Chapter 136: The Classmate Everyone Misses

Shikamaru listened to Naruto's offer without changing his position beneath the tree.

"You want me to join your team, read a manual, discover Iruka-sensei's teacher, and take orders from you."

"As chief strategist," Naruto said. "When I become Hokage, the position will be official."

Tenyu and Maki stood behind him with the solemn expressions of retainers attending an important negotiation. The woven sparrow on a roof beam watched all three without moving.

Shikamaru closed one eye against the sun. "My father is a strategist. He spends half his life in meetings and the other half explaining why people ignored the plan. I refuse."

"But you're the smartest person I know."

The admission emerged quietly enough that Shikamaru opened both eyes.

Naruto had excluded Sasuke because asking him would feel like surrender, and Kiba because Kiba wanted the same office. Sakura knew the Academy material but would ask why he cared. Hinata became too nervous whenever he spoke to her. That left Shikamaru, whose laziness had never prevented him from answering difficult questions when an instructor forced the issue.

"Find Shino," Shikamaru said at last. "He remembers details. He understands written instructions. And he'll probably appreciate that someone noticed him."

Naruto frowned. "Who is Shino?"

Shikamaru stared at him.

"He sits two rows behind you. Dark glasses. High collar. Aburame."

"Oh. The person who appears whenever class ends."

"He's there before it ends too."

Naruto accepted the information as his first success in field intelligence. He thanked Shikamaru, though he still announced that the chief strategist position would remain available.

"Keep it available forever," Shikamaru said.

Tenyu tried one question from the contract lessons. "What would make you accept?"

"A problem that matters, enough information to solve it, and the freedom to tell the captain his plan is bad."

Naruto objected to the final condition until Shikamaru asked whether a strategist who agreed with every mistake had any use. Naruto promised to consider disagreement after becoming Hokage. Shikamaru said that answer explained why he was declining today.

At Gale Valley, the first three candidates crossed the barrier.

Wind caught their clothes at once. Each child turned a shoulder, let chakra run through the vest's guiding seams, and descended the marked stone route in short steps. Their rhythm transformed what appeared to be resistance into repeated surrender and recovery. They yielded a handspan, settled, then advanced when the current weakened.

Tonbo watched from the platform while Atsushi followed their chakra with the Byakugan. Tsuyoshi and Gaku guarded the approach. Shikyō maintained three separate insect clusters in crevices where the wind could not lift them.

The insects could not patrol the open valley, but they could relay whether a candidate crossed known shelter points. Scent vanished whenever a gust swept bare stone, yet it accumulated behind the same shelters. Neither method worked alone. Together with the Byakugan, radios, pressure seals, and Tonbo's broad perception, they created enough overlap to make disappearance difficult.

"Group one stable," Atsushi reported. "The smallest is spending more chakra than the others."

Ki checked the child's pulse through the vest seal. "He is correcting too often. Give him four minutes. If his rhythm does not improve, recall him."

The boy recovered before the limit. Pride had made him fight every gust; fear taught him to wait for openings.

Before the second group entered, Tonbo made each candidate locate both release catches on another child's vest while wearing gloves. One catch had clogged with grit during the climb. Another child had routed an anchor line across the throat guard, where sudden tension could injure the wearer. Ki corrected both and added the inspection to every rotation. Familiar equipment deserved renewed attention after the environment began changing it.

Tonbo unsealed the meteorological instruments.

One Shadow Clone took primary responsibility for the equipment while the original remained integrated into candidate monitoring. Pressure vanes unfolded along the platform. Woven carriers took small sensors beyond the barrier, using rock shadows to survive currents that had destroyed the first attempts. Tonbo marked each reading with time, altitude, temperature, humidity, and chakra expenditure.

Atmospheric Guidance had produced rain by creating a narrow difference that the existing air completed. Gale Valley offered a more violent lesson. Its currents were not powerful merely because they moved quickly. Terrain compressed them, temperature lifted them, and colliding paths transferred force across the valley. A technique that found the correct points might redirect a fraction of the system without supplying the entire storm. That fraction could still kill people.

Tonbo separated civilian uses from combat conditions in his notes. Clearing smoke from a town, ventilating a mine, supporting rain, and slowing a wildfire required different limits from turning debris into a weapon. Any battlefield form would need a visible setup, enormous chakra, and conditions an enemy could disrupt. He refused to let excitement erase those constraints.

"You planned this mission around your research," Shikyō said.

"I accepted a compatible mission because it granted lawful access," Tonbo replied. "The candidates remain the priority."

"I know. Your clone abandoned a sensor to catch the third child."

Beyond the barrier, a candidate had slipped when stone fractured beneath her anchor. A woven line reached her vest while Atsushi called the direction. Tonbo's clone pulled her toward a shelter, then let an instrument worth more than many D-rank missions vanish into the wind.

The choice answered Shikyō more clearly than the explanation.

In Konoha, Naruto found Shino outside the Aburame district carrying a ventilated wooden case.

"Shino," Naruto said with the confidence of someone who had always known his name, "I need a smart teammate for an intelligence mission."

Shino adjusted his glasses. "It is unusual for you to seek me specifically. Therefore, I would like to hear the objective."

Naruto explained the search, the manual, Shikamaru's refusal, and the promised position in his future administration. Tenyu added that the task required reading. Maki added that the captain did not enjoy reading.

"I can read the manual," Shino said. "However, I cannot join you today. My colony has entered a breeding period, and the new kikaichū require controlled temperature and food after class."

Naruto glanced at the box. "Are the babies in there?"

"Some. Would you like to see them?"

Shino opened one screened panel. A black movement thickened along the inner wood. Hundreds of insects crawled over one another, their wings making a soft dry sound. More emerged from his sleeves to settle near the case.

Naruto stepped back.

Tenyu and Maki stepped back farther.

"They are healthy," Shino said. "Their density indicates successful reproduction."

"Very healthy," Naruto agreed from several paces away.

"I could give you a small starter colony. Caring for it would provide practical experience in observation and record keeping."

The three investigators declined simultaneously.

Shino did not appear offended. He closed the panel and explained that insects were neither dirty nor hostile merely because their movement unsettled people. Naruto listened from a safe distance, fighting the urge to scratch at skin that had not been touched.

"Can you help tomorrow?" Naruto asked.

"If the colony stabilizes. You remembered me today. I would prefer not to forget your request."

The words exposed Naruto's earlier failure without cruelty. He promised to ask again.

As the three retreated, Maki looked at him. "Captain Naruto is afraid of bugs."

"I was protecting them from being stepped on."

"You nearly stepped on Tenyu."

"Tactical withdrawal."

The investigation still lacked a strategist. It had gained one classmate's name