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Shikamaru was four years old when he had the sudden realisation that his own mother was afraid of him. So like any sensible child he went to his father and asked: „Dad, why is mom afraid of me?“
His father suddenly looked older and so, so tired as he crouched down to heave little Shikamaru into his arms. Putting a soothing hand on top of his head, his father explained: „Your mom isn’t afraid of you. She is afraid for you.“
Scrunching up his nose, the child voice out his single thought: „Why?“
„Because you are very smart, Shikamaru. And sometimes people get frightened by people that are too smart.“
The child in question frowned. „But you always say that being smart is a normal thing for a Nara. Are people afraid of you too?“
The boy noticed that although his father smiled, there was a certain strain in his face—as if he had to force himself to do so. „Sometimes, yes. But mostly not. Everyone knows that the Nara clan has lots of smart people after all.“
„So why is it bad that I am smart too?“ There was no question that he was smart. He had played with Choji and Ino after all, he had pretty good references what normal people’s intelligence was supposed to be like.
„It’s not bad at all“, was the instant response, „it is just that you are a bit smarter than even a Nara usually is. You are somewhat of a genius and this village has had some bad precedences with geniuses in the past. Your mom is worried that people will look at these geniuses and associate their actions with your future ones.“
Shikamaru thought the implications through for a heartbeat or two. Then he finally asked his patiently waiting father: „Are you afraid for me too?“
„Of course not. I know you will do just fine.“ The child heard the falsehood of that statement but decided to let it slip past. If his father wanted to convince him of that, he could at least placate the man and let him be a bit less afraid. „But… maybe we could enrol you at the academy when you are six instead of five. Then you could go together with your friends, Choji and Ino.“
„Okay, dad.“ Instead of complaining how bored he would be in the meantime, he simply nodded. After all, he was too smart to not get the message: Keep your head down, don’t let anyone see how much of a genius you really are and stay camouflaged among your age mates.
Shikamaru complied with his father’s advice because not only was the man more knowledgeable than him right now, he trusted him. Still, the first thing he did when his mom took him to the book shop a couple of days later, was to check out a recently written book about the greatest shinobi of Konoha history—according to the clerk it was a bestseller.
The entry began with Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara and how they had founded the village. While they were both power houses, they weren’t considered geniuses. No, the genius of that era was Senju Tobirama. Not only had he thoroughly changed the village by establishing the academy, the Anbu and the Chuunin exams, he was also praised for his extraordinary skills and jutsu creations. And that was where the fear began because there were rumours that Tobirama had gone further than anyone before in his experiments and even discovered how to teleport or how to reanimate the dead. That last one had never been proven but considering the vast amount of techniques and jutsus he’d developed, people were afraid of what he would come up with next. He was reportedly willing to do anything for knowledge, even mess with Uchiha corpses. While it did look bad, that hadn’t been too terrifying (but still majorly distasteful) considering that this was also the man that had laid the foundations of modern Konoha, nothing like his father had insinuated. So he moved on to the next chapter.
There were a couple of notable names—the Sandaime for example—but no one that truly classified as a genius until the legendary Sannin Orochimaru. While all three Sannin were extremely powerful and prodigies, only Orochimaru had been titled a genius. After a long account of accomplishments that the three of them achieved together, the article about them ended with the story about how Orochimaru became a missing-nin. Apparently it was discovered that he had conducted unethical experiments on humans—allies and foes, adults and children alike, all of them abducted—which had led to him fleeing the country. Uhh, yeah. The abduction part alone was enough to make the people fear the man, not to mention his experiments and the fact that no one noticed for decades or could put a stop to him after it was discovered.
The next notable genius mentioned in the book was the Yondaime Hokage. His life‘s account seemed rather good. In fact, he was considered a hero after single-handedly ending the Third war. Shikamaru was feeling optimistic about this one. But then he read the details about his accomplishments in the war. One such feat reportedly had him face down a bit less than sixty enemy shinobi at once. Within two minutes they were killed with no survivors and it wasn’t the last of his battles against overwhelming forces. While there was no accurate body count for his kills, estimations reached well into the hundreds. And any witnesses had remained heavily traumatised after the fact. The book didn’t quite call him a monster but heavily suggested that Konoha was lucky that this genius took out all his bloodthirstiness on the enemy and died before he could grow bored of the peace he massacred hundreds for. Shikamaru gulped at the picture of blood soaked grounds and body piles in his head and forced himself to read on.
Hatake Kakashi was the last genius he found in the book—graduating the academy at 5, making chuunin at 6, participating in the Third war and surviving as the only student of the Forth still alive, making jounin at 12. The book also mentioned that it was an open secret that Hatake Kakashi joined Anbu at 13—there was a whole section of proof about the Anbu Dog wearing his characteristic hair, weapon and jutsu skills as well as the rumor of his sharingan that had earned him the title Copy-nin Kakashi—and leading teams as Anbu captain soon after. The highest Konoha assassination count within four years was attributed to this teenager. He was also known as Friend-killer Kakashi since he had killed his own team mate. Then he betrayed the village, kidnapped a child, slaughtered a good amount of Anbu on his way out and became the most feared Konoha missing-nin alongside Orochimaru. That happened just a couple of months before this book came out earlier this year.
Shikamaru closed the book with a heavy heart and a racing mind. He told himself, that this was only one account. Only one opinion. His father always told him to check multiple sources before arriving at a semblance of truth.
But, when he asked around about these geniuses of Konoha outside his immediate family, he got very similar answers. People were afraid of geniuses—even of the Forth hokage. More than that, people were eying Uchiha Itachi, the genius of the youngest generation, as if he would go on a killing spree—whether foe or friend—if he got too bored. Shikamaru himself couldn’t understand how people couldn’t see that the boy who was only five years older than himself was a very kind and loving kid. One only needed to look at how he treated his little brother Sasuke to know his character.
But people were blind and obviously prejudiced. They were terrified of geniuses. His parents were right to be worried for him. People who were afraid tended to lash out after all.
So, when he finally entered the academy, he didn’t stick out. He was nothing more than a lazy student that just got high enough marks to not raise any eyebrows and to pass his classes. He stuck by Choji and Ino, no matter how annoying the latter became over the years. He did his very best to only appear Nara smart, not genius smart.
Then, two years later, Uchiha Itachi killed his whole clan—his own family—, only sparing his little brother and taking him with him while fleeing the village. He joined the S-classed Konoha missing-nin ranks that were already consisting of the geniuses Orochimaru and Hatake Kakashi.
People nodded grimly, having expected something along the lines of a mass-murdering psychotic break in the most recent genius. After all, everyone knew that Konoha’s geniuses would crack sooner or later—in fact, they cracked younger and younger with each genius.
Shikamaru—afraid of other people and himself since he had firmly believed that nothing would ever cause Uchiha Itachi to go on a killing spree in his last assessment of him—pretended to be an average Nara even harder.
Maybe, if he tried hard enough, it would become the truth.