Author's Note:
Hey, this is a new fic! Reviews are highly appreciated.
I'm not sure if there'll be any pairings in this story as of yet, we'll just have to see as it progresses. However, I'm open to suggestions.
I do not own Naruto, but Taiga is my original character.
Enjoy!
"SINCE WHEN DID DEIDARA HAVE BOOBS?!" Uzumaki Naruto screamed.
The blonde teenager's teammate, Hatake Kakashi and Haruno Sakura were just as shocked, if not as confused as they prepared to fight the S-Ranked ninja. The team had been sent to a nearby village in the Land Of Fire for their latest mission and had arrived to the chilling sight of an entire village massacre. Mutilated bodies were strewn everywhere and blood was splattered on every surface available. At Kakashi's command, the team had searched the village for survivors or a possible hint as to who or what may have caused such a disturbing scene. The Konoha ninjas were unable to find anything and were just about to head back to their village to report the situation when Naruto detected a movement out of the corner of his eye, causing him to immediately tackle the object.
That object just so happened to be Deidara, who immediately kicked Naruto off him.
"You retard! I'm not Deidara!"
That statement stopped the team in their tracks. The person standing before them was not wearing the Akatsuki ring or robes. Even the ninja hiate that showed Deidara to be a missing-nin of Iwagakure was absent. Instead, the mysterious person wore an altered version of a kimono that looked like a unique kunoichi suit and red ninja sandals. The kimono was black and decorated with patterns of red camillas. It had long, loose sleeves, with the skirt ending halfway up the person's thigh. The kimono was tight at the body and had a neckline that dipped slightly, thus invoking the previous statement from Naruto.
Kakashi narrowed his eyes, not letting his guard down for even a second. "What is your business here?" Although the stranger before him was essentially the female lookalike of Deidara - blonde hair, fringe covering half of her face, completely black eyes - he could tell that this person was certainly not him. In fact, she had a feminine voice, and upon closer inspection, looked to be around Naruto's and Sakura's age, if not maybe a year older at most.
"Dude, relax," the girl said, rolling her eyes. Her stance was completely relaxed, although in her opinion, it was her that needed to be suspicious. After all, the ninja standing before her ready to attack were a weird bunch. There was the man with more than half of his face covered, the boy that tackled her for no reason wearing orange and a girl with annoyingly pink hair.
"I'm not from this village," she continued. "I was travelling to Konoha actually - yes I know you three are from there - when I heard sounds coming from the direction of the village. They sounded like explosions, and there were screams of terror. I quickly made my way here to the village. And those are your culprits there, so you're welcome."
Kakashi followed her gaze and saw group of bandits tied and gagged together. They were unmistakably dead. He considered what she said. From what he had observed, her description seemed fairly accurate. The wounds found on majority of the corpses suggested the use of explosives. Furthermore, she looked like she got to the village recently as there were no traces of ash or bloodstains on her at all,telling him that she wasn't involved in the village massacre.
"How did you do away with the bandits?"
"Simple. They weren't the brightest people you'd meet. A well-thought out plan had them blasted with their own explosives."
"Why were you headed to Konoha?" Sakura inquired.
"Well," the girl said, now talking to Sakura, "That's because I wanted to go there to be enlisted as a shinobi. I've never been registered as one officially, but I've been training here and there and doing missions for different villages and people from time to time. I just felt like settling down and getting some of stability into my life for a bit and thought that Konoha seemed to be the best choice."
"Well, you sure picked the right choice! Konoha is awesome!" Naruto said enthusiastically.
Although things were starting to make more sense now, Kakashi still did not fully trust the girl. Something about her just seemed... off. However, he decided that taking her to Konoha with them to talk to the Hokage should clear up a few things and it was also where the girl was headed to at least.
"We'll take you to Konoha with us," Kakashi said finally. "I'm Hatake Kakashi, this is Haruno Sakura, and that boy over there is Uzumaki Naruto."
The girl's eyes lit up for a moment. So the retard there was the famous Kyubii containter, pinky the Hokage's apprentice, and the well-known copy ninja was the man with the Icha Icha book sticking out of his vest. "Oh! I'm sorry, I haven't introduced myself either," she said. "My name's Taiga. I don't exactly have a clan name... Or well, I prefer to choose not to remember."
"Really?" Naruto prodded. He was now right up in her face as he studied her features closely. "You sure look a lot like someone we know."
The girl scrowled before swatting Naruto away like a fly for invading her personal space. She then smirked at the trio in front of her.
"Ah yes. I'm Taiga, younger sister to Deidara."
Now Kakashi really knew that he had to let this girl talk to the Hokage.
"Shut up, damn it!" Taiga said for what must have been at least the tenth time.
She was annoyed. Naruto had been pelting her with question after question after she revealed that she was related to Deidara, some of which were serious and others just plain stupid and insulting.
"Whose hair is longer? Yours or his?"
"Shut up."
"Were you from Iwagakure too, then?"
"Stop asking me so many questions!"
"When did you last see your brother?"
"Can't you ever keep quiet?"
"Can I see if you have weird hands too?! ... OUCH!"
"Don't touch me, retard!"
"Can you see with both eyes, or only with the one that isn't covered by your fringe?"
"..."
In Taiga's opinion, the sooner they got to Konoha, the better.
"Where'd you get your kimo-"
"Hey Naruto, save the interrogation for later," Taiga shot a grateful look at Kakashi for intervening. "You'll probably be around when she talks to the Hokage anyway, so you can find out plenty about her then."
There was a brief silence.
"Do you like ramen?"
Taiga's eye twitched, but thankfully it was covered by her fringe.
"We're almost there!" This time, Taiga was saved by Sakura. True enough, the entrance gate to Konoha was already visible.
As the group of four approacked the gate, the ninjas on duty gave a friendly wave to Naruto, Sakura and Kakashi as they passed by. However, they froze when they saw Taiga, seeing as she bore unmistakable resemblance to Deidara.
"Not to worry," Kakashi said. "We're going to take her to see the Hokage now."
The rest of the way to the Hokage tower was pretty much uneventful. They didn't run into anyone, and hardly anyone glanced at the group as they walked. They soon reached Tsunade's office.
"BAA-CHAN!" Naruto greeted happily as he barged into the office. Tsunade, in the midst of settling her endless pile of paperwork, smiled at the team, glad for a distraction. However, her smile turned into a questioning gaze as she cast her sight upon the last person who entered the room. The person who looked a whole lot like Deidara.
"Who's this, Kakashi?" Tsunade asked. "And you're back much earlier than expected from your mission."
Taiga was pleasantly surprised that it was this easy for her to get into Konoha. However, she was slightly apprehensive about the Hokage. From what she heard before she set off, Tsunade had a fiery temper and was rather sharp. She knew that she'd have to watch her manners when she was around Tsunade.
"This is Taiga," Kakashi answered. "We arrived at the assigned village only to find that it had already been totally destroyed and everyone already murdered by the bandits. However, we ran into Taiga here who showed us the bandits whom she killed with their own explosives after devising a plan. She then explained to us that she was initially heading towards Konoha to request to be enlisted into the village's ninja force. She's been training herself, hopping from town to town and doing various missions, but has never been officially registered with any village. She wishes to settle down here."
"I see," Tsunade said. Things were making sense so far. Now, she just needed to find out a bit more about the girl before she made her choice. There was no need to worry about the mission already, as the girl known as Taiga had apparently seen to that.
"Oh," Kakashi added, "She's the younger sister of Deidara. That's why we thought we'd better take her to you personally."
Tsunade paused. Deidara? That was the S-Ranked Akatsuki member. The one that had managed to actually kidnap Gaara, knock him out, and get his Bijuu extracted. Gaara, the Kazekage of Sunagakure. Now she was really curious about the girl standing before her.
"Taiga?"
"Yes, Hokage-sama?"
Naruto looked back and forth between Tsunade and Taiga. Taiga was so obnoxious when he talked to her just now, and suddenly here she turned into a polite, demure and well-behaved teenager when she spoke to the Hokage.
"I have a few questions to ask you. Please answer them honestly as they will help with my decision as to whether you should be an official shinobi of Konoha or not." Tsunade said. "It's just to find out more about you. First, tell me more about yourself. Why aren't you in Iwagakure?"
"Well, it is true that Iwagakure is my birthplace. I trained my ninja skills with my parents and older brother. However, as you know already, my brother abandoned us and the village and later on joined Akatsuki. I was only six when that happened. After that, everything took a downward turn. I knew there were some issues going on to do with my family, but since I was still so young there were many details that I did not know. But all I remember is that one day when I was eleven, my whole family was attacked and murdered. I was the only one to escape. Evidently, I had to make a run for it from my village or I would have been quickly found and killed. I was always moving around on my own ever since then and assumed dead by my village."
"And you never found out what happened?" Tsunade asked.
"Never," Taiga confirmed, her face looking haunted by the memories. "I was too young then, and even afterwards I had no one to ask."
"I'm sorry for your loss," Tsunade said. "Then how old are you now?"
"Sixteen."
Naruto jumped up. "That's the same age as me and Sakura-chan!"
Taiga shot Naruto a glare. "Shut up and don't interrupt."
"Anyway," Tsunade continued as Naruto's shoulders slumped visibly, "What kind of things have you been doing for the past five years on your own?"
"I've been travelling around and training, mostly. I work on my jutsu alone and haven't had any sensei before. I've done a number of missions for smaller villages that don't have any ninja to help protect them, but it has never been anything too serious or dangerous in my opinion. You could say that my life so far has been rather uneventful. So that's why I wanted to do something more with my life and come to Konoha... To prove myself further."
Tsunade nodded. She liked what she was hearing so far. But she had yet to ask the most important question.
"And your brother? Have you had any contact with Deidara or anyone associated with him since he abandoned your village?"
Taiga shook her head. "Unfortunately, no. I have tried to search for him before or look for clues that might lead me to him, but I've had no luck so far. I'm not going to give up looking as he is my brother after all, but I suppose if we're meant to meet up again in the future, it'll just happen."
Tsunade stared at the young girl. There was no hint of deception in her eyes, just honesty and earnestness. She really was sincere in her intentions. In fact, she practically radiated innocence. Either that, or she was one heck of a liar. But since the later had a near zero probability as Tsunade had never met anyone who could be that good at deception, she decided that Taiga was harmless enough.
"Please, Hokage-sama, enlist me as one of your village's shinobi. I will not let you down. I would hate it if I were to be rejected now after making the effort to come all the way here simply because I'm related to an S-rank criminal - something that I have no control over and shouldn't be discriminated for." Taiga's eyes shimmered with hope and even fear of being denied her dream.
That last comment really hit home with Tsunade and Naruto. Naruto had felt like that for the longest time. He had the Kyubii sealed inside of him at birth, something that he definitely couldn't have control over seeing as he was just an infant, and he was by no means the demon fox itself, but yet he was still scorned upon and shunned aside because of that. Naruto reasoned in his head that maybe Taiga wasn't so bad, and that she just had a rough childhood too. As for Tsunade, she held a soft spot for Naruto and saw him as if he was her younger brother, and felt for him and knew how the villagers treated him before he began to rise up and gain their respect. Naruto and Tsunade had started to take a liking to this girl. They could definitely identify with what she was feeling.
Tsunade looked at Taiga gave a genuine smile. "Well, Taiga, don't worry. I just need you to fill up a few forms and give you a skill test to determine your rank, and then you'll be a Konoha shinobi in no time at all."
Taiga gasped. "Thank you, Hokage-sama! T-th-this really means a lot to me!"
This girl is too sweet, Tsunade thought as Taiga's began to show traces of tearing up.
Taiga was overjoyed in her success. But not in the way the four other ninja thought she was. Who knew that she was one heck of a liar? She smirked inwardly, though on the outside she moved forward to engulf Tsunade in a tight, teary hug. She could practically sense Kakashi, Naruto and Sakura smiling behind her at the current scene and Tsunade was looking at her with warmness and approval in her gaze.
Hook, line and sinker, she thought as Tsunade's arms wrapped around her to complete the embrace. If only they knew.