Racing in Konoha
Disclaimer: y'all know 'em but i figure that i should write them in case. i don't own naruto (clearly) and i don't own the car companies of the cars mentioned in the story. i also do not own the rights to the songs used in the story as well (another big duh). this is the only time the disclaimer will appear in the story.
Author's note: there will be original characters of my own that i will insert in the story.
Chapter One: The Beginning of Things
As she stood in line in the school cafeteria, Hinata Hyuga sighed with disdain at the thought of having to eat Konoha High's most famous slop that they had to offer every day. More important than school food, however, was the fact that the group was planning on going out that evening to participate in the "illegal" activities. Street racing had become real popular in Konoha amongst the teenagers and young adults, all of them doing it for one reason or another. Hinata's reasoning for rebelling against what she thought was right was because Naruto was into it. She had tried everything she could to catch Naruto's eye but nothing seemed to work until Hinata had a car and he had seen her drifting it in the school parking lot one evening. Driving just came naturally to her and Naruto gave her attention when she raced.
Reaching the table where the rest of the group, which included Naruto, of course, Sasuke, Sakura, Ten Ten, Neji, Shikamaru, Lee, Ino, Choji, Kiba, and Shino, Hinata set her tray down and sat down with a sigh.
"Yeah, you said it," said Sakura as she picked at her food, "this stuff looks like it belongs in a trough!"
"It can't be that bad," Hinata said as she took a bite out of the food. As always, the cafeteria food tasted better than it looked but not by much.
"Hinata, you never complain about anything," Ino said, "so of course you'd say that."
"Guys!" Naruto said enerjetically as he wiped off his face, which clearly showed that he had no problem with the food, "we've got more important things to worry about than the lousy cafeteria food."
Sasuke dropped his fork beside his hardly touched food, "Naruto's right for once. Tonight we've got to make a show at the alley or else all the other syndicates will think that we've gotten soft after our last defeat."
"Hey, i said i was sorry guys," Kiba said as people looked in his direction, "i don't know what was up with my car but i swear that was the first time that the brakes went out on it like that."
"You're lucky that it was only your brakes that went out and that they went out on a straight stretch of the most treacherous course that we've created in all of konoha," Shikamaru said lazily.
"Not to mention that the police were slow and we had enough time to get the car inside a friendly syndicate's safe house so you wouldn't lose the car," Neji added.
"Guys!" Naruto piped up again, "this fighting is not helping. we just need to forget about it and move on. we only lost a little money in the race so its not that big of a deal."
"I know, i just felt bad about it is all," Kiba said, "so are we meeting at the warehouse before we go to the alley then?"
Everyone looked at Sasuke and Naruto to see what their decision would be. it was pretty much unspoken by the group that Naruto and Sasuke were the leaders of the syndicate just because everyone else wanted to race and they didn't want to do it alone. Sasuke gave Naruto the 'i don't care look' and Naruto said, "Yep! So be there at just before dusk and we're going to check everyone's cars to make sure that nothing is amiss this time."
As the rest of the group talked amongst themselves about modifications that they'd made to their cars or how much money they were hoping to earn that night, Hinata looked at Naruto with admiration. Regrettably, her admiration and infatuation with him had become less than that of when she was a pre-teen. Naruto was still head-over-heels for Sakura, who was still severely infatuated with Sasuke and completely ignoring Naruto except for when she needed something. Due to this triangle, Hinata came to see that Naruto was uninterested in her and as of late she was starting to notice that Shikamaru had gotten a little cuter in the passing years. But he was just uninterested in girls, even though he secretly had a crush on someone but would not divulge that delectable information. Not even Ino, one of his best friends, could get it out of him. Choji was bribed with barbeque once by Ino and Ten Ten, and he made a valient effort, but even he couldn't get the info from Shikamaru. Sadly, Ino and Ten Ten owed Choji barbeque without any information.
...
"Come on," Naruto said as he paced between the open warehouse doors, "the sun is almost down and she's still not here yet."
"Give it a rest, Naruto," Sakura said with irritation, "you said just before sundown. she's got a couple of minutes before it's sundown. jeez."
"Fine," Naruto said with a scowl on his face. He looked around at the cars and said, "I suppose we can start looking at the cars to see if they are fine."
"Wow," Sasuke said with amazement, "you actually came up with a good idea."
"It's been known to happen from time to time," Shikamaru said with bored amazement, "but those times are few and far between."
"Thank's, guys, appreciate it," Naruto said as he went over to Sasuke's blue Chevrolet Cobalt SS.
"What do you think you're doing?" Sakura asked viciously as Naruto stepped in front of the car.
"Checking the cars," Naruto replied as if it was obvious to everyone but her, "last i checked, just because Sasuke is a crew leader doesn't mean he is exempt from car checks."
"What about your car?" Ino asked as she shot a glare at Sakura, who was dressed and acting very whorishly around Sasuke.
"It will be checked as well," Naruto replied, "Sasuke, if you'll go do that and then work your way around to Neji's and Shikamaru's cars."
"Right," Sasuke replied as he made his way to Naruto's bright orange Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, which had a darker orange fox vinyl on both of his doors.
Naruto and Sasuke made their way around the group. Naruto checked Kiba's silver Mazda RX-8 and Lee's green Lotus Elise while Sasuke checked Neji's dark purple Subaru Impreza WRX STI and Shikamaru's black Lexus IS300. Lastly, they both checked over Shino's grey Mitsubishi 3000GT.
"Well, that's everyone," Sasuke said.
"Where's Hinata?" Naruto asked, "its always her, she's always the last one and she's always late."
As soon as Naruto posed his question, the roar of an engine sounded in the distance. Soon after the noise was heard, a midnight blue 2008 Mitsubishi Eclipse powerslid through the open warehouse doors and came to a stop not five feet from Naruto.
As the door to the car opened, Naruto said, "well it's about time, Hinata. Where've you been?"
Hinata timidly stepped out of her car and replied quietly, "my dad was being difficult to get away from."
Naruto's face suddenly turned red from the embarrassment he felt for his impatience. Sasuke smirked at Naruto's discomfort and said, "well, pop the hood Hinata. we've gotta inspect your car before we go."
"Okay," Hinata replied as she leaned into her car and pulled the handle that released the lock on the hood. Sasuke opened the hood and began the inspection.
A few minutes passed in awkward silence as Naruto trudged to his car to stand there in silence while Hinata fussed over the NOS tanks in the trunk even though there was nothing wrong with them. Finally, Sasuke declared the car to be in perfect working order and the group came to the clearing in the middle of their cars.
"So," Sasuke said, "tonight we must perform well or else our reputation will fall substantially. Everyone's cars are in perfect working order so there should be no excuse for bad performance tonight."
"So good luck to us all tonight," Naruto said, "let's go."
...
The roar of engines filled the alley as Naruto and everyone else arrived and parked their cars in the spots they normally occupied. Everyone got out of their cars and mingled amongst the other racers that came to their once a month racing event. Seeing as how it was in Konoha, Naruto and his crew were the hosts of the event and everyone had been waiting for them to show up. Hinata timidly made her way through the crowd, being especially careful to not bump into people and failing miserably.
"Naruto," Sasuke said as they made their way to the head of the alley, "get their attention so we can get this show on the road."
"Hey, everyone!" Naruto shouted over the crowd, "everyone! if you would quiet down so we can start the event, that would be much appreciated."
With much reluctance, the noise slowly quieted and all eyes were on Naruto and Sasuke. Sasuke then spoke, saying, "Welcome to Konoha, we hope that tonight will be a night of memorable racing for everyone. without further delay, let the event begin."
The crowd gave a small cheer and went about checking out cars and staking out possible opponents to challenge. Hinata looked at some of the cars there and knew that she could beat most of these people hands down but she was far too nice to challenge anyone outright. She noticed someone standing next to her car and decided to go over to investigate. As she made her way over, the roar of cars filled the alley again. everyone looked towards the source of the sound to see who was the owner of the late-coming vehicles.
As the crowd parted to let the late-comers through, Hinata saw at the head of the four vehicles a black Chevrolet Corvette C6 with red flame decals that blazed down the side panels beginning behind the wheels, which had rims that the sharingan eye painted on them. Behind the Corvette was a navy blue Saleen Mustang with dark red tinted windows and rims. Following the Mustang was a metallic gold Porsche Carrera GT with dark black windows and rims. The final car was a black Lamborghini Murcialago with same color rims and windows.
'Oh no,' Hinata thought to herself, 'this could be bad for us.'
"Crap," Naruto said as members from the Akatsuki Racing Syndicate stepped out of the cars.
Sasuke tensed up at the sight of his brother Itachi, saying, "that's it, i wanna take him. I don't care, this time he's done."
"Sasuke," Naruto piped up, "don't be rash. We're trying to salvage our reputation from the last event. So just think before you do something."
"Yeah," Sasuke replied, "i know."
Initially, the Akatsuki members just mingled with the crowd after they parked their cars and caused no trouble. It seemed that they were just there to participate in the event and make sure that their presence wasn't forgotten, so Naruto thought nothing of it. Gaara came up to Naruto with a grim look on his face, which Naruto didn't think too much of either because that was how he normally looked on any given day.
"Hey Naruto," Gaara said, "you looking for a challenge?"
"Not particularly at the moment," Naruto replied, "why?"
"Because the Akatsuki is looking to make a challenge on your syndicate," Gaara said, "just so you are aware."
Naruto didn't look surprised at this new info. In fact, he almost expected it but he had been wishing that things would be different this time. He looked at Gaara, thanked him for the info, and went over to Sasuke, saying, "So you still wanting to challenge Itachi?"
"Always," Sasuke said, "who do you want me to take as a wingman?"
"Hinata," Naruto said, "she hasn't raced in a while and so it'd be good for her to get back in the saddle."
"Really?" Sasuke said with raised eyebrows, "I don't know, this is a pretty high caliber race and it'd be bad for her self-esteem if we lost tonight."
"Since when did you care about Hinata's self-esteem before?" Naruto asked.
Sasuke paused for a moment, then said, "You're right, what i'm really saying is that i need a better wingman."
"She's plenty good," Naruto said, "she's spent a lot of time at the parking garage doing drifts, on the drag strip, and in other racing events. Hinata had to have gained some sort of skill from all that."
"Well okay but i still think it's a bad idea," Sasuke said.
"Duly noted, now get going," Naruto said as Sasuke stalked off to talk to Itachi. Shaking his head, Naruto wondered how someone like Sasuke could have such a bad opinion of one of the syndicate members but then reminded himself that Sasuke got a little irrational whenever Itachi came around. Naruto sighed and walked back to his car to see what the person that was next to it was doing.