Ramen Wars
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Shokugeki no Soma.

Speech
Thought
Pissed

Chapter 1: The Kitchen...Is A Battlefield

(AN/ I will keep many of the original Yukihira recipes, but will try some others. The reason being that while I like to mix around in the kitchen and alter recipes slightly for a more personal taste, I am by no means some cordon bleu chef-eroonie. No offense intended by the nickname.)

QUICK ANSWERS... (Sigh. Should've expected these particular questions. Usually I wait to say this stuff until next chapter, but getting repeated questions.)

1. No Soma. Joichiro is an eternal bachelor, like Jiraiya and the two lone gate guards, Uzumo and Kotetsu.
2. Planning on Totsuki to be a late highschool slash early college kind of place. So entrance would be at about seventeen. Think senior year and two year college. This would allow for hopefully a more adult theme to the story.

PROLOGUE

From a young age, he had experienced the harshness and neglect of the village, the only place he'd ever known. Then, one day, he was beckoned out of the rain and into a restaurant. Ichiraku Ramen. Taught to cook by the old man, alongside his daughter, Naruto learned the art of cooking. Ramen was his specialty, but it only inspired him to try more, to be the best. As time passed though, he showed a greater gift for cooking than ever expected, imparting his heart onto whatever he cooks. Hilarity and awkwardness ensue as the dishes of his heart leave women swooning.

Even though he was being taught to cook by Teuchi, he still hung around the Sandaime. It was when he'd snuck into the Hokage tower, he was ten at the time (adjusting shinobi academy timetables), that he'd overheard the old man's insistence that he would be going to the academy and would graduate.

Insert Flashback

"Both his parents were shinobi," Hiruzen intoned definitively, voice echoing dully up through the ceiling tiles of his office, very much unaware of the child slinking around above. Not to make a lark of the aged shinobi's skills at not noticing, but no-one could find the boy when he well and truly didn't want to be found. It'd been a game at first, sneaking up on the old man, and he'd only gotten better over the years, but, now, the childlike glee withered the longer he stayed concealed. "Being a shinobi is in Naruto's blood," the Hokage continued, and Naruto felt his heart clench. "I have no doubt that he will be something special. He is a bundle of energy, true, running around the village… All he needs is the structure that the academy offers…and from there-"

He didn't wait to hear anymore. Nor did he care to find out who the old man was talking with. He only knew that the old man had a future planned out for him…that he didn't want.

The next few days were the most stressful of his young life. The academy would start in just four months. At every turn, every day, he expected to get word from the old man that he would attend the academy.

"Naruto seemed pretty sad, today papa," his young daughter slash assistant chimed in. Fumbling a little with a large pot, whipping it down, her face was scrunched up as she worked, but also in thought. "Why's that?"

"Hm?" He hadn't said anything, but he'd noticed, too. Gods knew, that boy had more reasons than anyone to be sad. But years of experience and a better memory than his little girl had him piecing together a few details.

The boy mentioned that the academy would be starting up again soon.

Of course, he knew this. He'd seen it year after year since it first opened. But, whereas he had known many children to come cheering about becoming ninja…Naruto had not.

Naruto was an orphan, a ward of the village. More than that, he was… Well, there were plenty of things that predestined him for the shinobi lifestyle.

And yet…Ayame was right… Naruto had seemed almost depressed at the merest mention of the impending date.

It didn't even occur to the ramen chef until he was closing down for the night. Door dropped down, lights off, he stood in the back, washing dishes, Ayame (12yo) drying. He wasn't a ninja. The closest he'd gotten to being a ninja was in the Shinobi Cook Corps at the tail-end of the war.

He momentarily broke off his thoughts to mentally give thanks to all above that his daughter had yet to know wartime. May she never have to.

Flashback

"Uh, hey, old man?"

"Hm? Naruto? How's it going, kid?" the ramen chef asked, beckoning the young lad back into the booth's recesses. "Grab an apron. I could use your help. The midday rush is coming, and I need some noodles prepared."

Nodding, the boy scrabbled through the sizeable swing door to get behind the counter.

They worked in comfortable silence for several minutes before the silence was broken. "Can I ask you somethin', old man?"

"Sure, kid. Long as it's not my secret ingredients. I've been keeping those locked down for decades, and Iwa still wants to know," laughing easily.

"What's it like…outside the village?"

Laughter fading, the middle-aged chef looked down at the boy. "Oh, have they started on that at school already?" He rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. "It's okay, I guess. There aren't many people from the Elemental Nations who go out there." It was something about the area their villages resided in. Outside the Elementals, chakra was suppressed. You just couldn't use it. "It's far different than here. Why, I remember-"

Flashback End

Now that he knew to look for it, the boy had listened with such intent… The look in his eyes… "Hmm. You know something, sweetie?"

"Yes, papa?"

Smiling warmly down at her, "He was probably just sad that he only had six bowls today!"

"Papa!" the little girl admonished, weakly smacking her baka-papa on the arm as he laughed away.

But the laughs were mostly for show. Inside, the ramen chef was a bundle of concern. He was no Nara, thank the gods for that, lazy bums, but he was starting to get the picture.

The following day…

"Phew!" Whipping off his hat, Teuchi sat down on a stool at the counter. Now that the lunchtime rush was over, there wouldn't be any real customers for another few hours, barring the odd person. "Nice job, today, you two!" he cheered. Now that they had seen to their customers, it was their turn to eat.

Naruto was halfheartedly going through his allotment of ramen, while he and Ayame chose a more diverse selection from the menu.

"Oh, kid," Teuchi reached behind him and pulled some folded paper from a back pocket. "You were so interested yesterday, I thought you might like to see this." Unfolding the document, it was revealed to be a map…of sorts. He only actually recognized a small portion of it.

"Old man, is this-"

Chest puffing proudly, "Yep. I figured you'd be interested. Even the schools don't have maps this good of the outside." He could see it now, in the boy's eyes. He was positively drinking in the map. "I remember in my younger days… I'm one of the few people who've spent any real time outside." Real, honest pride in that. "And, look, you can still see my old route. Gee, haven't thought about that in ages. You know, it's not even a real road? I was never much for paying tolls and fines in those days, so I had to make my own path. Nearly broke my neck avoiding the border patrols." He shook his head. "They've never been very fond of people just coming and going." Sighing, he made a good show of staring wistfully at the piece of paper. "Bah. Don't know why I still keep this thing. Not like I'm ever gonna go anywhere. These old bones…" Balling up the map, he tossed it lazily into the trash.

Later that night, when he took the trash out he looked for and noted the absence of the balled up papers.

The next day, Naruto didn't show up. Not to work and nor to eat.

It wasn't until the second day of Naruto's rather conspicuous absence that a ninja came to see him on the Hokage's behalf. Apparently, there was a village-wide search out for Naruto Uzumaki.

Teuchi put on a good front, if he had to say so. Mostly, it was feigned shock and bewilderment with a smidge of denial. As far as he knew, the boy had been on one of his occasional days away from the ramen stand to…prank, or whatever.

The shinobi had taken him at his word and left shortly after, reporting back and following up on the possibility that he was concealing himself as a means to further his joking actions.

Maybe that would buy him a little more time.

The boy was young and not as fast as a trained ninja, but so long as they thought he was still in the area, they would focus their search in that area, and he would have longer to put in more distance. What was more, Naruto was notoriously difficult to pursue, as was evident with the many chases after he'd pulled some prank. There was a reason why only Jonin and ANBU took on that particular job.

The boy would make it, he just knew it. But it would be close. In his mind, if they didn't catch him within a week, the boy was free and in the clear.

He daren't say it out loud, but Teuchi thought it with all his heart and soul… "Run, Naruto."

(Seven Years Later…)

"Hey, old bastard! If you can't keep yourself from hitting on the customers then get your butt back to the grill, and I'll take the orders!" barked a sixteen-year-old youth as he worked the sizzling ingredients, plating them the moment he felt they'd reached peak flavor. It wasn't just a sense of time, but…changes in smell, texture, coloring, the way his taste buds would react to the aroma…his senses told him everything he needed to know about when the food was ready.

Said "old bastard" was the proprietor of the small diner he'd been working at for the last two years, Joichiro Yukihira (35yo, by my rough guess). Name calling aside, he was a good man. The two just seemed to share that odd kind of relationship…sort of like how he figured an older brother or cantankerous uncle might be. Not that the remarks were one-sided. Joichiro tended to counter by calling him "brat" often enough.

He had respect for the man, not as a guy, what with his flirting, but as a man and a chef.

"Be there in a second, brat," Joichiro called over his shoulder before concentrating again on the blushing lady in front of him. "As I was saying, the best way to enjoy this dish-"

The blonde would've beaned him with a pan…if he hadn't already busted a few using that method before. Joichiro had charged him for them, too. Grumbling to himself, he concentrated back on his work. He'd be damned if he made something subpar just because the bastard couldn't keep it in his pants with a pretty customer.

At sixteen, almost seventeen in a few months, the blonde had stretched out over the years, currently at the respectable height of five-eight. The scrawny kid had filled out since the start of his travels, no more the boney little brat. Dressed in standard Yukihira's attire, a black shirt with the restaurant's name emblazoned across the heart, and an apron across his lap, an orange bandana with black flames held back his sunny-blonde hair. A gift from Teuchi and Ayame when he'd first started working at Ichiraku's.

After his subtle "haul ass and live my dream as a chef" plan had come to be with his escape from the borders of his "secret" homeland, he had traveled the country. Going town to town at first, he eventually started putting more distance in between his stops, skipping from country to country. He didn't just want to learn cooking styles and recipes from different towns. No, he was thinking more along the lines of different countries.

The trick was always finding places to cook that would let him at least prove he could do so. Then, things were pretty simple. He would spend a month or two in the kitchen and absorb all he could.

The places he'd been.

The food he'd seen…that he'd tasted!

The things he'd learned about cooking…

That was actually how he'd met Yukihira-teme in Moscow, after which Joichiro had invited him back to his diner. Not that it had been a direct route. The whole ordeal was apparently for Joichiro to experience more cooking…and burn off some wanderlust. They'd schlepped to Japan the slow way, not necessarily in the proper direction either, heading further west - Why the Hell had they needed to go all the way to Scandinavia? - before eventually turning around, going from town to town, restaurant to restaurant.

Despite his hunger, pun intended, to learn more about cooking around the world, Joichiro turned out to be a decent teacher, always with a new technique on hand that the teen had never seen before. And, before he knew it, he'd more or less set down roots in the town, with the diner as his school. Above, there was an apartment that the two shared, Joichiro only garnishing his pay a little for living there.

So gracious!

Bastard.

Pretty much everyone who'd met the pair, that being most everyone in the town as the diner was well-known for its flavorful eats, were used to the byplay, chuckling at how each tried to knock the other down a peg.

"Oy- oy, you should be more respectful, Naruto-kun," one of the older regulars chastised lightly. Mr. Tanagashi had been coming to Yukihira's for well over a decade, and kept coming for the cuisine and neighborly atmosphere. The friendly air made just about everyone relax and enjoy themselves as they ate. He'd been eating Joichiro's cooking from day one.

Cocking his head at the crook-backed old man, face scrunched up in confusion, "What's there to respect, Tanagashi-ojisan?" To which several other locals could only laugh appreciatively. "It's not like he's setting a good example. Besides, I've seen better game from highschool students." To which the laughter increased.

"Hahahahaah-ha."

"Y'hear that, Joichiro?"

While Tanagashi had admonished the teen, there was no venom in it. It was mostly a gentle reminder from the elder generation. Naruto had become as much a part of the community as Yukihira's was. He and Joichiro worked so well together, regardless of how the two butted heads, that it was oddly lacking when one was missing from the restaurant.

"Oy, you can say stuff like that after you get a girl of yer own, brat," the restaurant owner countered, finally abandoning his Don Juan-ing to stroll back into the kitchen. Making a good show of smacking the blonde lazily atop the head.

To which the latest small scuffle started up.

"You better not burn that takoyaki!"

"I know what I'm doing, shorty!"

"Don't call me short, ya bum!"

"Ha! That the best you got?"

Grinding his teeth, the teen was hit with inspiration, calming to an almost dangerous degree, grinning maniacally. "…Hitting on women at work…" the blonde tsked, shaking his head. "You remember the doc said to avoid that stuff…until the rash cleared up."

"…Oh, you little bastard!"

"HAHAHAHAAHAH!"

Just another night at Yukihira's.

Post Prologue info…

-Naruto is 16/17 at start of canon story. Thus, he left the village at 9/10.
-First started visiting Ichiraku Ramen at age 4. Started working at the ramen stand at age 5ish. So had around 4/5 years of experience at the stand.
-Given a more mature plot, the Totsuki Institute will be more of a Highschool/College organization than just a Highschool.