Time to try and dust off my rusty C&C skills...
But, first:
Standard C&C Disclaimer: All the below is my only occasionally useful
humble opinion, my only occasionally correct grammatical and spelling
corrections, and/or my only occasionally funny humor.
Denise Cameron wrote:
The board between the two young ninja was full of pieces of
black and white, lined up in two rows on each side. Tall pieces
stood behind shorter ones, and there was a large, blank space
between each colour. While Shikamaru, the taller, black-haired ninja
moved the box that had contained the pieces onto the ground beside
him, his partner, brown-haired Chouji, scrutinized it curiously.
"each colour" reads oddly to me. I suggest "between the two sides".
"What the heck is this?" he asked, touching the piece
Shikamaru called the bishop.
"Chess," said Shikamaru. "Someone brought it back from a
mission to the snow country."
Should perhaps be "the Snow Country"?
It might be worthwhile, just for immersion's sake, to pick someone in
particular to have brought it back, rather than just saying "someone."
(Shikimaru's father?)
"No Go. Not that I wouldn't prefer it," he said. Picking up
a pawn with his index finger and thumb, he moved it one pace forward,
then looked at Chouji. "No one knows how to play this. It's kinda
irresponsible, really, making me try it. What if it's not even a game?
Maybe it's some weird decoration, and now I get to waste my time with
it."
How does he know the names of the pieces and how to set up the board, then?
"Beats me," said Shikamaru, opening the box to get the paper
that said what the pieces were called. That was a little helpful, at
least. Now if only it said how to move them, they'd be set.
Ah, that explains that, then. Seems rather odd that it wouldn't have
the rules on it, though.
Shikamaru found himself watching her as she walked away, deep in
thought. If there was ever an opposite to Ino - not an exact opposite,
but enough to be quite different - it would be Hinata. Demure, polite,
respectful.
He would bet that she would never try to bully him into
anything, or make him eat food he didn't like, or wear clothes he didn't
want to wear. She was cute, too. Her smile, her neat,
pretty-but-not-overdone hair, her pale eyes. And unlike Ino, she wasn't
trying to turn herself into a pencil; she was slim, but had enough fat
on her to not make her look breakable and scrawny.
Looks like you're missing a blank line between these two paragraphs.
"Right. Even I know, and no one tells me anything," said Chouji,
finishing the last of his chips, then carefully placing the empty bag
in his satchel for later disposal. Deflated, Shikamaru leaned back to
his elbows, looking up at the sky once more. So, Hinata liked Naruto.
But Naruto didn't like Hinata, did he? No, that didn't seem right.
Something clicked in his mind, a conversation, a memory. It was almost
with him, if he could only grasp it...
I have been told that, when ending a sentence in an ellipsis, it is
better to use four periods.
I believe this is an issue of some controversy, however.
"Feh, don't ask me," said Sasuke, turning away to look back at the lonely
path
ahead of him. "I don't like board games anyway."
~FIN~
And my C&C skills really must be rusty, for that is more or less all I
found to say. I can only hope that something was useful.
Oh yes: glancing back at the story, I don't notice any disclaimer.
It's customary to give credit to the original creator and owners of the
anime/manga you're working from.