Author's note: This is a two author story, just so all you happy readers don't get lost in the changing writing styles. It'll be a trade off for every other chapter. I'll be starting it off by introducing my character into the story, then there's a separate introduction for my co-writer's character, and we'll follow this format from beginning to end.
Introduction - Yukimura Maeda
As the sun began its ascension over the Fire Country, and over the tall, empowering walls of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, it seemed as if everyone was getting up just a little bit earlier today. It was a peaceful, quiet time for the Konohagakure - as the last major activity had happened four years prior: the Uchiha clan massacre. Ever since, however, the village has remained tranquil and with minimal, if any, interference from outside villages. Within the walls of Konoha, more specifically, beneath the western-most wall, lay a single, tall apartment like construction. It was a simple, plain khaki color, with a much more majestic style of dark green trim. Within this building, lived the former Prodigy of the Maeda clan, Yukimura Maeda. The young boy, roughly twelve years of age and still a student at the ninja academy, tossed and turned on his bed, completely unaware of the ringing alarm clock on the nearby nightstand.
With a long, well overstressed groan, the boy lifted his left hand from under the sheets, and quickly batted the clock over - it landed with an anticlimactic "thud" but the alarm stopped ringing, at least. The aspiring shinobi arose from his bed like he was the living dead; revealing the characteristics of his features. His thick, black hair was incredibly messy and his resembling black eyes were still attempting to get used to the new morning. His nonsensical gaze began to effigiate to the rays of sunlight that managed to make their way through his pitch black curtains. Another groan fell out of the boy's mouth just as he managed to swing both feet out of bed, and slip into the nearby bathroom.
Minutes upon minutes passed - all of which were courtly counted off by the repetitious, yet soothing melodies of the birds outside. It was soon after these minutes passed, that Yukimura quickly opened the bathroom door, a towel around his waist, and a plethora of steam, desperately trying to escape the room he had just occupied, followed right behind him. Again, minutes passed, in which the Maeda boy began the daily ritual of dressing himself. His attire was a very simple approach of layering - starting off with a traditional ninja fishnet style undershirt, the sleeves of which stopped just before the bend of the elbow. On top of his undershirt, Yukimura wore a simplistic looking gray V-neck shirt - this shirt's sleeves stopped around his bicep area, leaving plenty of his undershirt visible around the arms. If one were so observant, one could take note of the strange, gray-colored patterns that seemed to cover the entire shirt - the color itself, so resembling the original fabric however, made it incredibly hard to notice, a-similar to an illusion. The hemline of the bottom of the shirt just barely touched over a pair of light gray shorts, which, aside from their normal series of pockets, also contained special placements for Yukimura's shuriken holster, as well as his satchel. The shorts themselves stopped just above the knee, and, just at the top of his calf were traditional shinobi shin-guards, which Yukimura had taken the time to tape over - and beneath his taped shin-guards would go his gray sandals.
After his quick confrontation with his closet, and the battle with his own clothes, Yukimura quickly hopped the banister of his staircase to the first floor of his house. He rushed through making his breakfast, and only went faster as he partook in the feast - a bowl of cereal. Finished with his delectable meal, and after tossing bowl into the water-filled sink, Yukimura decided now would be a proper time to leave. Granted, he would probably end up late due to his understandable disdain for the early morning. Just before opening the front door, Yukimura shook his black hair dry, allowing water droplets to accent the wooden frame of the doorway before he opened it. His hair wasn't particularly long, but neither was it short; the length, more often than not, reached his cheekbones and was almost always unkempt. A proper description of the hair would be as follows: a simple layering technique, resulting in the hair being slightly longer in the back than the front, and ultimately ending in a plethora of hair that would normally cover the boy's eyes. Yukimura was careful to hand-brush the hair onto either side, but it always seemed to drift towards the right, with a single piece of hair falling in between his eyes.
It was by this time - just as soon as he had stepped through the front door - that Yukimura realized that his roommate was either still asleep, or hadn't even come back from the woods last night.
"Yo, man, you in there?!" Yukimura basically shouted as he closed the door behind him. Not receiving an answer, he dismissed the situation as a whole and began his journey to the academy. It was an oddity for most of the people of Konoha to not lock their doors, but rarely did anyone ever want to visit two kids without families. Such a turn of phrase spurned out a scowl from the young shinobi, and his thoughts instantly refrained themselves from striking such a remembrance, fearing such a gaze.
The people of Konoha as a whole were mostly kind - mostly. There always seemed to be someone causing trouble somewhere, and today, it just happened to be Naruto Uzumaki. His childish attempts on individuality had struck a high note today. The idiot had defaced the monument to the Hokages - the greatest shinobi the Leaf Village has ever bore within its infrastructure - and even more so, he was proud of himself for doing so. Yukimura shook his head over such a blatant act of stupidity, and it was all he could do to restrain himself the pleasure of kicking the kid's ass - another time. It wasn't so much the fact that Naruto had defaced the monument, oh no, certainly not. While Yukimura had all the respect he could for the dead, especially the former - and current - Hokages, he honestly couldn't care any less about the condition in which the monument happened to be in. It was the simple fact that when Iruka, the Chuunin instructor for the class that Naruto - and Yukimura himself - attended, found out about Naruto's idiotic prank, no doubt the whole class would have to suffer through it. A giant waste of time.
Yukimura decided to slow down his walking speed just a tad. Although he was late getting up, Naruto's natural born stupidity had granted Yukimura a few more quiet minutes to himself, which was always something to be enjoyed. Even with his slow walking speed, the ninja academy was such a short distance away from his own house, that it barely even made a difference.
"What the hell are you doing during class time?!! Get down here you moron!!" Iruka-sensei's voice rang like a gong through the confines of Konoha. Yukimura glanced behind him at the defaced monument - he couldn't help but crack a smile at Naruto's obvious panic. With another shake of his head, Yukimura entered the academy, technically late, but thanks to Naruto, still early.