In An Ideal World
Rating: T
Warnings: Mild language and sexuality
Genre: General
Timeline: Alternate
Characters: Konoha
Spoilers: Through Chapter 400
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto
1. Kyuubi never loses his beautiful mate and never rampages through Konoha. He sits back, containing his god-like abilities because he is with his family. Naruto is born loud, but happy and grows up equally loud and equally happy. When he enters the Academy, he is not noted for his grades or his abilities. He is noted for a larger then normal chakra and the fact that he is the son of the Fourth.
He becomes a rather unremarkable Chuunin and takes over teaching Iruka's class when the man retires. Despite a fiery teaching style, Naruto never really excels at anything, except eating ramen likes it's going out of style.
2. With the inactivity of the Kyuubi, the Uchiha are slowly removed from suspicion. Itachi eventually realizes his brother does indeed have talent, perhaps even beyond himself. He teaches the boy everything he knows and watches the boy transcend anything he could ever hope to be.
The clan thrives under the guidance of Uchiha Itachi, the greatest Genjutsu user they have seen for generations. The village thrives under the careful scrutiny of a smiling and multitalented Uchiha Sasuke.
3. Haruno Sakura grows up best friends with Yamanaka Ino despite their mutual crush on Sasuke. They encourage each other through all the trials of finding time with the Hokage-to-be. They figure the one who gets him gets him. There are plenty of fish in the sea and they are attractive enough to have their pick of the bunch.
Ino is pretty sure she's lost when Sakura is assigned to the Uchiha's team. She perseveres though, trying to attract his attention despite Sakura. She gives up when Sakura has a wildly successful date with the boy and he looks a little starry eyed for almost a month.
She doesn't mind though because she very shortly thereafter falls head-over-heels in love with her two teammates.
4. Hatake Kakashi loves his Genin team, almost as much as he loves his teammates, Obito and Rin. After a rough scrape as children, the three come away tighter then ever. Their teamwork is perfect and, although he is not the rule oriented genius he could have been, Kakashi doesn't regret a single decision he's made.
He calls Uchiha Obito in on a regular basis to council Sasuke. It is Obito who first tells him that Sasuke is a genius. He trusts his old friend's opinion for the most part, but doesn't really believe him until he watches the Chunnin exams.
5. Nara Shikamaru has never been lazy. He works hard for everything he has ever done and when he graduates from the Academy, his grades are second only to Uchiha Sasuke. In his second year with his team, he devised a way to slowly increase his own chakra reserves and improves on his family's Shadow Manipulation by leaps and bounds.
He is an uncontested genius, famous throughout the lands. But he has never sat back and enjoyed the passing of clouds or played a game of Shogi with his sensei.
6. Akimichi Choji notices Ino is in love with Shikamaru first. A few days later he perceives her similar feelings for himself. He is the first to kiss Ino and she aggressively drags him to her bedroom floor.
Shikamaru is mildly pissed when he finds out his good friend has somehow managed to lose his virginity before him. He gets revenge on them by spending three nights locked in his bedroom with one Sabaku no Temari.
He comes out shaken and spends a long damned time avoiding her after that. Chouji and Ino find him hiding in an alleyway and laugh at him. He huffs in annoyance, but lets them kiss him, apologizing through actions rather then words.
7. Sarutobi Asuma learns a lot from his father. The man, after all, was a master of hundreds if not thousands of jutsu. He is more laid back then his father and knows from day one that he doesn't want to be Hokage. But he learns more from him then from any of his myriad other sensei.
He is friends with Yuuhi Kurenai from their days in the Academy. He is her lover from the time they become Jounin. His team gets in the way of a real relationship for a long time, but he knows when they get out of his life, he can start his with her.
8. Yuuhi Kurenai falls in love with Sarutobi Asuma when she is a little girl. They play date then real date and suddenly he proposes to her. She agrees, but finds out moments later that both of them now have Genin teams to take care of.
She doesn't begrudge them though. She has always wanted a team of her own, ever since she became a Jounin. Even though Shino is a little too creepy and Kiba is a little too loud and Hinata is a little too soft, the team gives her something to laugh about when she and Asuma go out together.
9. Inuzuka Kiba grows up healthy and happy, a master with his clan's techniques. Perhaps his most notable contribution is the love and support he gives to Hinata.
When they have a child, the baby somehow comes away with all the talents of the Inuzuka and the Hyuuga combined. People fear and respect the child the moment he is born.
10. Aburame Shino becomes the child's godfather, then his live-in 'uncle.' He dreads the day the boy starts questioning why he doesn't sleep in the guest bedroom like all the other uncles in Konoha.
He becomes a Jounin before the boy's first birthday and before either of his teammates. It's dirty, disgusting work, but their family can live in a grand almost mansion that manages to exist on the boundary between the Inuzuka, Aburame and Hyuuga districts because of it.
11. The Hyuuga haven't experienced tragedy in a long, long time. Hyuuga Hizashi, the elder twin to Hyuuga Hiashi, rules with a gentle hand that, unlike the Gentle Fist that is their trademark style, furthers growth within the clan.
Working with quick efficiency with his respected younger brother, many of the restraints on the Cadet Branch are lifted. Hizashi and Hiashi take pride in the knowledge that Hiashi's daughter Hinata will be the last to carry the Sealing Curse.
12. Hyuuga Hinata is young and talented, though rather on the timid side. She wears her Curse openly, not as a sign of hate, but as a sign of change. Her birth does indeed bring sweeping reform to the Hyuuga clan. She has never felt the affects of the Caged Bird and her father wishes that she never will.
She loves her team deeply the moment she sees them. Though she is in love with Naruto, who is fiery and sweet, she soon finds that love eclipsed by the one she has for the two boys.
She is thankful for her position in the Cadet Branch when she moves to the very border of the district with her team. If she had been in the Main Branch that never would have been allowed.
13. Hiashi's only other child is Hanabi. She does not have the Curse Mark, but she does have all the promise of a Main Branch member. She learns quickly and Hizashi eventually takes to teaching her when he isn't teaching his son.
14. Hyuuga Neji, though cool and calm and maybe a little stern, is well known for the heart he inherited from his father. He has a vast expanse of talent, mastering the Juuken and Kaiten and all of their variations by the time he is thirteen. Most call him a genius to rival Shikamaru and Sasuke.
He becomes Head of the Main Branch when he is twenty-six years old, after his father passes peacefully in his sleep. As Head, he continues the reform his father started until there is almost no difference between the Main and Cadet Branches. He even goes so far as to allow marriages to those outside the clan.
Every Hyuuga in Konoha knows this was for his own benefit as much as theirs because he was married to Tenten less then a week later.
15. Kuromatsu Tenten grows up in a warm and loving family. She never feels the need to disown her own name and her own family. She is a weapons expert, one of exceptional talent, but focuses maybe a little too much on her team. She doesn't make it passed Chuunin before she is given a permanent, wealthy as all hell, home in the Hyuuga district.
She becomes a family woman, soon forgetting her dreams of becoming a great Kunoichi as she is swept up the luxury of it all.
16. No one is sure where Rock Lee came from. He fell, quite suddenly and quite without warning, onto the map of Genin to watch out for during the Chuunin Exam's preliminary round.
Afterwards, everyone except Gai, Neji and Tenten are left wondering why they have never heard of the prodigy before. When curious spectators go to Iruka to look at the boy's grades they can do nothing but stare in shock.
Lee, simply put, went from dead last during the Academy to master of Genjutsu two years later. Even Itachi expresses surprise at his skill. He works with a supremely limited chakra, so limited, in fact, that he cannot use any Ninjutsu at all, and no ocular jutsu, though those who have been caught in his orbs of midnight and pitch might argue differently.
17. The only thing Gai regrets about his team is that none of them were quite as like himself as he had hoped. Seeing Lee, he was sure he would have a successor in the boy. Granted, he did take to Gai's Goken style with an alarming grace, but the boy's preferred method is his own almost impenetrable Genjutsu.
He is otherwise proud, loudly and obnoxiously, of his team, particularly their cooperation on missions. It has gotten to the point where they don't have to speak when making the campsite or plan in a battle. They just know what each person is going to do. Lee captures, Neji disables and Tenten finishes.
That is the way of things, he thinks. Never does he regret that they have become hard killers on the battlefield because they return after every mission to friends and family aplenty.
18. Jiraiya has always been a writer. He has scribbled away on scraps of paper since he was a tiny baby, and the sentences he has spun have only grown more and more beautiful as the years have passed.
He becomes fascinated by the soldier, the shinobi, when he is just old enough to enter the Academy. Even after he is disillusioned to the romance of being a killer, he still writes endlessly of battle.
He publishes his first book when he is eighteen and it is heralded as a work of fiction that manages to combine extraordinary characters and plot with hot, desperate sex in a way that has never been done before.
19. Tsunade is great medic-nin from the time she is little. As the years pass, and she falls in and out of love, she trains many of the day's talents. The most notable is, of course, Kabuto, who is well known for his pioneering research into organ transplantation. Her current pupil, the feisty Sakura, shows almost as much promise as he did.
She falls asleep at night knowing her name will be remembered long after she is gone.
20. Orochimaru thinks about leaving the village once and only once. As he stands on the edge between this life and that one, Jiraiya tackles him to the ground. He grunts under the stupid toad sage's weight, and complains until Tsunade cocks an eyebrow from far, far above him.
He stays in Konoha, taking on a team of his own. A team that he is proud to say contains the next great Sannin: the daughter of the Hokage and Sakura, a Genjutsu artist with a proficiency in weapons and a snarky boy with a snarky dog and a mastery over the Byakugan.
Basically, every one of these was meant to be preceeded by 'In an ideal world.' It's a lot of musings on how the characters would be different if I altered a few things in their histories. I hope I was successful. Heh.