NN Chapter 1: Steel Country Academy Students
The sun was just rising over the horizon, its golden rays bouncing off three mountains: Mt. Hitomi, Mt. Sumo, and Mt. Kai. It was a glorious morning in the Steel Country's capital village, the Kunai village. The Kunai village was a ninja village that also housed normal citizens and is home to the Steel Country's leader, Narik Natasaki, the Naikage. The Steel Country is not so old, in fact it is still under construction. The country was founded by Narik as he embarked on a journey to find a new continent that was never documented. He and his friends succeeded and founded their own villages after months of wanders and battles. Now Narik is busy building the Country and getting ready for the New Shinobi Countries' Chuunin Exams which will be hosted by the Steel Country. As such, the genin of the Steel Country prepare themselves for the event.
The genin have just graduated from the ninja academy and have just been put into squads. Squad 1 consisted of Chun Matsuo, Hirohito Kodacha, and Akimi Kio. Squad 2 consisted of Kazu Soito, and the twin ninja sisters Lin and Mei Tokono. These were the only two squads of the Steel Country that didn't have missions most of the time.
Squad 2 was pretty relaxed using the layoff time to work on training themselves. Mei and Lin were normally practicing with their father working on their unique ability. Kazu was the calm and lazy one. Some could describe him as a mix between Shikamaru Nara and Neji Hyuuga. Squad 1 was more rambunctious, but that was mainly due to Chun Matsuo. He was the Naruto of the bunch. He was the main gatekeeper's grandson and he was always bugging everyone. His other teammates would be as laid back as Squad 1 if they didn't have to babysit Chun all the time, though Akimi normally let Hirohito do all the babysitting. Akimi just loved spending the time in her family's famous orchards and gardens. Hirohito was the responsible one and so tried his best to control his teammate. It was a time for relaxation as the two squads did not have jounin assigned to them yet because most of the jounins were off fixing the country.
Today was a normal day in the Kunai village as Chun Matsuo woke up and looked around his room. It was a drab, small, cramped room. He shook his head as he thought about how all the other ninjas had apartment rooms and homes to themselves. All he had was a room inside the gatehouse which was small enough to be one room, but nooo, they had to split it into three rooms. He yawned as he gathered up his ninja equipment. He thought about his plans for the day. It would probably be popping by the Naikage's room to check if he could get a mission because the rest of the day would be seeing his boring friends, eat ramen, and sleep.
Chun yawned again and finished tying his grey bandana, the very same one that was given to him by the Naikage for his bravery so many years ago when he was a little kid in the First War. Chun looked at himself and grinned, not bad. He was wearing his new gray t-shirt and his blue shorts. He was told that the Naikage himself looked like him when he was young. He wore his normal blue ninja footwear and tied his new genin forehead protector with the Steel Country's symbol on it around his neck, not a place he usually wore it, but he wanted to wear his bandana today. His short spiky hair was black and his eyes were black as well. When he smiled people noticed that his left front tooth was missing. He lost it in a fight when he was young. He was always a big mouth and it got even bigger when he pissed a bunch of thugs off and got his tooth knocked out.
Chun grabbed his small ninja pouch that he quickly shoved into his pocket and ran out the door. He entered the living room and rushed towards the living room door to go outside when it suddenly swung out smacking him in the face and sending him tumbling to the other side of the room.
"OOOOWwwwww!" Chun sat up and rubbed his nose.
Chun's grandfather, Min Matsuo the gatekeeper of the main gate, walked in and called, "Chun! Get up! You've got to watch the gate today!"
Chun glared at his grandpa, "Gramps, you clumsy idiot! You coulda knocked out another one of my teeth! I swear…I think I'm gonna have to go to the hospital this time…."
Min who was wearing a big yellow robe that covered him from the neck down and to his feet squinted at the young lad, "I don't see anything wrong with you. So what do you say? Want to have the pleasure of watching the gate?"
Chun just kept his frozen glare and yelled, "Forget about your stinking gate! I'm goin on a mission…right after I fix all the broken bones in my body!"
Min, with a disappointed look, slipped back outside leaving Chun back to rubbing his sore nose. After a few minutes of feeling sorry for himself and muttering insults to his grandpa, he got up and sprinted out the door. He was running like the wind towards the kage's building, but when he got halfway someone came up right next to him and ran beside him. It was Hirohito Kodacha, Chun's friend and teammate.
Hirohito was wearing his glasses and on his forehead was his new genin forehead protector, identical to Chun's. Hirohito's straight light brown hair was cut short, a helmet head. He was wearing his green shirt which had the kanji "Medicine" in big black bold letters. Hirohito wore blue pants with normal blue ninja footwear.
The two genin did not talk until they reached the building. That was when Chun found a note on the door, "Naikage gone to Naikage Retreat. Be back tomorrow."
Chun shouted, "Well that sucks! Now we'll never get a mission!"
Hirohito looked at Chun for a few minutes analyzing like he normally did to everything. He was an analytical ninja that wanted to be a medical ninja one day. After staring at Chun he said, "Your nose is red."
Chun gave him a sarcastic look, "Took you that long to figure that out?"
Hirohito wasn't affected by Chun's rudeness having been around him so much and ignored it asking, "What happened?"
Chun's face twisted into anger as he thought back to just a few moments ago, "My stupid grandpa hit me in the face again! It's like the 20th time this week! I think he broke all the bones in my body."
Hirohito took a moment to examine Chun again, "Well you don't look different besides that nose and you ran normally."
Chun stuck out his tongue, "What do you know? I can tell if my bones are broken and right now they are broken."
Just then a fat kid popped up out of nowhere and grinned at the two. The kid had an ice cream stick sticking out of his mouth and was missing a couple of teeth. His teeth didn't match. If he had a bottom tooth he didn't have one directly above it, but one diagonal to it. His teeth seemed to be growing in a zigzag pattern. He had X's on his cheeks and had a little bit of brown hair on his head. He wore a white shirt and white shorts with no shoes on.
Chun glared down at him, "Waishu! What are you doing here?"
A boy in a nearby tree answered, "We academy students don't have school today because they are fixing up the academy."
The boy had long black hair that went down to his shoulders and a gray shirt with the Steel Country's symbol on the front in big black letters. The kid also wore big blue cargo pants and the appropriate ninja footwear which couldn't really be seen because his pant legs were in the way.
Hirohito looked up at the kid analyzing him and then greeting him, "Hi Takashi!"
Takashi Niro looked down at Hirohito and waved, "Greetings, Hirohito. …Chun."
Chun's expression changed to anger and impatience, "What're you two doing here anyways?"
Waishu continued to suck on the ice cream stick and replied, "I want you to train me, Boss." The young academy student said pointing at Chun.
Chun smiled, but before he could say anything else a voice behind him said, "Chun's busy, Waishu. Maybe next time okay?"
Chun froze. He recognized that voice. It was…. He turned slowly only to confirm that the person behind him was the Naikage himself!
Narik Natasaki was wrapped in his gray kage robe with the Kanji "Metal" on the back. He had on his kage helmet which was diamond shaped and at the front tip had the same kanji. The Naikage continued, "Chun has got a mission and so do you Hirohito."
Chun was jumping with joy, "Hell yeah! I'm gonna ace this mission!"
Hirohito looked at him, "Don't you mean 'we'?"
He beckoned the two genin to walk inside his building. He told them that he was back early just to give them this mission of high importance. He told them that it required six genin and so he called the rest of the unoccupied genin to join them.
Next time: Genin Mission Competition: Squad 1 vs Squad 2! Chun and the other five genin get off on a bad start when they start arguing on how to organize a six man squad. The argument finally breaks the squad up into the original three man squads, but they have trouble when they find out that their opponents number in the hundreds and also have their own hired ninja. Can the six genin work things out and come together to complete the mission without losing their lives? Find out in the next chapter of Narik Ninjas!
