it would be impossible for anyone to catch up to me.

Which wasn't true. I knew I was smart now, but if there was one thing my father warned me against it was arrogance, because no man can control the future perfectly.

But never mind that. Despite being Shikamaru Nara, I was still just a regular six-year-old, and whatever words of wisdom my father came up with, they would surely be ignored in favor of so-calledexperience when they passed through my lips.

And therein came the source of my parents' first – and, luckily, their last – argument.

It had started innocently enough. At around the end of the first semester marking period, the Academy instructors and some other Konoha officials had analyzed my scores, and, after realizing that they were leaps and bounds ahead of anyone else they had ever seen, including all of the child prodigies that had come before me, considered bumping me up a few classes.

I was still young and naïve then, for all of my intelligence. I had had no opinion on the matter at the time. I was just a kid. As long as I could still have my friends and praise from my parents and teachers I was happy. Vaguely I knew that I was a smart and special kid, since everyone always told me that, but I couldn't exactly tell just how far apart I was from my classmates. When you're six years old, you areyou and they are them. So what if I had more gold stars than everyone else? Ino was Ino and Choji was Choji and Sasuke was Sasuke and Naruto was Naruto and biologically speaking, your brain takes a while to fully develop its own sense of self.

My mother, on the other hand, had been all for it.

That was when my father stepped in and rescued me.

"No," he had said, and put down his foot firmly, and so even the Hokage, who had been wholly in favor of the idea, backed down. "Just – no."

The nice thing about being a Nara was that no matter how quietly you talked, when you talked (and I mean actually speaking, not just complaining), people listened.

But my mother was a Nara, too, by name if not by birth, and she had had different ideas. A headstrong woman, she could not fathom why anyone wouldn't take such a grand opportunity when it was right in his face like so. That night, she had asked – well, demanded was a more appropriate word, seeing as this was my mother – to know just exactly why my father was halting my education.

Of course, he had anticipated this question, and had had an entire list prepared.

And so we come back to me – six years old, huddled up against the wall, hidden in the shadows, finally getting a glimpse of what the fate of a child like me might be.

"No child genius has ever had a nice life. Not in the shinobi world. Shikamaru can have fame and glory if he likes, but it will not be as a child prodigy. His life will be hard enough as an adult, in this line of work. Let him be happy while he can."

My mother might be considered by many to be a bossy and overbearing woman, but never let it be said that she didn't know reason when she heard it.

When the next day finally arrived, there was no more of that "ridiculous talk" (my father's words, not mine) of me graduating early. I would stay put where I was, with children my age, and grow up normally – or, I suppose, as normally as anyone could, being bombarded with all this war and desensitization propaganda at the age of six moving forward.

Looking back, perhaps that was done as much out of my own selfishness as it was out of my obedience to my parents' principles of becoming a good shinobi. I, like any other child, wanted to be recognized for my own brilliance. It was my own little backhanded way of showing off. Of course, at the age of six, one does not really think of the reality of the moral implications of one's actions. I had simply convinced myself that I was doing the right thing, no selfishness involved whatsoever, because all the adults around me believed so. My dad got what he wanted, and my mom got what she wanted. End of story.

It was halfway through the first semester when the signs that I was more than simply different started showing. Every written test, I always finished first and always got a perfect score. Not just one or two minutes ahead of the next person, either – sometimes the difference was as much as half an hour, depending on how much we had to write and how much shown work was demanded for the calculations. Multiple choice tests I could literally finish in seconds. A lot of these questions were common sense - if I didn't know the answer, I could easily reason it out.