Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

In the continuing adventures of my brain focusing on anything other than what I would like it to…I wrote this in a notebook on a plane ride from Korea to Taiwan last week when I was on vacation. Two hours of some bratty kid kicking the back of my chair had me deciding to instead lean over my tray table and jot down something instead.

Was is No Thanks Necessary…of course not…it was this…

Five Classmates Who Surprised the Hell Out of Him…

…and One Who Didn't

Despite what his old grade reports might tell you, Shikamaru Nara had been studying diligently all of his life.

It just wasn't the assigned coursework.

While his classmates studied their textbooks and techniques, Shikamaru had been busy studying them. He could learn about them, their personalities and dislikes and temperaments and that would serve him better than some textbook ever could. After all the time, all that focus, he thought that he had them all figured out. He pegged the team placements perfectly, and even which teams would be passed to full Genin status, even Team Seven with a Sensei that had never passed anyone (because there was no way in hell he would get away with failing the last Uchiha).

But after that, when he couldn't watch them anymore, they began to change.

Some in small ways, like Kiba calming enough to function while someone like Hinata was on his team. Or Chouji gaining enough of a backbone to not care about comments tossed his way so much anymore. But some of them, when Shikamaru took the time to look again and see them, had blown him away with the extremity of their differences.

Hinata Hyuuga

Shy little timid Hinata, who couldn't be around her crush without fainting, had grown to be a hell of a fighter. Maybe it was a bit of Kiba's presence at her back, maybe a bit of Naruto pulling for her during those disastrous Chuunin Exams, maybe it was the pressure of her rigid clan on its heiress, Shikamaru wasn't entirely sure, but all he knew was that she was not someone that he wanted to spar against.

With her fists wrapped in blue chakra, lion faces twisted in a terrifying snarl that did nothing to match the determination on her own face, she looked like a warrior berserker. The first time that Shikamaru had seen it, he had gulped, looked at Shino and said, "Remind me not to piss her off."

The bug user had smirked mirthfully (which for anyone else would have been the equivalent of crying with laughter) while Kiba smacked Shikamaru hard on the back with an uproarious laugh.

The Nara stared as the trunk of a sturdy looking tree, wide enough to be comparable to Shikamaru's own waist, was obliterated with nothing more than a glancing blow of the heiress' fist. He flinched as the top half of the tree slammed into the forest floor, dropped precisely in front of the squad of missing ninjas that they were supposed to be tracking down. Not only was she powerful, but she was controlled and precise with it.

Shikamaru wasn't surprised at all after that when their quarry surrendered in short order.

Ino Yamanaka

Shikamaru had known Ino all of his life. Ignoring for the moment that their clans had been working together for generations, their fathers had been Genin teammates and in Konoha that bond was just as strong, if not stronger, than blood. So really – Shikamaru had never had a choice but to know the blonde, a fact that infuriated him to no end most days.

And oh how many days were there where Shikamaru wished that he had had a choice…

But reality didn't work that way, so he had to deal with the most troublesome blonde he had ever encountered in his life on way too regular a basis for his comfort. Throughout their childhoods, and for a long portion of their time together as a team, Ino had only judged herself in reference to other people. How she looked, what she 'liked,' how she behaved…it was all carefully sculpted so that she would fit this "ideal" image of a girl.

It used to drive Shikamaru crazy, because logically none of the things that she did made sense for a ninja. Dieting affecting her ability to form and maintain muscles, and also affected her stamina and general levels of health. She wasted money on make-up and designer outfits that she almost never had time to wear and was constantly begging use of Shikamaru and Chouji's supplies in training or towards the tail end of missions because she hadn't had the funds to buy her own apparently.

So when she asked Chouji out, after training one day, not as a joke or as a plan to get something, but in all seriousness, Shikamaru felt something warm and fuzzy in his chest, and it took him quite a while to realize that it was pride in his friend. Because there was no way that Ino would ever go with Chouji if she still cared how she appeared to everyone else, or if she was still caring about what everyone looked like, she would not wish to bear the rotund Akimichi.

Maybe it had been a childish notion of his that his friends would somehow never change. That they would somehow all remain the same as they had been when their fathers had placed them all in the same crib to snooze away at naptime.

It was one of the few times that Shikamaru was very happy to have been wrong.

Sakura Haruno

Shikamaru very distinctly remembered feeling sorry for Sakura as a child in school, and it wasn't just because the girl was friends with Ino.

Okay…maybe it was a little bit of that.

Bust honestly, it was because she didn't come from a clan. Sakura alone had the distinction of being from a "normal" family with a "normal" upbringing (though how normal a family could be and still produce Sakura was a question that had formed in his mind as he got older…). And maybe that was why their world, the world of the ninja, was so hard for the girl at first.

She had been a civilian mind in a military world and the clash had been evident. Her only experience with their world had been a textbook, so when things didn't happen as the textbook had dictated, when nothing was as clean as that, she had taken a while to adjust. And she had the misfortune of a team that somehow managed to only be assigned missions that went wrong, often times through no fault of their own. Missions that became desperate fast. Missions that were successes because of the presence of Naruto Uzumaki, who was a lot of things, but somehow one of those things was being a person who always managed to pull a victory out of nowhere.

Time would find Shikamaru pulling those old mission reports out in later years and there would be occasions where he was literally incapable of forming the image in his mind of how the team survived, let alone succeeded in their mission. It would be longer still before he would just give up on trying to understand and just accepted it for what it was – Naruto Uzumaki.

The presence of powerhouses on her team meant that Sakura was often left back and protected by the boys, rather than her being allowed to develop herself, their life-threatening situations calling for their power-hitters to step up immediately if they were to get out of this alive.

All the forces of the universe seemed to stack against Sakura being able to develop as a proper ninja.

Until Sasuke left.

Sasuke Uchiha fled the Leaf like it was nothing but a bad dream. And suddenly Team Seven was broken, and with Naruto being trained by Jiraiya…well…Sakura had basically two options. Shape up or ship out.

Shikamaru would have bet money on the girl caving. On the pink-hair civilian-born to throw in the towel and return to civilian life, just like so many others did every year.

But she didn't.

Sakura charged forward, securing her own Sannin teacher, becoming her own powerhouse. Having been on the receiving end of one of her chakra-infused punches after he'd said something "chauvinistic" again (her word), Shikamaru had nursed that black eye for a week before it was back to normal (of course all the medics he knew were girls and friends of Sakura and no one would help heal it since it wasn't going to interfere with a mission…can you sigh in your thoughts?).

And to hear her take charge on the battlefield…damn. Gone was that insecure little girl who used to stand behind Ino instead of next to her because she always felt like she didn't quite belong, and needed the other as a link. Gone was the girl who needed to be protected. Gone was the girl who needed to depend on others. Now everyone depended on her. Between her brute strength, keen mind, and medical skills, Sakura was freaking terrifying as an opponent.

Shikamaru felt it didn't besmirch his masculinity at all to say that.

…mainly because if he did she would kick his ass again.

But most telling of this change was when she attempted to take the fate of Sasuke Uchiha into her own hands, willing to kill her former teammate herself. Shikamaru knew that little pink-haired girl who blushed about her forehead was dead and gone, a fearsome woman left in her wake.

Shino Aburame

Shikamaru had never gotten much of a read on Shino in school. The child was as quiet as Naruto was loud. However, there was an unspoken understanding between both Shikamaru and Shino of each other's vast minds. Both of them were miles ahead of their classmates in terms of comprehension, an understanding expressed with a hard stare, quirked eyebrow and quick nods one day at recess. Neither of them romanticized the job like so many of their peers did. Their minds were just too keen.

But Shikamaru had to admit to having thought that Shino would wash out as a Genin. Shino did not interact well with the other students. When they were younger he had tried repeatedly and been rebuffed. If it wasn't just the bug factor creeping people out, it was his intellect which made it appear as though the Aburame thought that other people were inferior.

And Shikamaru knew that a part of Shino did think that plenty of other people were inferior. And in lots of ways he was right. Intellectually – he was one of the tops of their year. Politically – he was the son of a Head of a Major Ninja Clan and in line for the position himself. In strength – Shino had one of the highest successful completion percentages of any ninja in the village. And one of the lowest incident rates of landing himself in the hospital after said missions. Socially – ah, that was the rub. Interacting with other people had never been his strong suit.

Frankly, it wasn't any ninja's strong suit as coping mechanisms to help them handle their insane lives often were extreme and did nothing to break the stereotype of the eccentric ninja. Eventually, they could really only stand to be around other ninja who may be weirded out by the strange habits, but respectful of their strength as a ninja and will tolerate the oddness as long as their own is as well.

But it would seem that Shino had figured some way around that.

It would seem that Shino had figured it out before anyone in their year.

Jumping ahead of Kiba, Chouji, Naruto and Shikamaru himself, the Aburame had seemingly figured out girls.

Because the first thing the bug user did upon walking into the village after the final battle of the Fourth Great Ninja War was to catch in his arms the daughter of the bookstore owner as she dashed through the assembled crowd and launched herself at him. And he fervently returned the kiss that she planted on his lips among gasps thanking God and repeated assurances that he was home.

Kiba starred dumbstruck at his teammate. Hinata flushed so deeply Shikamaru had wondered for a moment if her skin would ever be able to return to its pale hue again. Ino and Sakura just sort of pointed dumbly in the direction of the pair. Chouji shrugged. Shikamaru blinked. Naruto laughed.

When the assembled ninja broken into applause for the young ninja, Shino had merely flipped them the bird, mouth still too engaged to tell them off.

Sasuke Uchiha

He would never say this out loud, certainly not around Team Seven, or basically any girl from their year other than Hinata, but Shikamaru wasn't surprised that Sasuke left. Not really. Shikamaru's overriding image of Sasuke was of that kid all alone in their old Academy classroom. Sitting beside the window, hands folded in front of his face so no one could really see him, head tilted just slight enough to let him stare out the window without it being obvious.

Eyes blank.

Because even when the Uchiha had been here, he wasn't here.

His mind was always somewhere else. Stuck on his thoughts of revenge or the horrifying memories of his blood drenched past, the Uchiha did nothing but train and push his body to the brink.

No – Sasuke Uchiha's leaving in search of power had never surprised him.

But his return did.

With a stupidly graceful landing on the battlefield, when the Alliance army was barely standing, Sasuke showed up with the reanimations of the Hokages in order to help them. And as though no time had passed, as though he hadn't tried to kill the man several times, Sasuke stood next to Naruto and fought to save the world.

And as the battle ended, as the Eternal Tsukuyomi faded, in that brief haze between the world of their mind slipping away and reality rooting itself once more in their heads, the assembled armies of the Continent witnessed Sasuke Uchiha throw himself between Naruto Uzumaki and the last ditch attack of Kaguya as the evil presence attempted to take the world's shining light with her into the darkness of death.

Sasuke died there on that field, smirking as Naruto cried and demanded to know why he would do that.

"My body just moved," coughing, blood splattered against Naruto's basically destroyed trademark orange jumpsuit, "Dobe."

Naruto screamed, something more animalistic than human, and fell back, caught by both Gaara and Kakashi who looked at the body of his former student with some swirling mix of shock, understanding and goddammit pride.

Shikamaru was surprised as hell.

Shikamaru wasn't surprised at all.

Naruto Uzumaki

Surprisingly, the least surprising of his classmates was Naruto Uzumaki.

Which seems weird, because the blonde was constantly doing what others what others never expected him to do. But that was the thing. Shikamaru expected Naruto to do the unexpected. So really, when it came to Naruto, nothing really was unexpected. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Shikamaru had stopped trying to figure out what the blonde was going to do, or predict his next move. So with no preconceived notions, there was no way to be surprised.

All of his life Naruto Uzumaki had been shouting to the world. Screaming for attention. Pleading for comfort. Begging to understand.

Oh, and one other thing.

"I will be the Greatest Hokage ever!"

He wanted to be the Hokage.

He would scream it. Doodle it on his desk. Hurl it as a weapon. Brandish it as a shield. Whisper it as a prayer. Hold tight to it in desperate hope.

And it only took a week of Shikamaru watching the boy, smaller than all of the others in his class, hilariously dressed in perpetual orange, with instant ramen for lunch every day, never doing his homework, always bored in class, caring more for pranks than classwork, always smiling, goofing off to cheer someone up even when they didn't realize or appreciate it, and moving on with a nod afterwards like he was saying 'mission accomplished' in his own mind, for Shikamaru to make up his mind about the blonde.

It had taken three months with Chouji, and the Akimichi was his best friend.

But one week of watching Naruto get up every time he was pushed down, smile when Shikamaru would cry, stand up for others when no one stood up for him, and smile. Smiling every day like it was a wondrous gift. Approaching every day like that would be the day when the smile was returned. If a child has such conviction, such force of spirit and will, he didn't see much that could get in their way as they grew as long as they held tight to it.

So when Naruto shouted at the top of his lungs about his dream to become Hokage, Shikamaru had never scoffed. He may have cringed at the volume with which the statement was released, but in his mind for an instant he would see that giant smile below a square brimmed hat.

As Naruto worked through his career, putting everything into his job, tackling every trial in his path, and risking life and limb frequently for the citizens of Konoha, still with that every present smile, other people started to see what Shikamaru had known for years.

Naruto Uzumaki would be Hokage one day.

And it wasn't just some knowledge in their head of an inevitable future. It was their hope.

Because when you looked at him, and actually saw him, you couldn't help but be inspired. You couldn't help but want to help him, you rallied around him.

Naruto was everything that Konoha needed in a leader.

So there was no surprise at all when that day finally came.

As that hat was placed onto Naruto's blonde head, that beaming smile blinding everyone in the crowd below, Shikamaru clapped until his hands were bruised and sore, cheered until his voice was gone, his own face tugged tight into a smile that tried it's hardest to resemble Naruto's.

Shikamaru had been studying his friends all of his life, but even genius like his couldn't predict everything. But on the occasions that he could, damn did it feel good.

Thanks for reading this little exercise in…whatever this was…

The Shino part was my favorite…because I have this soft spot for Shino and wish he was given more attention by the manga and the anime and I love the idea of him getting a girl before anyone else.

Let me know what you think and now I'm going to head back to No Thanks Necessary and try to get something done with that. I got some interesting ideas in a review for that and I'm looking at my little outline and trying to decide if it would be improved by adding any of those to it.

Again, thanks for reading!