The serious atmosphere between Shikaku and Ren intensified until Shikaku completely cancelled it with a small, lazy chuckle followed by a smile.
"But before we get to the unpleasant stuff, I've heard you approached the Yamanaka and the Akimichi clans." He said and gave Ren a meaningful look.
Ren didn't even need a second to decipher its meaning. Everybody in Konoha knew that the Ino-Shika-Cho clans were very close allies. And he had approached two of the three.
While the clans did not need to consult each other to form their personal alliances, they always did the big, important stuff together. It was how they were surviving Konoha's political climate.
Ren looked at Shikamaru with a wry expression, "I am sorry, I just really couldn't think of anything your clan would need." He sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "At first, I contemplated a small storage seal where you could store your favorite pillow or something. Maybe located on your earring?" Ren shrugged. Every Nara wore one as it was their clan tradition. "But I quickly realized that a normal storage seal would suffice for it anyway, making the idea quite pointless."
"Indeed." Shikaku lazily grinned in amusement. "No Nara ever leaves the village without our favorite pillow. It brings luck."
Honestly, Ren had no idea if Shikaku was joking or not, but it didn't matter. It would actually be more hilarious if it were true.
Ren did have ideas for seals usable by the Nara clan. An example would be a seal that could dim the surrounding light, enlarging the shadows. That alone would make any Nara ninja a menace to deal with.
In most fights, their Kagemane is a one-hit 'I win' button. Only the stronger ninjas can partially resist it once they are caught. Experienced adult Naras can even catch more than one person in their shadows and use them for attacking at the same time.
It was only the limitations of their jutsu that lessened their general threat level. But limitations could be removed by external means like seals.
The problem, however, was the fact that Ren's seals were not popping out of nowhere. He genuinely needed to spend his free time, hours, and days, plus clones, on every single one of them.
So, while he had ideas about seals that would make any Nara clan member an almost impossible menace to deal with for anybody below Jonin rank, he wasn't willing to put the time into actually making it.
To the Akimichi clan, Ren gave a seal-making wooden box that could create what he aptly named a Lunchbox Seal. It was an application of his time-stopping seal, scaled down and adjusted to be mostly unusable for anything but food preservation on a very small level.
It took Ren and his clones three days to make and then create a Seal-Creating Box, or SeCreBo for short, for it.
The Secrebo made the seal, the Akimichi could pack a big lunch box before a mission, strap the seal on it, activate it... and voila, they could then seal that into the storage seal and have a nice, warm food anytime they wish during their mission.
For a week.
Once the Secrebo created the Lunchbox Seal, it would be in an inactive state and would last a very long time like that. Activating it took loads of chakra, and the seal would burn out after a week. Severely limiting the seal's use.
That was by design, so it wasn't something usable on a large scale for the village. Ren didn't need the Hokage to pester him about making these seals or the Secrebo for everybody.
It's why the Lunchbox seals could only create the time-stopping field for something small like a lunchbox, and the field would pop the second said lunch box was opened, too.
The usual storage seals sucked at preserving food. This was the best gift Ren could have given to the Akimichi clan. Even if the seal only worked for a week after its activation.
For the Yamanaka clan... Ren didn't have that many ideas, so in the end, after consulting Ino, he created another Secrebo that printed one of his seals for training Yin natured chakra.
It wasn't one of his best. But even Ino advised against sharing one of those. Even with her own clan. And for many reasons.
Nevertheless, giving Inoichi the box made the man look constipated.
He wanted to act tough toward Ren because he was sleeping with his daughter. But he understood that these seals would, over time, make the Yamanaka way more powerful.
Nobody in the ninja world would give something like that away. Not to a clan that wasn't their own. It genuinely froze Inoichi's mental processes for a few seconds when Ren told him what seals the Secrebo was set to make for his clan.
But that was okay. Inoichi was going to be his father-in-law one day. Ren didn't mind being generous to the Yamanakas.
He gave the Inuzukas the Secrebo in exchange for an alliance because they were convenient. He just had a seal they couldn't refuse without needing to put in much effort. The seal he offered them was something he derived from the telepathy seal he made for himself and his girls.
Most of the work for it was already done by the time the idea of using it to make said alliance even entered his mind.
It took barely any effort to put together after that. The real issue was actually making a Secrebo that would print said seal because it was one of his first ones.
He gave the Lunchbox Secrebo to the Akimichi because he knew they would love it. The thing the Akimichi clansmen grumbled the most about was having to deal with subpar food or ration bars on missions.
And Ren considered Choza Akimichi a friend.
To this day, he stops at the man's restaurant at least once, and if he is present, Choza always leaves the kitchen to have some drinks and a talk with him.
He was the man who gave Ren a lot of money for his recipes when he was a kid.
His kindness made his first experiments with seals possible.
And the Akimichis were truly kind people deep down. They were not scheming. They were not complicated. They didn't care about getting the top dog position. They just wanted to cook and eat good food.
Ren doubted that anybody could really hate these fluffy, round balls.
Of course, he wouldn't be calling any Akimichi that to his face. He doesn't want to have his facial structure rearranged by a giant.
Ren wouldn't mind giving the Akimichi clan a Yang chakra training seal. But... the optics would be the problem. The thing was, Ren was given some rudimentary Yin training methods from the Yamanka clan in the past. And he also had Ino as his student.
It was kinda possible for him to develop that into something. Nobody probably expected it. But it was believable that it could happen. This made it possible for Ren to give the Yamanakas his old Yin chakra training seals that oddly fit their clan techniques without much scrutiny.
If somebody asked where they came from? He could point at the training methods the Yamanakas gave him and say he made this from that.
If somebody asked why it works so well for the Yamanaka clan techniques, as if it was tailored for them, despite him not being a part of their clan? He just needed to point at Ino and say that she was his first guinea pig, and her feedback made this possible.
People would make their own picture from there without Ren needing to really explain anything.
But he was never given a Yang chakra training method. Especially not one geared for the Akimichi clan. And he never trained an Akimichi. If he came to Choza with a Secrebo capable of printing Yang chakra training seals, that would be an oddly great fit for his clan techniques?
The man was nice. But he was not stupid. He would figure it out.
After all, most of Ren's data on Yang chakra training came from Hinata's 'investigations'. Sadly, in Konoha, mainly the Akimichi train in a very basic and rudimentary Yang chakra usage, so most of what Ren knew of that topic was based on their ways and built up from that.
His bullshitting skills were not good enough to make up a believable excuse for it, so he decided it would be smarter to simply keep it a secret for now.
"You know, you don't need to offer us anything." Shikaku gruffly said and took a sip from his drink, "You have already allied with the Akimichi and the Yamanaka. It only makes sense for us to do the same."
Hearing him, Ren frowned.
Another small reason why he didn't approach the Nara clan was that Shikaku was a stranger to him.
Inoichi was his future father-in-law, and he was a pretty chill guy when he didn't try to imitate a dragon daddy.
Choza was a friend.
Shikaku? Ren didn't know the guy.
Sparing a moment to think why Shikaku would offer the Nara clan's support basically for free... Ren inwardly rolled his eyes with a small chuckle.
'Of course. I didn't think of it from that perspective, but I guess from an outside point of view, I am a new, up-and-coming, promising ninja with a good relationship with the Hokage and now making allies among the clans.' Ren realized. 'And my allies are also mostly his allies.'
He couldn't help but give Shikaku a respectful glance. He was indeed a sly one.
The alliance Ren had with other clans was not like the thing the Nara clan had with the Yamanaka and the Akimichi clans. It wasn't a 'only death do us part' kind of thing.
It was quite a casual thing as far as commitments went.
Shikaku might not know what Ren's end goal was, but he would not be sacrificing much if he allied with Ren. And besides, if whatever Ren was trying to accomplish didn't pan out, he wouldn't need to go down with him.
But if it did work out? The Nara clan would get more benefits if it were a part of that winning alliance, no matter what kind of victory it would be. And even then, having a positive relationship with a seal master who could make what amounted to seal printers was already worth it.
His clan would not be losing anything with this deal.
And as a Jonin Commander, he could also have at least some overview of Ren's moves with this alliance. Not really a solid one. But something was better than nothing.
Honestly, Ren didn't care about that. He could most likely find a dozen other reasons why Shikaku was doing this. But he was aware he wouldn't be overthinking a Nara.
In the end, he just shrugged. "Well, if you are that cheap, then sure. I'll take this bargain."
Shikaku's lips twitched at that. "Cheeky, troublesome brat." He shook his head with a small smile that Ren reciprocated.
"Now, you said something about people being unhappy with me? No idea why that would be. Ino and Hinata always say I am very cuddly." Ren directed the topic to the important stuff. "Could I get any specifics?"
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