Rule 11a) Do not offer your services as an 'Emo to English' translator/dictionary. It can never end well.
Rule 11b) Do not attempt to interrogate a jounin when you have only an emo, a pink-haired fangirl of said emo and, well, Naruto on your side.
Rule 11c) Do not use Naruto's ramen addiction as a method of bribery. It never fails and we don't need other villages knowing this.
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I landed on my feet surrounded by trees. I took a step back, unbalanced by the travel and tripped over a tree stump. I fell backwards and my fall was broken by a remarkably soft and comfortable patch of earth. I tilted my head back to see three kids watching me.
The entire scene was still, as if it was a film that had been paused while the watcher replenished his bowl of popcorn. Even the birds were mute.
The silence was broken by a muffled exclamation of pain.
"Oww…."
I sat up slowly and looked back at what I had been lying across. I had evidently knocked over the tall man. I stood up and smiled sheepishly.
"Oops," I said.
The man looked to be in his mid-twenties and was sitting up where I had previously lying down. I assumed he was young, despite his white hair, purely because I did not want to have injured an elderly person. Staring at me, and at the man I had flattened, were the three kids. They seemed vaguely familiar. Then, it hit me.
"Oh-my-gosh!" I exclaimed without pausing, staring at the only girl "Is that hair real?"
She appeared to be nonplussed. "Uh, yes?" her voice turned up at the end, making her reply sound more like a question.
"Pink is your natural hair colour?" I asked incredulously. "Is it a dominant characteristic? Recessive? Or is it genetic modification? Have you let anyone with *special* enzymes near you recently?"
While this exchange was taking place, the two boys, a dark-haired emo-ish type with hair similar to their teacher, and a blond boy with bright blue eyes and an air of having far too much energy, were helping my temporary landing pad back up onto his feet. It was somewhat disturbing that I had been heavy enough to do that much damage, although it may have merely been due to the force of the impact. Damn. I knew I shouldn't have travelled EasyLightning [AN1]
"Uh…." The pink-haired girl stuttered, not quite understanding what I'd said. Who was I kidding? She was twelve or thirteen years old; it was highly doubtful she knew anything about GM.
"Never mind," I waved my right hand in the air as if to physically waft the conversation out of the way. Now, to discover the important details: "So, where am I?"
I was suddenly met by three pairs of incredulous eyes.
"You don't know where you are?" the blue-eyed boy asked, eyes wide and disbelieving.
"You'd be surprised at how often that happens," I replied casually, thinking back to Camelot and the Almighty Slash Dragon. "So?"
"Konoha," my crash pad stated, unamused. "Training ground seven."
"And that's supposed to mean what, exactly, to me?" I asked. They stared at me. "Can I at least get a country?"
"Fire country," piped up the blond, with all of the satisfaction of answering a respected teacher's question. "What?" he responded to the glances sent his way, "I have to know some stuff."
Fire country… Konoha… Something caught my eye. On the foreheads of each of the people were forehead protectors, engraved with a leaf.
"Are you ninjas, or something?" I asked. I remembered something similar from a book on history I had read. At least, I think it was a history book…
"And you aren't?" came the blond's obnoxious reply. "I mean, you have a hitai-ate too."
"Huh?" I said intelligently, reaching up to my forehead, fingertips brushing cold metal. Slowly I untied the hitai-ate and looked at it. On the front was a spiral reminiscent of a whirlpool, similar to the emblem on the front of theirs, only without the pointy bit and stalk.
"Why don't you know this?"
"Umm, amnesia?" I came up with a plausible-sounding explanation on the spot.
"Isn't that a food?"
"That's ambrosia, dobe." The emo spoke up for the first time.
"Who cares, teme?" the blond demanded.
The white-haired man turned to me as the two started to bicker. It was obvious he was used to putting up with the pair of boys.
"So, you're from Uzushiogakure?" he asked. "Strange, I clearly remember hearing about its destruction… Over twenty years ago."
I gulped. Well, wasn't this going splendidly?
"Uh," I said. "I have no idea." Thank you for the beautiful excuse of amnesia. I examined the forehead protector a little more closely. The metal was smooth and shiny, clearly new and well-cared for. The navy blue fabric ties were good-quality and thickly woven into a soft velvety strip.
The white-haired man raised his eyebrows as if he was questioning the validity of what I said. He stared at me, tuning out the other kids completely.
"Hatake Kakashi," he eventually said.
"Bless you," I said on reflex. Then, it hit me. "Wait, that's your name?"
Hatake looked slightly nonplussed. He gave me a look that read 'of course it's my name, what did you think it was, my foot?' I laughed nervously.
The blond boy stopped bickering with his emo buddy long enough to catch on to the conversation.
"Wait, are we doing introductions?" he asked brightly. "I'm Naruto, the girl is Sakura and this teme here is Sasuke."
The names sounded Japanese… My ninja theory was probably correct then.
"I'm…" I knew my English name would only attract attention. Modification was required. "Arisa." Great, now I needed a surname. I put together random syllables, hoping to come out with something coherent. "Uzumaki Arisa." I nervously twiddled a few strands of my now-long and bright… red… hair around my finger. Ginger, fab! Eat your heart out, Doctor. [AN 2]
To call the reactions I received after this as disbelieving (Pink and Brooding), unreadable (because of the mask, duh) and enthusiastic would be the understatements of the millennium. I found it increasingly difficult to breathe as the blond kid gave me one of the strongest and tightest hugs I had ever had. I held my arms stiffly, slightly raised away from my sides, and I was unsure as to why I was being suffocated. I sent a 'why' look over to his teammates that was, I hope, mixed with 'help me'.
"…Can't… Breathe…" I eventually choked out. He did not seem to hear.
"Hey, baka! Can't you see she's choking?" the pink one – Sakura – whapped him on the back of his head. He reduced the pressure on my ribs enough for me to inhale and I quickly squeezed back before gently, but firmly, prising the vicelike grip from myself.
"Not that I'm not grateful for, well, not being viciously attacked on sight, but, uh, why did you…"
Tears of joy had formed a little puddle around his feet, I kid ye not. The other three in the clearing exchanged looks before coming to a group decision.
"Naruto, Arisa, we're going to Ichiraku's. We'll explain to you," he said, his one eye pinning me to the tree behind me, "Over ramen. I would advise that you take off your hitai-ate."
"Uhh, hate to burst your bubble and all that, but what's ramen?"
Thud.
Naruto had fainted in shock.
~-SCENE BREAK NO JUTSU-~
I had, rather unadventurously, gone for a plainer flavour as opposed to some of the more 'interesting' ones that would, most likely, give me mild indigestion with my poor tolerance for new foods. Naruto didn't need to order. The shop owner brightened up when he saw the group coming and immediately had several identical bowls steaming and in front of the blond the instant he sat down.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to eat this, not inhale it." the noodles were disappearing at a rate invisible to the naked eye into his mouth. If this was how he ate, no wonder he was brimming with energy.
I think his teacher smiled wryly, but I'm not entirely sure. "He's always eaten like this."
"And he's never had indigestion because…?"
"Shnooahbl." Was the indistinct response emerging from the jammed-full mouth of the kid in question.
"Look, kid. Stop. Chew, yes, that's it. Now pause to breathe. Isn't that a lovely feeling? Can you actually taste the, uh, ramen now?"
He paused only long enough to look at me in stunned disbelief before he returned to wolfing it down like there was no tomorrow.
I did the only thing I could; repeatedly bashing my head against the wooden counter crying the mantra "Why... why… why…?"
Apparently, he had elicited the same response from many, if not all, of his previous caretakers.
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Kakashi cried as he received the bill and handed over his wallet. Sakura and Sasuke had only had one bowl each. I rolled my eyes when I heard her reason; a twelve year old on a diet? Really? Sasuke just seemed apathetic to everything but Naruto had to have eaten at least twenty bowls of the stuff and I had eaten about five – my appetite had greatly increased since I started my inter-dimensional hops. That, and I've never felt the need to 'slim'. It really was ridiculous these days, just how much girls are pushed into changing their looks.
We walked back to the training ground and sat in a circle. I was given a basic idea of just how attention-starved the kid who had probably cracked one or two of my ribs earlier, and that he had no family. Given that I, apparently, had the 'Uzumaki hair' as well as the surname, it was little surprise that I was fairly quickly accepted. Or at least, that they had decided to keep me where they could see me. Arrangements were made to meet the next morning to test my skills and Naruto dragged me back to his home.
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I must say, I had never thought that cup ramen would be a good breakfast, but it was surprisingly filling. I was then dragged at incredible speeds to the bridge next to the training ground. Surprisingly, we were not the first there. Mr Emo was already Brooding On The Bridge.
"Hn," Sasuke said.
"That's rude," I chastised. "You shouldn't say such terrible things about your teammate."
Naruto was staring at me as if I'd just sprouted cat-ears and a tail to match.
"You can understand Sasuke?" he asked, eyes wide. I nodded.
"I can speak 'Emo' fluently," I explained. "I'm a bit rusty, though." Naruto blinked, looking between Sasuke and me. And then he rounded on me as if it was the coolest thing since the invention of ramen.
"Really?" he asked, bouncing in my face like a hyperactive frog on a pogo stick. "Really, really, really, really?"
I nodded sagely, imitating Gandalf's (AN3) special 'of course, young hobbit' face. Well, it was either that one or 'you fool of a Took!' I wasn't exactly sure.
Suddenly, Sasuke found himself being jerked out of his angsting and thrust in front of me. "Sasuke, say something!" Naruto commanded.
Sasuke looked nonplussed.
"Hn," he said.
Naruto then turned to me, excitement and anticipation scrawled on his face for all to see.
"So, what did he say?!" he demanded.
I tapped my chin pensively, going over all of the possible translations in my head. It had been a while since I was the only one who could talk to my brother and, besides, Sasuke had a slightly different accent.
"He either said he wanted to jump your bones," I said slowly, as if thinking. "Or that he would kill you right now if not for the fact that he's not confident in his ability to hide your body in such a way that Hatake-san cannot find it."
Naruto's eyes widened.
"That," he said, "is so fricking awesome!"
At this point, Sakura was spotted approaching the bridge. Naruto caught sight of her and waved energetically to get her over.
"Guess what, Sakura-chan!" Naruto exclaimed. Sakura sighed and fixed the hyperactive blond with a *look*. Naruto continued unabashed, "Sasuke wants to jump my bones!"
Poor, idiotic Naruto. He probably thought jumping one's bones was the equivalent of attacking them. You know, with kunai and shuriken.
Sakura, obviously, was aware of the true meaning of the phrase as she sputtered incoherently.
"Wha-" she began, then cut herself off. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"
"Sasuke wants to jump my bones!" Naruto exclaimed.
Sakura keeled over in a dead faint. Naruto stared at her worriedly. Sasuke looked to be choking down a laugh. I pretended not to notice; I would hate to be the one to see his emotionless image break down. He would probably swear revenge on me or something. Again.
This was the scene that Kakashi arrived to, nearly half an hour late. He perched himself on the edge of the bridge, looking up at his students above his book.
"Maa, maa, what's going on here?" he asked.
Naruto looked up at his teacher.
"Sasuke wants to jump my bones and Sakura fell down in shock," he explained, his brow furrowing in confusion. He could obviously not quite comprehend why everything had happened. I turned away to hide my amusement.
A second later, I heard a splash that I was quite certain was Kakashi falling backwards and into the water in shock. I almost followed; only half an hour late! With what I had heard about him, something must be up.
I glanced over at Naruto. He was too busy thinking – dangerously uncharted territory for him, there. Sasuke wasn't going to be much help either. He was suffering from the common affliction of aching ribs caused by held-back laughter. Sakura was unconscious; no help there.
It was down to me to rescue the awesome Kakashi. That was bound to get me some Brownie points, especially after the whole almost-turning-him-into-a-giant-pancake-on-landing-thing.
"Snap out of it!" I broke his train of thought and brought Naruto out to help me get his team leader out of the water.
That pretty much set the tone for the day. When we had finally fished their sensei out of the water and smacked him on the back to help him cough up what he had inhaled, he started to attack the four of us. My body reacted instinctively and dodged his attacks while Sasuke, newly recovered, threw some kunai as a distraction. I ran and got out of range while my hands burst into a flurry of motion, pulling on some power I did not even know I had.
[Basically, insert any badass fight scene you like here because I think I suck at it. any tips would be greatly appreciated!]
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Apparently, my skill set was high genin to low chunin – whatever that meant. I was guessing they were ranks, but didn't want to speak up to ask. After all, it is better to keep quiet and appear to be stupid, than to open your mouth and it to be made certain, or something like that…
So, yeah. Time passed. I became more integrated into the 'group' and got paid for some village chores, although I really thought that the babysitting mission should have been more expensive. Normal children are bad enough, but children brought up in a ninja village, usually with access to weapons? An entirely new kind of hell.
Not to mention a certain little blond idiot's attitude to the girl whose crush on him was big enough to be seen from space.
Obliviousness, thy name is Uzumaki Naruto.
There had been an inter-team meeting of some sort – to be honest, I pretty much just zoned out and dreamed of being back home and watching bad TV - and Naruto had sat next to Hinata. At the end of the meeting, he had offered to walk her home; it seemed to be nearing winter, and the meeting had dragged on for a while; it was very dark outside and there had been a spate of thefts recently, or so I was told.
Her face was warm enough that you could have fried an egg on it. Stuttering and stammering, she asked why he had offered.
"Because I care about all my friends!" Naruto beamed at Hinata. Abashed, her smile faltered the smallest bit before being forcibly put back. She thanked him nervously, declined his offer, then hurried off.
I decided it was time for a little 'sisterly' chat with him, considering that little brat insisted on calling me 'nee-chan'. I put my hand on his shoulder and, applying the tiniest amount of pressure, steered him off in the direction of his favourite ramen stand.
"OK," I told him. "I'll do you a deal; I'll pay for the ramen if you listen carefully to me and yes, there will be a test to see if you've been paying attention. Agreed?"
Naruto was, of course, completely on board with anything that got him free ramen. He nodded quickly and enthusiastically. We ordered and received our food. Naruto was about half way through his eighth bowl when I spoke up.
"Naruto, you have got to stop friend-zoning that girl."
He almost choked on his mouthful. "Whaa-?"
"Can't you see?" I asked him, "She's smitten with you. Why else do you think she behaves that way around you? She clearly hopes that you think of her as more than a friend, and no-one needs a vision bloodline to see that."
"…"
I sighed; I was clearly being far too subtle for this, this… complete blond. I reached into my bag and pulled out a pad of paper and a pencil.
"Figure A." I pointed to a stick-figure Hinata (Hey! Stop laughing! It's not my fault I'm hopeless when it comes to anything to do with art!) who was looking longingly at a similar picture of Naruto. "Hinata likes you. Yes, as in like likes you. Figure B." I scribbled a picture of the stick-Naruto with his back to the stick-Hinata. "You, Uzumaki Naruto, are completely and totally oblivious to that and instead waste your affections on that pink-haired Uchiha-fangirl, Sakura. Figure C." I then hastily added an image of the stick-Naruto talking animatedly to the stick-Hinata. "You then proceed to show that you think of her as nothing more than a friend. A close friend, but still a friend. Understood?"
He nodded.
"Good. Now for the lesson; how to ask a girl out."
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It was painful, but we got there eventually.
Skip several days, including first meeting with Gaara, Naruto finally asking Hinata out on a date – your choice as to what, where and when, as well as the reaction, and, well, most action. Because I'm lazy like that, that's why.
It was, although I did not know it, my second-to-last day there.
Together with my willing accomplice, I had put together a plan involving some little red contacts I had pulled out of my Magic Backpack along with some instructions and a tranquiliser gun. We had our target duckbutt and our target heart attack soon-to-be patient, as well as a map of 'Sasuke-kun's' route to the training grounds.
I knocked Sasuke out with a tranquilizer dart and quickly Naruto took him out of sight around a corner. I lifted up his closed lids and deftly and gently applied the red lenses before propping him up on the wall nearby and running to the training ground. The amount of tranquilizer the dark-haired emo had received should have been able to keep him unconscious long enough to arrive there a little after the typically late teacher.
I waited until our target was just visible before I asked the question.
"Have you seen Naruto anywhere?" I asked the white-haired man, "Only I've not seen him since he went off for ramen with Sasuke. Normally we'll meet up to wreak havo- train, I mean train."
Just as I finished speaking, the unsuspecting victim walked into our midst.
"Hn." He grunted as greeting, looking up at Kakashi who immediately did a double take, his one visible eye widening in shock and horror.
I could see that he was opening and closing his mouth under his mask by the movement of the dark fabric. It was the first time he had ever been speechless.
Unable to control himself, Naruto fell out of a tree laughing.
"Naruto! I told you to draw it out longer!"
"Sorry, Nee-chan! But I couldn't help myself!"
"Don't worry, I suppose I'll get over it some day, brat." I smiled fondly. It was very hard not to like him, the cute little miscreant.
Training montage, afternoon, food, chat, eat, sleep. Wake up, go to tower for first stage of Chunin Exams. Kabuto, cards, and that's where we come in. Yes, again, I am just that lazy.
"Hey! I know this game!" a grin stretched out along my face. "It's Top Trumps!" I snatched the pack of cards out of the white-haired boy's hands and shuffled through, glancing at a card every so often. Then I shuffled them properly and I could see Kabuto's anguished look as all of the cards he had spent so long working on to put together getting bent and made more flexible by my master shuffling. "Who wants in?"
Naruto was the only person in the crowd who was interested, so I dealt out the cards and we started to play.
"Best of five?"
At first, it was just me and Naruto playing the game, although we did have a large group of spectators.
"Stamina: seven!"
"Ten! Hand it over!"
"Prove it!"
"Here! See? I win, dattebayo!"
I handed over my last card, losing to his own which, ironically, was himself and I grumbled a little more than was strictly necessary. "Rematch?" I asked him; this had brought the overall score to two to three, and not in my favour. I needed to avenge the death of my early winning streak.
"Sure!"
"Can I join in this most youthful game?"
I gave the newcomer a cursory glance only to immediately whip my head back around at the eye-blistering display in front of me. Caterpillar eyebrows underneath a glistening black pudding-bowl haircut were on top of a green skin-tight suit with shining white bandages wrapped around his forearms. This lovely combination was completed by Day-Glo orange legwarmers. I blinked in a pitiful attempt to dispel this – hopefully – hallucination. Yeah, no such luck.
"Um, OK. And you are?"
"Rock Lee! The Youthful student of your sensei's Epic Rival!" Dear God; I could hear him capitalising the words. Even listening to him was exhausting.
"Ah, Hinata's cousin's teammate. I knew the name sounded vaguely familiar,"
Unfortunately, our little game was broken up by the arrival of the first exam proctor.
"See you guys later!"
"What?"
"Well, you see…" I rubbed the back of my neck, clearly a habit I'd picked up from my 'little brother'. "I'm technically not really supposed to be here. I'm rooting for ya, Naruto!"
Of course, I never got to choose when the bolt would hit from the blue.
Bit of a fail ending, I think… Your thoughts?
AN1: As in EasyJet?
AN2: Dr Who, a long-running (50 years!) British TV series. The main character hopes, one day, to be ginger.
AN3: See 'Hobbits and Hair Dye' for more information.