I NEVER HAD A BOWL OF RAMEN!
"Okay, okay. Here's another one…" Naruto began while he, Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi leisurely strolled down a narrow forest trail, amidst the signature dense tundra of the Land of Fire, after completing yet another arduous ninja mission and returning home from a distant country, "…who would win in a one-on-one fight? Batman or Superman?" The young spiky haired Genin asked enthusiastically.
"What kind of a dumb question is that? Superman would annihilate Batman in a split second." Sakura replied in a condescending manner.
"I agree. Batman is just a normal human being underneath his costume and gadgets, while Superman has super-everything-you-could-possibly-think-of and then some. Besides, Batman sucks." Sasuke added.
"What!? Batman doesn't suck!" Naruto snapped with vehement defense.
"Okay, prove it then." Sakura challenged, with a confident smirk, through her quick reply.
Naruto rubbed his chin as he thought hard over his response, "Well…he has the Bat Cave!"
"Sucks." Sakura and Sasuke retorted in unison.
"What about the Batmobile?"
"Sucks." They responded, once again.
"Robin?"
"He sucks the worst." Sakura replied with disgust in her voice.
"Arggh!" Naruto growled as he ran his hands roughly through his blonde hair in frustration, "Kakashi-sensei, could you help me out here!?" He asked his laid-back mentor, who, up to Naruto's plea, had remained neutral most of the conversation.
"Hmm…well, I can say that I've been more of a Superman-fan most of my life…" Kakashi iterated before briefly pausing in his speech, the gap in time spent by Sasuke and Sakura to quickly barrage Naruto with mocking laughter at their mentor's unavoidable affiliation with their shared opinion, "…but Batman is a genius, after all, and is not dumb enough to never carry around a small but lethal chunk of Kryptonite, in his utility belt; just in case if a supposed scenario, like the one Naruto concocted, ever came into being."
"Then Batman would win?" Naruto gleefully asked.
Kakashi rolled his eyes, "Yes Naruto…Batman would win."
"YEAH, I KNEW IT!" Naruto exclaimed at the top of his lungs
"Whatever…" Sasuke jaded, "…I was done talking about dumb comic book characters anyway. I'm hungry."
"Me too." Sakura agreed.
Naruto nodded, "Yeah, so am I."
Kakashi sighed, "You see, this is why I don't want to have kids. I take you three with me on a simple suicide mission, into a hostile foreign land, to fight evil bloodthirsty Ninja-zombies, non-stop, for three days; in order to rescue a captured princess and return her back to her own country, in time, to meet the ransoming demands of a group of anarchic rogue Ninjas, keeping her family hostage, before fighting off those Ninjas and restoring power back to the Princess and the Royal Family so that they could resume ruling their own war-torn country with a harsh, iron fist of merciless corruption. Now, to pay me back for my generosity, you three want to milk me out of the limited money that I receive on my bi-weekly Jonin paycheck by asking for a common and simple human need! What kind of desensitized, pre-adolescent, Ninja mercenaries are you!? Not very good ones, I would say!"
Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura glanced at one another penitently, "Gee Kakashi-sensei…" Sakura spoke up from the three, "…when you put it like tha-"
"But then again…" Kakashi interrupted, "…I am feeling a bit hungry myself. So what the hey? We're close to the Leaf Village, who's up for Ramen?" Kakashi asked, with a smile, in a puzzling perpendicularity to his former harsher tone.
"Oh, oh, I am!" Naruto exclaimed happily.
"Big surprise." Sakura scoffed while rolling her eyes.
"Ugh, Ramen…?" Sasuke trailed off with sour voice, "…do we have to? Whatever happened to Sushi, Burger King, or Fried Chicken?"
Naruto chuckled, "Sasuke, you're such a kidder. Nobody can turn up a bowl of Ramen."
Sasuke raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean? Of course somebody can."
Naruto shook his head, "No. They really can't."
Around that moment, a random couple, carrying an expectant child, came onto the trail, unexpectedly, from the shadows of the surrounding forest and halted the Leaf ninjas' stride ahead of them. The woman grunted heavily in pain from oncoming labor as she keeled to her knees, "Honey, I don't think we'll make it to the Leaf Village Hospital. I have to have the baby here!" She screamed at her nervous husband.
Naruto, grinning at the positive yet coincidental circumstance, rubbed his elbow into Sasuke's side, "Observe." He spoke with sly grin before walking into the couple's presence, "Excuse me, but have you two had a bowl of Ramen today?"
The mentioning of Ramen stopped the woman's attention to her labor pains along with her husband's anxiety.
"No… a-as a matter-of-fact, we haven't!" The husband exclaimed.
"What were we thinking!? Quick, to the Ramen shop!" The woman yelled before jumping to her feet and running, alongside her husband, towards the Leaf Village. Naruto chuckled happily at the approved sight while turning his attention back to Sasuke, "See what I was talking about Sasuke? Nobody can resist the irresistible power of Ramen noodles!"
Sasuke sneered listlessly, "Well I sure can. I never had a bowl of Ramen."
Kakashi, Naruto, and Sakura gasped in horror as if Sasuke had spoken blasphemy.
"What…?" A surprised Sasuke asked innocently, "…I never had a bowl of Ramen." He reiterated.
The trio gasped, once again, even deeper, before Sakura finally fainted from shock.
"Sasuke, you've got to be kidding me, you never had a bowl of Ramen!?" Naruto screamed.
Sasuke sighed in annoyance, "For the last time: No, I have never had a bowl of Ramen!"
"Wait a minute; I could've sworn that I've seen you at the Ramen Shop in at least some of our episodes?" Kakashi questioned.
"Well yeah, I was in there but I never actually ate Ramen." Sasuke replied.
"But why?" Naruto asked.
Sasuke shrugged, "Ramen always looked a little disgusting to me, what with the watery soup and slimy noodles, along with the chunks of overcooked or soup-absorbed meat and vegetables."
"Ew. That does sound kind of disgusting." Kakashi spoke.
"SUMMONING JUTSU!!" Naruto yelled suddenly, harbingering the massive Chief Toad, Gamabunta, to appear from within the innards of an instant poof of beige-colored smoke, above the high treetops, and land squarely on top of an unsuspecting Kakashi with a thundering boom.
A shocked Sasuke stood aghast at the abrupt action, "Naruto! What the crap was that for!?" He yelled.
"To keep Kakashi-sensei from being poisoned by the error of your ways…!" Naruto cried, "…why, I'll bet you by the concussion he'll have after this, he won't remember a word you said!"
"But you could've killed him for all you know!" Sasuke exclaimed.
Naruto blinked as his common sense only now reached a state of epiphany, inspired by Sasuke's words, that made him consider the reckless, spontaneous action he had created and the potentially serious blunder that could possibly result, "Uhh…well…It's a risk I'm willing to take!" He spat out in vain justification.
"WHY THE CRAP AM I HERE!?" Gamabunta bellowed in a deep, echoing voice that made the Earth tremor from its sound waves.
Sakura moaned softly as she slowly regained consciousness from her position on the grassy floor of the Earth. Lifting her upper body slightly with her elbows, Sakura opened her eyes and was astounded to witness Gamabunta's imposing figure squatting before her, Sasuke, and Naruto, "Forget this…I'm going back to my marriage bed with Justin Timberlake." She muttered to herself before reaching over to a nearby rock and thrusting her perceptions back into darkness with a self-inflicted blow to her cranium.
"Hey Chief Toad…!" Naruto greeted the scowling giant-of-an-amphibian with a smile, "…I kinda summoned you here temporarily for a cause of great concern."
Gamabunta snorted, "Oh? What cause in this realm could possibly be of concern to the Great Chief Toad, Gamabunta!?"
"Yeah, what are you talking about Naruto?" Sasuke scoffed at his fellow companion before lifting his gaze high towards Gamabunta, "Naruto brought you here to needlessly crush our one and only Ninja mentor so that-"
"THIS GUY HATES RAMEN!" Naruto interrupted with a loud exclaim while repeatedly pointing both his index fingers at Sasuke.
Gamabunta nearly choked on his own pipe after hearing Naruto's statement, "HE HATES WHAT!?!?" He yelled in a violently quaking voice.
Sasuke, in a panicky reaction, grabbed Naruto by the collar, "What are you trying to do, you idiot? Get this thing to kill me!?"
Naruto actually took time to ponder Sasuke's question, "Hmmm…no, not today. I still have to change your opinion after all!" He cried before softly freeing himself of Sasuke's grip, "Hey calm down Chief Toad! I have a simple solution, but it'll take you giving me and my friend here a quick one-way 'express ticket' to the Leaf Village!" Naruto voiced to the massive Gamabunta.
Gamabunta wiped the trickles of sweat from his forehead with a similarly large handkerchief, held in his jacket, to match his size, "Whatever it takes, Naruto…" He panted, "…in all my years…never have I seen one who despises the majestic taste of Ramen. Such men are unfit to enjoy the pleasures of life!"
"Oh come on! It's just a bunch of noodles in soup, okay!?" Sasuke shouted.
"It's worse than we thought, Chief Toad; hurry!" Naruto exclaimed.
Gamabunta nodded, "Godspeed!" He yelled, projecting his large, extendable tongue at Sasuke and Naruto, wrapping the two in its slimy grip and lifting them stories high in the air before following a powerful thrust of its contracting muscles that sent the two Genin flying, as Gamabunta released his grip, towards the Leaf Village at an incredible speed.
The Chief Toad was uncannily accurate in his aim, as both Naruto and Sasuke managed to land, buttocks first, squarely on the cushioned chairs of the Ichiraku Ramen Stand within the Leaf Village.
"What are the odds?" Sasuke asked himself, aloud, next to Naruto's presence.
"I bet it's nothing that a good bowl of Ramen couldn't answer!" Naruto squealed then turned his excitement towards the nearby Ramen chef, "Hey chef! Get two bowls of Ramen here on the double!"
The Ramen chef had had his back towards Naruto, in occupation with cleaning a recently used bowl, during the hyperactive Genin's demand, but then turned his body to reveal an annoyed visage shortly after, "First of all, for the last time, my name is Craig. You've come here daily for almost the last decade and I've been telling you this exact same message. Second of all, stop coming here always shouting your orders at me!"
"Whatever you say, Ramen chef!" Naruto pointlessly yelled at the Ramen chef, once again.
The chef sighed before looking to the ceiling of his shop and addressing an invisible entity, "I wanted to go to Law School, but no…you just had to pressure me to make a living off cooking Ramen, huh ma!?"
"Hey chef, what's the Special for today?" Naruto asked plainly, ignoring the chef's behavior in an innocent callousness.
The chef sighed, once more, before rubbing the back of his neck, "Oh, the special? Uhh…let's see. Oh yeah, Stewed Umbilical Cord in Shrimp soup!"
Sasuke gagged, "Ugh. You can't be serious!? Where, in the world, did you manage to get an Umbilical Cord from!?"
"Funny story…" The chef replied, "…a pregnant lady came by here with her husband right in the middle of her labor. They both didn't want to go a hospital before each was able to eat a bowl of Ramen, so the lady, herself, asked me, in faith of my culinary cutting skills, to give her a C-Section while she wolfed down her Ramen."
Sasuke looked at the chef in disbelief while the chef, himself, responded to Sasuke's gesture with a proud smirk, "Yep. It happened all right here. You'd be surprised at the medically anesthetic properties of Ramen and, being a chef, cutting open a maternal belly is no more different than slicing open blowfish."
"But isn't blowfish poisonous when it is not cut correctly?" Sasuke asked.
The chef's eyes widened in surprise, "Uh oh." He muttered softly while slowly turning his gaze to a random fellow, sitting a couple of seats down from Naruto and Sasuke, who had just started eating his bowl of Ramen. The man took just one small bite, of a pinched mixture of noodle and fish, with his chopsticks before his eyes shot wide open and his upper body collapsed on the serving desk.
Naruto, Sasuke, and the chef all stared at the body briefly before the chef cleared his throat and resumed his account, "Anyway…the baby boy came right out of his mother's womb crying healthily and smelling like a hot and fresh bowl of Tofu Ramen Soup. The baby's parents asked if I would kindly dispose of the cord and the placenta after I removed them, and I agreed, seeing the discarded organs as additional creative toppings rather than afterbirth."
"Whoa! I can't wait to try it!" Naruto exclaimed.
Sasuke, however, shook his head in both disbelief and disgust, "That…is so…revolting. I mean, listen to yourself. What kind of Ramen chef… or any chef, for that matter… in this world, uses a baby's Umbilical Cord for food!? FOR FOOD!?"
"You'd be surprised…" The chef responded, "…aside from participating in Stem-Cell Research, Umbilical Cords are quite the delicacy in various parts of the world and are very healthy to the human body! Why, it all starts with the similar molecular properties of both cord matter and ramen soup—"
"ENOUGH!" Sasuke interjected, "I think I've heard enough of that topic for today. I don't need a Biology lesson."
Naruto nodded, "Yeah, Sasuke's right. It's time to eat!"
"Are you kidding me!?" Sasuke exclaimed at Naruto, "You think after hearing all what I heard, that I seriously would even consider tasting a noodle of Ramen?"
The chef gasped, "You dare to resist Ramen!"
"Pure sacrilege, right Ramen Chef!?" Naruto spoke.
"Craig." The chef responded.
"Whatever, Ramen chef! The point is: This guy, Sasuke Thaddeus Uchiha, has never had a bowl of Ramen and needs one asap!" Naruto yelled.
The chef screamed bloody-murder, like a woman, before gathering his senses, "Don't worry, this one's on the house!" He cried before turning his back to Naruto and Sasuke in order to start cooking at a rapid pace.
"Naruto, why is it that you can't get it through your thick skull, that I never had a bowl of Ramen and don't want one!" Sasuke cried.
"A.D.D.!!" Naruto shot back.
"READY!" The Ramen chef exclaimed before placing two hot steamy bowls of Ramen before Sasuke and Naruto, respectively.
"The moment of truth!" Naruto shouted as he, surprisingly, ignored his own bowl of Ramen to stare intently at Sasuke and watch the stubborn Genin finally consume his bowl. Sasuke, however, kept a stoic face and crossed his arms defiantly, "So long as I live, I will never let this abomination of food touch my taste buds." He spoke.
"OH YES YOU WILL!" Naruto bellowed as he clasped his hands together and motioned various signs with his fingers, "SHADOW CLONE JUTSU!!" He cried out before a platoon of shadow cloned Narutos came to life from various smoke-screening puffs of beige-colored air that appeared all around Sasuke. Before Sasuke could react, however, dozens of hands clenched or restrained his ligaments, hair, and clothing, "Naruto! What are you—?"
The original Naruto sat smirking in his same chair as his shadow clones held Sasuke in check and he, himself, proceeded to take hold of Sasuke's chopsticks, which had already been placed in his bowl by the chef, and grab hold of one strand of Ramen noodle with a wooded pinch, "Open wide!" Naruto giggled, raising his arm and motioning the chopsticks, along with the Ramen noodle, towards Sasuke's mouth.
Sasuke struggled even harder to get free at first glance of the approaching noodle, but found his attempts futile as the clones imposed too much of a united force against his body, "No!" He managed to sputter as the noodle reached his lips.
"Yes…" Naruto cooed.
"NO…!" Sasuke cried.
"…give in to it Sasuke!" Naruto finally yelled.
"NOOO!" Sasuke screamed one last time before Naruto pushed the Ramen noodle through Sasuke's lips.
"Cover his mouth!" One random shadow clone quickly yelled to another that was near Sasuke's face. The clone nodded and did as he was told, clasping Sasuke's mouth shut with his hand till he observed Sasuke's Adam's Apple bounce up and down, signaling a swallow. At this, Naruto deactivated his jutsu and all the shadow clones disappeared as quickly as they had come, leaving both Naruto, and the nearby chef, staring intently at Sasuke's face, observing his expression to determine his feelings over his first taste of Ramen.
"Well…what do you think?" Naruto asked elatedly.
Sasuke, however, sat with a dull and catatonic expression on his face, causing great bewilderment to both of his spectators, "Sasuke…?" Naruto repeated his friend's name before a shadow of an object quickly flew across his face and brought forth a sudden and blinding white light of pain and dazing confusion that sent Naruto flying off his seat and onto the public streets, unconscious.
The chef gasped in surprise as he watched the still facially catatonic Sasuke hold an outstretched arm that trembled from the force that he clenched his tightening fist with. It had been casually resting at Sasuke's side nearly a second ago and now hovered over Naruto's seat, the first reaction to come to the young Genin after he had been force-fed Ramen.
"You…" Sasuke trailed off in a wispy voice while staring at the Ramen chef.
"Oh God, please don't kill me! The world needs Ramen!" The chef cried as he attempted to shield himself with his arms.
"…WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE!?" Sasuke yelled at the top of his lungs, ripping his attention from the Ramen chef and onto the bowl of Ramen before him; plunging his face right into its' boiling liquid, slurping it down, then resurfacing it in less than a half-second to reveal a face covered in soup, noodles, chunks of meat, and reddening burns, which Sasuke obviously chose to ignore as he repeated his same action towards Naruto's nearby bowl.
"Whoa…take it easy there, tiger." The chef assuaged, uneasily.
Sasuke, however, ignored the chef's plea and spent another couple of seconds viciously bobbing his head into the bowl of Ramen before, once again, resurfacing his face after finally consuming Naruto's Ramen, "Oh…all the wasted years!" He cried to himself, closing his eyes and licking his lips wildly and thoroughly to attain every last morsel of his meal. Sasuke then hardened his face, once more, and released a powerful gaze upon the Ramen chef, "Make me more!" He hissed.
The chef frowned, "Well…okay, but the next will cost you $2.95." He spoke briefly, before feeling the brush of a cold-steeled Kunai knife whish across his right cheek, "Did I say $2.95? I-I m-mean this next bowl will be free too." The chef stammered uneasily as he turned his back to Sasuke to return to his stovetop.
"Don't forget to put more Umbilical Cord in the next bowl, either!" Sasuke yelled as he began waiting impatiently. However, it was during the initial beginnings of his wait, that Sasuke noticed two strange yet familiar figures, out of the corner of his eye, staggering towards his direction, from a distance, amidst the busy public streets. Turning his head toward their direction, in curiosity, to get a more accurate view, Sasuke was shocked to see the sight before his eyes.
"Just hold on a little longer, Itachi." Kisame grunted in pain as he held his injured and bloodied companion from the arm that Itachi had slung over Kisame's broad shoulders; Kisame, himself, in just a little less of a critical condition than Itachi.
"Who would've thought…?" Itachi gasped, while struggling to stay on his own two feet, "…that we could be this injured after just one battle?"
As they neared, an anxious Sasuke rejoiced within his mind while pulling out a Kunai knife from the pockets of his cargo shorts, "They're both severely injured. Now is my time to finally act out my revenge against Itachi!" Sasuke cried out within his mind.
"READY!" The Ramen chef shouted while placing another hot bowl of mesmerizing Ramen before Sasuke, "Uh oh." The Genin spoke to himself as he now found himself torn between his new and nearly overwhelming addiction to Ramen and the almost ridiculously convenient opportunity to act out his number one life goal. "Oh no…ohhh no…" Sasuke repeated nervously, switching his gaze from his Ramen and his approaching brother.
"Thank God nobody is here, in these streets, to fight against either me or you, huh Kisame? Otherwise, we most surely would be beat. Even by the weakest of Genin, I would say." Itachi spoke to his comrade, chuckling a bit afterwards.
Kisame nodded, "Golden opportunity, my friend… I feel an immense pity for the soul who would wait till we have recovered and didn't take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime chance." He replied with a smile.
Sasuke cringed at Itachi's and Kisame's clearly audible words, marking the closing proximity of the two Akatsuki members, "What do I do? What do I do?" He repeated the perplexing question in his straining mind as his brother's and Kisame's footsteps came closer; the two rogue Ninja's attention clearly oblivious to Sasuke, giving the young prodigy even more advantage. But the intoxicating smell of fresh Ramen tickled Sasuke's senses from head to toe, urging the Genin to submit, give in, and embrace its heavenly broth.
Sasuke hyperventilated as he kept his gaze on his bowl of Ramen and his peripheral vision on Itachi, his brother's yards reducing to feet, "Ramen or Itachi…?" Sasuke asked himself. Feet to mere inches, "Ramen or Itachi…?" He screamed, now inside his mind, the question clawing out the inside of brain like a Tiger on a household cat's scratching post. Itachi's Akatsuki cloak finally brushed Sasuke's back, "I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" Sasuke finally screamed, at the top of his lungs, before plunging his face into the bowl of Ramen.
As the two Akatsuki members walked past the Ramen stand, Kisame peered back in a subtle curiosity, "Hey Itachi? Wasn't that your brother yelling at that Ramen stand back there?" He asked.
"Mmmuhm?" Itachi mumbled, shrugging his shoulders indifferently and continuing his aching saunter.
Sasuke was left alone at the Ramen stand, finishing his bowl of Ramen in a same quick manner yet with an aura of solemnity about his person after resurfacing his face out of his bowl. Naruto, who had just recently awakened from his stint of unconsciousness, after Itachi and Kisame departed, walked up to Sasuke, from behind, bearing a smile and black eye, "Well, well. I knew you'd never be able to resist the power of Ramen." He spoke, observing the three empty bowls before Sasuke with approval.
Sasuke, however, quivered at the lips and brow, before expressing a deep lament that left him crying hard between tears and loud painful wails of grief. Naruto smiled and opened up his arms to take in his grieving friend, "Aw, there, there. You're just now realizing how good Ramen is and how foolish you were to reject it at first. But its okay, Ramen forgives you."
Sasuke bawled even harder within Naruto's bosom but the young hyperactive Ninja still remained consoling, "There, there…there, there…"
THE END
(By the way, unless you took me seriously, the consumption of Umbilical Cords in international cuisine, or in Ramen, for the truly gullible, was made purely out of fiction for my story. If some cultures do, however, eat them--heh, heh-- then their place in this story was all coincedential.)