So this is my first submitted fan fiction. I appreciate any comments that you might have just no flames please. This was supposed to take place after the chunin prelims, but that wouldn't work so it's in a universe of my own creation.
I don't own Naruto
Sora
I looked at the bright blue morning sky. It would be a warm day. Good. Less to worry about. She walked over to where her teammates were finishing breakfast.
"Ready to go? We're going to be late. Again." I smiled. They were forever making her wait for them. I surveyed the scene. Michiko was already done and glaring at her brother. Ryuu was still eating. "I swear you would eat all day if I let you"
"I'm a big person, I need to eat a lot. As you well know Sora."
Of course he was right. He was a good foot taller then me and could throw me like a spear if he wanted. He never tried though. In direct opposition was his sister. Michiko was shorter then me and slim. But she was as tough as any man. They were twins. Both had the same brown eyes, but she had long black hair and he had short blond hair.
"Even when he was small he still ate like that. Let's just leave him here. I'm sure he can catch up later." Michiko had a bit of a mischievous streak to say the least.
"Fine, I'm done" He scraped the last of the food off the plate and shoved it in his bag.
"I'm surprised you didn't lick it clean. Well let's get moving. First day in a new village don't want to make a bad impression." I started walking towards the road.
"Right. As if they could forget what happened last time a ninja from Kumo was her." Always devil's advocate Michiko. Last time the ninja from Kumogakure was at Konoha he had tried to kidnap the heir to the Hyuga clan to get the secrets of the Byakugan. He had been killed and the head of the family was demanded as retribution. Instead his brother from the branch family was sacrificed. Messed up family if you asked me. But the whole situation was terrible. My teammates and I and about three quarters of our village were pissed off about the whole thing.
"Well we didn't have any part in that, so maybe they won't be mad at us."
"Ryuu, Ryuu, Ryuu. Always the optimist. Although, I hope you're right." I did, but chances were not in our favor for that. The two Hyugas in the group we were going to meet were closely involved in it. One was the heiress that was going to be kidnapped and the other was the son of the sacrificed brother. Odds were that they wouldn't be waiting with open arms. More like closed fists. Or whatever the equivalent was with their fighting style.
"Let's go and find out, shall we? I'm sure we could take them." Michiko said with a smile. "I'm always looking for some unlucky saps to practice my jutsus on and Ryuu stopped volunteering."
I just rolled my eyes and kept walking. Sometimes the small ones are the ones that would get you. Michiko was one of those. It amazed me. I suppose I was the average one of the bunch. In the loosest sense of the term. Average height and weight with short white hair and greenish yellow eyes. The white hair was a result of an unfortunate accident. At least that's what I tell people. You start telling people it's the result of having a biju sealed in you and they tend to start freaking out on you. That's right. A biju. The Raiju to be exact. Just your standard lightning biju. It was usually harmless. Except during thunderstorms when it would go insane and attack anything unlucky enough to be outside. Which include houses and the people inside after it tore a few walls down. Some people heard about the success of Konoha and Suna with sealing biju inside people and tried it with me. Fun stuff.
The path curved off into the forest.
"Good place for an ambush, but that's just my paranoid side talking." She didn't have a paranoid side really. Just a penchant for stating the obvious which got somewhat annoying. Although it could be a good thing sometimes.
I glanced back at her to see if she meant some thing by it but she just grinned at me. She was just trying to get my paranoid side going. Just to show her it wouldn't work, I just kept going.
"Nothing. Besides the gate to the village is right here. Why would anyone attack us on the path when they could wait until we go in and have an army to attack us?"
"The real question is why did we camp outside when the village was so close?" Ryuu complained.
"Because we would have had to find some place to stay and I just didn't want to do that." I also didn't want to talk to any more people then was necessary.
"Well, we're here. Now how do we get in?" Michiko said, being sensible as usual.
As if in answer to her question a ninja stepped on to the path in front of us.
"Who are you and what is your business here? Going to kidnap someone else? Maybe an Uchiha this time?"
I would have laughed if wasn't so shocked. Apparently some still remembered.
"We came with permission from the Hokage." I said
"For the experiment." Ryuu added.
"Fine. You will want to go on the left street. The building is at the end of the third block. There should be people there waiting for the participants." With that he puffed off and the gates opened. We went on the left road as he said. We were here for an experiment Konoha was hosting. They were going to stick a bunch of genin in one building and see what happened. There would be tests and challenges along the way to see how living together would affect our ninja skills.
"He was right. There it is and there are some people out here." More obviousness from Michiko. There were three ninja and an older man who must be the Hokage. Two of the ninja were men. One had messy silver hair and a black mask over the bottom half of his face. The other had bowl cut black hair and was arguing with the silver haired ninja. The female had brown hair and was leaning against the wall looking bored. As we got closer she looked up at us. Her eyes were bright red. She elbowed the silver haired ninja who looked in our direction also.
"So, are we late?" I didn't see anyone else and was concerned.
They looked at me surprised. Finally the Hokage answered me.
"No you're actually early. We weren't expecting anyone for a few minutes yet. This is Hatake Kakashi who will be one of the ninja running the experiment." He gestured toward the silver haired ninja who gave a little wave in our general direction.
"Glad you decided to participate. This is Yuhi Kurenai who will be the other one." He pointed at the woman.
"Everyone should be arriving soon you can go inside. Our teams are in there. I'm sure they'd love to meet you all." She seemed nice enough but the last statement seemed some what forced.
We proceeded through the front door into what seemed to be the living room. Six ninja were lounging on the various chairs. Three others were sitting on the stairs. I saw immediately why Kurenai didn't sound sincere in her last statement. The two Hyuga ninja were here.
"Hi! I'm Uzumaki Naruto. You must be the ninja from Kumo." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Michiko cringe. They would have found out sooner or later. At the mention of Kumo, I saw the heads of the Hyugas pop up and turn in our direction. The girl merely looked curious, but the boy glared at us.
"Naruto would you calm down!" The pink haired girl standing next to Naruto smiled in our dirction. "I'm Haruno Sakura and this is Uchiha Sasuke." She pointed to the black haired boy standing on the other side of Naruto.
"So you guys are here for the experiment too. Who are you anyway?" He didn't sound happy to be meeting us.
"I'm Amatsuarashi Sora, and this is Iwakami Ryuu and Iwakami Michiko."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Hyuga Hinata." The girl had walked over to us with the rest of her team. There was no hostility in her voice. Maybe one Hyuga didn't blame us.
"I'm Inuzuka Kiba, this is Akamaru and this is Aburame Shino." Shino merely nodded in our direction and went to sit back down. Akamaru was perched on top of Kiba's head. I glanced at Michiko. She loved dogs.
"Nice to meet you all! So Kiba, Akamaru is your dog?"
"He's more then that. He's practically a brother to me" It was then that the three on the stairs decided to come to see us. One them looked almost exactly like the black haired ninja from outside.
"Hello. I am Rock Lee and this is Tenten and Hyuga Neji." The girl smiled at us and was about to say something when Neji interrupted.
"So you're from Kumogakure are you? Are you here to try and kidnap another ninja? I wouldn't stick around if I were you."
"Is that a threat?" Ryuu stepped in front of him. Neji took a step back. Ryuu had that effect. At about six foot tall anyone would.
"No, just something to keep in mind." With that, he turned and walked away.
"Don't worry about him. He's just mad about what happened with the ninja from your village. He's still sore on that subject." Tenten brushed off Neji's statements effortlessly. She must have had practice.
"Yeah I'll bet. It's still a sore subject back home. We lost one of our best ninja because some power grubbing idiot decided they wanted the secrets of the Byakugan" Michiko would continue ranting if someone didn't stop her. Luckily another team walked in the door.
"Oh, Ino! Come meet the cloud ninja. This is Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru and Akimichi Choji." Tenten waved the group over and introduced us. Ino was very talkative while her teammates didn't say much. After a few minutes, Kakashi, Kurenai and the Hokage walked in. Everyone stopped talking and waited for them to say something. Kakashi started counting heads.
"Fifteen. Who's missing? Oh right. We're still waiting for the sand team. Well in the meantime chat amongst yourselves." Kakashi went to talk Kurenai and the Hokage.
"The sand team? So we're not the only foreign team?" I was somewhat relieved. We wouldn't be the only ones adjusting to a new country.
"No you're not. But I'd rather that you were." Kiba walked up behind us.
"Really? Why? I'm sure they can't be that bad." Michiko cut straight to the heart of the issue. What was wrong with them?
"Well not if you like homicidal maniacs. The team is made up of a maniac and his two crazy teammates. Not exactly what I would like to live with."
Gaara
"Kankuro, Temari, hurry up." I looked at the sun. "Nine fifteen. We're already late."
"So what? They can't start without us. If we're already late we might as well take our time." Kankuro. Always the lazy one.
"Oh for the love of…. Just hurry up Kankuro. I would rather get there somewhat on time. Stop being such a lazy ass." Temari at the very least agreed with me. "It doesn't really matter any way. It's right over there."
We walked into the building and saw that everyone was already there.
"Ah. That's everyone. We can get started then." Kakashi was running the show apparently. "Well I'd like to thank everyone for being here and thank our two foreign teams for coming out here."
"Two foreign teams?" I muttered to Temari. I thought we would be the only one.
"Who cares?" She never did.
While we were talking the other team was brought up. Two girls and a guy. That was different. They didn't look too pleased at being up there.
"As most of you know this is Amatsuarashi Sora, Iwakami Michiko and Iwakami Ryuu. And the sand team, Temari, Kankuro and Gaara."
We examined each other carefully. The last two looked perfectly normal, but something about the first girl, Sora, was strange. The first thing that struck me were her eyes. They were the color of the sky before a big storm. Her hair was pure white. Odd for someone as young as us. There was a scar on her right forearm that stretched from underneath her sleeve to under her metal backed glove. She looked me straight in the eye and walked back into the crowd. Her teammates followed her. Apparently introductions were over. My teammates and I walked off to the back corner.
"Ok so. I'm sure you all want to know what is going on here so I'll let the Hokage fill you in." Kakashi stepped aside to let the Hokage take over.
"This is an experiment to see how you all respond to living, working and training together. You will do your own cleaning, cooking and laundry. The splitting of these chores will be decided amongst yourselves. Kakashi and Kurenai will be keeping an eye on you and will be administering the various tests throughout the experiment. They will now assign your rooms." The Hokage then left.
Kurenai stepped forward. "The girls will be on the first floor and the boys on the second. You will each have your own room although you will have to share bathrooms. Your belongings have already been put in your rooms. Girls come see me and boys go see Kakashi for your room assignments and keys." The group split and went to their perspective person to get the key to their room. I ended up being in room 7. Not that it really mattered. It's not like I sleep anyway.
Sora
"So which room are you in Michiko?" There were only 8 rooms on the main floor but I hoped she was close to me.
"Room 3. What about you?"
"2 right next to you." Fortune was with me today. For once.
"Sora, Naruto and Gaara. please come over here." Kakashi called out across the room. Why did he need to talk to us? I threaded my way through the crowd and headed over to Kakashi. The blond boy from before was there along with the red head from the sand team. He looked at me and I saw that he had no pupils. He also had dark circles around his eyes and a strange symbol on his forehead. As I got closer I saw that it was the symbol for love. It seemed in direct opposition to the cold look in his eyes. And strangely enough, he carried a huge gourd on his back.
"The three of you have…. Special circumstances. I expect you to keep yourselves in check. You each know what I'm talking about." I knew exactly what Kakashi was talking about. The biju. What the special circumstances were for the other two I had no idea. We started to walk back to our respective groups when I caught Gaara examining me. I imagine he was as puzzled about me as I was about him.
"What? You have a problem?" I wasn't usually so defensive, the look in his eyes just gave me the creeps.
"No, I don't. I was curious about why Kakashi needed to talk to you" His voice was as cold as his stare. Over all creepiness, check.
"Right well. That's for me to know and you to… not." I walked back to my group as quickly as I could with out running. "Shall we go settle in?"
"Yes we shall." Michiko started laughing and we walked off with Ryuu rolling his eyes at our antics. We quickly made our way to our rooms.
"Well let's see what evil things we will be using as rooms." I unlocked the door and slowly opened it. The room wasn't big but it was comfortable. The walls were plain white and the carpet was grey. So very boring. There was a desk, dresser, bed and weapon rack. The desk and dresser already had my things in the various drawers and my various weapons in the rack. I stepped back in the hall and looked into Michiko's room. It was the same as mine.
"Everything in order?" I knew she would be checking to see that all of her things would be alright.
"Yep. Let's go check the rest of this place." We locked up our rooms and walked back to the living room. There were two doors in one wall and one on another. We went through the first door to the kitchen. It was a large room with plenty of counter space, a large 8 burner stove and an industrial size refrigerator.
"That is a big fridge." Michiko read my thoughts.
"It would have to be. We have some big eaters here." We turned around and saw Shikamaru lounging against the far wall. "Especially Choji. My teammate."
"We have her brother, Ryuu. Eats more then anyone I've ever seen."
Shikamaru laughed. "Not more then Choji. He never stops eating. Well see you around." He walked out the door.
We followed him out and went through the next door. It was a large dining room. There were two cafeteria style tables with 9 seats apiece.
"I guess the senseis won't be dining with us"
"Michiko with the obviousness again."
We left and went through the final door. This was a training area with dummies, weights and everything.
"Nice and all but those smoke detectors and sprinklers could be troublesome if anyone uses any fire jutsus." The thought alone was hilarious.
We went upstairs to see what was up there. It turned out to be another living area in the middle of all the boys' rooms. We then went to see our bathroom. It was locker room style with lockers along one wall, toilet stalls along another, and sinks and mirrors along the third. A door way in the fourth wall led to the shower stalls.
"Let's go see the back yard. It ought to be more interesting then this." I just wanted to go outside but it probably would be more interesting.
"But where's the door outside. There has to be a back yard. Some jutsus are too dangerous to be practiced inside. Especially some of yours. You could blow the place up." She was right as usual.
"Some of yours as well. I think I saw a door in the training room. Let's go."
We went to the training room. There was a door. We went through it to the back yard. It was surprisingly large. There was a clear area right by the building and further out there were many large trees and a pond. It was actually very pretty.
"Hey guys! I've been looking for you." Ryuu stepped out of the door. "So what do you think of this place?"
"It sucks. After all you're here." Michiko grinned as Ryuu shot her a glare. "In all honesty, it's not bad."
"It's better then where I was." They knew what I meant.
"Really? Where were you?" We spun around to see Sakura standing by the door. "Well whatever. Kakashi-sensei is asking us to gather in the living room. Thought you all should know." We followed her into the living room where the last of the people were gathering.
"Now that you're all here. So tomorrow you can divide up the chores, but you don't need to worry about the cooking. That will be taken care of. For dinner tonight you all are on your own. You may do whatever you want."
Like a flash everyone except us and the sand team left. After the shock wore off we looked at each other.
"I guess they know where their going. That would be nice to know." I hated being new in town and without a map.
"Well we might as well head out. I'm hungry."
"Ryuu, you're always hungry." Michiko led the charge out the door and on to the streets of Konoha. The rest of us followed her lead.
"So have you been in town long enough to know where your going?" I figured I might as well ask them.
"We've been here a little while, but we've been busy." Temari answered.
"Oh well. I wonder if Michiko has any idea where she's going. Hey! Michiko, wait up!" I ran to catch up to her.
Gaara
Those cloud ninja were nuts. Then again, so were the leaf ninja. I almost missed Suna. Almost.
"Those two are crazy. Although they're pretty good looking. I'd like to get to know them really well. If you know what I mean." Kankuro wasn't known for his subtly.
Before I could blink Ryuu had grabbed him the front of his shirt and was holding him up in the air.
"If you even think about that sort of thing with them I'll make you wish you were born a girl." Ryuu was practically growling at him.
"Alright, alright. Calm down. What? Is one of them yours?"
"Good job Kankuro. Make the man mad. Let's see what happens. Could be fun to watch." I had to get in a good jab before he got killed.
"God no! One of them is my sister and the other one is like a sister. Uh. Gross." Ryuu shuddered. Guess I wasn't the only one traveling with family. He dropped Kankuro and he fell on the ground.
"So Michiko is your sister. Same last name. She must be your twin or you wouldn't be in the same team. Although you look completely different." Temari was being smart today. First time for while.
"Yah she is. She looks like our mother and I look like our father."
"Hey what are you guys doing back there? We found a place to eat! Hurry up!" Sora yelled back at us. She was quite loud. We caught up to her and saw a small ramen shop. The loudmouth blond and his team were there. Great.
"It isn't much but I would rather eat sooner rather then wander around for ages." Sora was right. I was hungry too.
We ate talking mostly about "safe" topics, the weather, the other people, the food, etc. Only Michiko and Ryuu talked about their past. That was fine with me; I'd rather not talk about that. It was weird that Sora didn't talk about her past. Might be nothing.
We headed back to the building which was only a short walk. When we got to the building Sora looked at it, counting something.
"Three. Hmm." I had no idea what she was talking about. "Well, bye!" She walked into the building.
"What was she talking about?" Even Michiko didn't know. Sora was crazy.
Most of us shrugged and headed into the building and to our rooms. I figured I'd wait until everyone was asleep and then go check out the building. Hope no one is a night owl.
Sora
There were definitely three stories on the building. But I didn't see any stairs on the second floor. They must have shut off that floor. We really didn't need it after all, but I still had to see it. I would wait until everyone was asleep to go investigate. I needed something to do so I started to polish my weapons. Naginata, kusarigama, katana, chain whip and sai. It finally sounded like everyone was asleep so I headed up to the second floor. I looked around. There were no signs of any stairs. They must have covered the stairs with a wall. I started knocking on the walls to find a hollow section. I had just found the section when Gaara walked out of his room.
"Don't you sleep?" I thought everyone had been asleep.
"No actually I don't. Why are you still awake?" He didn't sleep. What a weirdo.
"Well I'm looking for the third floor."
"There is no third floor."
"Actually there is. If you look on the outside of the building you can see three floors. I think the stairs are behind this wall." He just looked on in disbelief as I started to kick a hole in the wall.
"Let me. You'll never get through it." He closed his eyes for a moment. Sand streamed from under a door, punched a hole in the wall then went back.
"So you control sand?" He nodded. "Hmm. Thanks." I looked through the wall and saw stairs. Pulling away some of the plaster I made a hole big enough to get through and started up the stairs. "You coming?"
Gaara reluctantly followed me through. We made our way up the stairs.
"Dammit! I can't see any thing." I reached my hand out until I found a light switch. When I flicked it on, we were standing in an empty room with a door in one wall.
"I guess you'll want to see in that door." He opened the door and we went in. The room was filled with boxes. There were windows in two of the walls. I opened one of the windows.
"Good. I can climb to the roof through these." I proceeded to do so with Gaara following.
"Why is that good?" It was natural for him to be curious.
"Well back home my sister and I used to go on the roof and look at the stars and talk and whatever. It was just a tradition with us. Kind of stupid, I know, but I feel connected to her when I do it."
"Where is she? Back at your village?"
"No. She died a year ago."
"Oh. What happened?"
"I'd rather not talk about it."
"That bad? I'm not that close with my siblings, but I suppose I'd miss them if they were gone. What about the rest of your family?"
"Which part? One part died and the other part blames me for that. I shouldn't have told you that." More questions then I really need.
"I won't say anything to anyone else. It's not my story to tell anyway."
"Thanks. So what about your family? Besides Temari and Kankuro that is."
"I don't consider them family anymore."
"Really? Care to share that story?"
"Not really. Your village is notorious for spreading gossip."
"That's only the old house wives. They get word around pretty fast. Hey, maybe you can clear something up. We heard a story about something that happened in your village. About how the Kazekage used his wife as a sacrifice to seal a biju in his youngest son for a weapon and then years later saw him as a threat and tried to have him killed. Any truth to the rumor?"
He looked at me in shock and then looked away. Something was up.
"I don't know. I never heard about it." Then he left. There was something he wasn't telling me. I sat for a few more minutes then left. I closed the window. Turned out the light and shut the door. After I went down the stairs I realized the problem. The hole.
"Go to bed. I'll take care of it." I spun around to see Gaara standing there.
"How?"
"I'll use sand to cover up the hole. Easy enough."
"Fine." I left him to it. I went downstairs to the kitchen to get something to drink then went to my room. I wondered what Gaara was hiding. I could always get it out of his sister or something. I decided to think about it in the morning. I changed in to some pajamas and went to bed. All in all it was a good day. I even think that Gaara could be a good friend to have for all his so called homicidal maniacism and coldness.
