Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto….unfortunately. The characters belong to their creator Kishimoto and some other people. The original characters in this series and the plot later on are mine.
To Challenge Fate
Chapter 1
Four years after the death of the Yondaime, a young man wandered into Konoha. This man was quite young, sixteen at most. He should have been dead, but he wasn't. When given the choice, he had chosen life over death and thus he wandered far from his home in the west. His wanderings brought him to a prosperous village.
He knew its name but not much else. He knew only a few words of the native language but he did know its name. Konoha of the Fire Country. That was all he knew.
Standing at an impressive six foot three, he towered over the two guards that watched him with suspicion. They let him pass through though. The stranger was just too happy to be a possible threat. It went against all their good judgment but they let him pass.
The stranger continued into konoha and then proceeded to wander around the village like a lost sheep, a very blissful and happy lost sheep. Wandering from stall to stall, shop to shop, monument to monument and never truly understanding what they stood for, he smiled. He continued this for much of the day until near mid afternoon. He had no watch so he could not truly tell what time it was but he could tell that the small boy he came across was lonely. He watched to his distress as the boy tried to approach some of the other children but was shooed away by the other kids' parents. And so the young boy sat on a swing, all alone. The wanderer could not take it. He walked over to the boy on the swing.
Some of the other adults wondered what the stranger was doing. Didn't he know who the boy was? Only when the stranger started to push the boy on the swing were they truly shocked. They tried to call out to the oblivious stranger but he could not understand them. And so, by choosing life over death, a wanderer changed the fate of the world...
Nine years later
Iruka sat at his desk at the front of the classroom staring at the kids talk amongst themselves. It was extremely noisy. He stared up at the clock again. 8:33 it read. Then he realized something. The noise had quieted down considerably now. When the door started to creak open, it struck him.
'Crap, crap, crap!' screamed Iruka in his mind. He knew he didn't have time to reach for his earplugs in his drawer so he did the only thing he could do. He put his fingers in his ears and braced himself.
"SASUKE-KUN!" came the cry of almost every girl in the class. Even with his fingers in his ears, the sound was so horrifyingly loud that Iruka swore he would go deaf if he had to bear this again. Fortunately for his hearing, it was graduation day. Still, Iruka silently cursed the Uchiha prodigy for being so abominably punctual, always arriving exactly at eight thirty three and even more so for being apparently immune to the eardrum shattering cries of his many fan girls.
"Sasuke, please take a seat." Said Iruka. Much to the disappointment of many girls, Sasuke took a seat beside Shikamaru (sleeping of course) and Chouji (and surprise surprise, eating out of a bag of chips). The class quieted down considerably as the girls contented themselves with admiring Sasuke and all the guys glared at Sasuke for stealing all the girls' attention.
When the bell rang, Iruka stood up and looked around the class. In part thanks to Iruka's anger being legendary, the class silently watched him. Iruka grinned.
"Congratulations everyone for passing the exam. I'm very proud of all of you." The class smiled at Iruka's words (with the notable exeption of Sasuke Uchiha). "So lets take attendance and then I can sort you into teams. Aburame Shino…" a hand was raised and so Iruka continued. After finishing his role call, Iruka explained how the teams were made, such as the best student and the worst student being paired, and all the other need to know information. After that, he started to call the team names and their members. He called out the teams and until he had reached team seven, nothing had been out of the ordinary. The first thing out of the ordinary was the reaction the names received.
"Team Seven will be," intoned Iruka, "Uchiha Sasuke (at the mention of his name, there seemed to be a large intake of breath by almost every girl in the class), Haruno Sakura (who screamed in delight (which countered the large sigh emitted by the rest of the girls)), and Kutsu Musha (a loud kuso could be heard from the back)." Iruka ignored the profanity and kept reading. Iruka took note of the fact of team sevens two senseis and promised to ask the Hokage about it later. After finishing naming off the teams, Iruka told them they had until noon to do what they wanted and that would be when their senseis would arrive.
Sakura just couldn't believe her luck. 'The god of love must be shining down on me. This just had to be fate, being placed on Sasuke's team. With him and me on the same team, I'll win him over for sure.' Most of her other classmates were leaving the room. She looked around until she found Sasuke in the corner. An evil, predatory look came into her eyes. Sasuke would be hers. The fact that they were on the same team was proof enough. Today, she would steal Sasuke' first kiss.
Sasuke, sensing something annoying approaching, decided it was time to leave.
Musha watched with amusement as Sasuke fled through the window. Sakura's cries of "Come back Sasuke-Kun!" made him laugh. Wrong move he realized. Sakura whipped around quickly at the sound of his laugh and when he saw her eyes, he felt the urge to bolt. In fact, he did bolt when Sakura rushed him quite unexpectedly. He barely avoided the near fatal beating he would have received had he been caught.
Musha couldn't believe his luck. He had shaken off Sakura without a single injury and he was now at the Ichiraku Ramen stand. Ramen wasn't his particular favorite, but as he had ducked in here to escape Sakura, he felt he owed the owner something. The brunette was slowly eating his Ramen, and as it was better than he had expected, he was considering getting another bowl. Musha was broken out of his reverie when a blond haired kid around his age sat down right beside him and yelled at the owner:
"Yo, old man, how about some Miso Ramen for your favorite customer." A minute later, the owner handed the blond his ramen with a big smile on his face.
"So your back Naruto, how was the ocean? Was it a good vacation?" he asked laughing.
"It was pretty good, but it rained too much for my liking." Naruto shrugged, "So what's new around here. The old man shrugged.
"Oh, nothing much…" he glanced at Musha and his eyes widened slightly, "Oh yah. The genin just graduated today." He made a gesture towards Musha and Naruto turned to look at him. As Musha himself turned to face Naruto and finally got a better look at his face. Naruto had spiky blond hair and three whisker like markings on each side his cheeks. His most notable characteristics, however, were his scars and his eye patch. He had two long scars. One ran across his face and over his nose and onto to the other side (much like Iruka-sensei's, thought Musha) while the other scar ran down the right side of his face. They were both interrupted by the eye patch that covered his right eye though Mushu could see the ends of each scar at the bottom and right side of the eye patch so he could only assume that the scars crossed each other. Naruto smiled at him.
"So your one of the new genin eh?" he laughed. "Well, that's great. I remember when I was…" he glanced at the clock. "Crap! I'm late for my meeting." He turned to his ramen and ate it all in ten seconds flat and cried out, "Sorry Old man, I'll be back later. Put it on my tab!" He was already out the door by the time he had finished his sentence. Musha looked at the time and seeing that it was now eleven thirty, he decided it was time to sneak back to the class room. He paid for his food and then left, still looking out for any sign of pink hair.
Sarutobi watched as Naruto slid into the room with seconds to spare and skidded to a stop. He looked at the clock and gave a sigh of relief. The clock had just struck eleven fifteen. "I glad to see your still punctual Naruto, but I see your also still in you vacation clothes." He said eying Naruto's baggy shorts and his loose tea shirt. Naruto stuck a hand behind his head and laughed nervously. "No matter though. You've got plenty of time between now and your next mission to get changed. You probably have around two hours at least. I want you in full uniform for this mission."
Though Naruto was shocked for a while on how quick he had been handed a mission, he was eager to find out its toughness. "So what rank is it?" he asked a little too eagerly.
The Sandaime grinned. "Well…it doesn't really have one." Seeing Naruto's puzzlement, he tossed him the scroll. "Here. Take a look for yourself." He watched Naruto's expression turn from excited, to puzzled, then to outright horror. He fought to control his laugh when Naruto screamed.
"YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT! I'M TOO YOUNG FOR THIS!"
Musha was pissed. That was a fine summary of what he was feeling at the moment. When all the other senseis had come to pick up the other teams at around noonish, Team seven's sensei had not shown up. That had been two hours ago. Musha was livid. He moved over to the door and looked out. Still no one. That's it, he thought walking over to the chalkboard, I'm gonna set a trap. He was moving towards the door when again when it slid open. Looking at the guy in the jounin vest, he realized who it was. It was that Naruto guy from the Ramen stand. Unlike last time though, he wore a jounin vest and his eyepatch was now an extension of his forehead protector. He smiled at them and gave a good old fashioned "Yo."
Before the shocked Musha could respond, Sasuke spoke. "Who are you?"
"Names Uzumaki Naruto and I'm your jounin sensei. Or, at least one of them I guess."
As Musha was still too flabbergasted to say anything, Sakura decided to ask the next questions on everybody's mind. "Our Sensei?" questioned Sakura, "Aren't you a bit young? You look like our age." Naruto laughed.
"Well, actually, I'm only thirteen." It was those words that confirmed Sasuke's suspicions about Naruto being a fraud. Sasuke gave one of his trademark smirks and said in an arrogant tone.
"Hey kid, why don't you hit the road. We're waiting for our real sensei here and I don't have time to spend on idiots like yourself." His voice took on a more threatening tone, "Now leave before I make y…" His speech spluttered out when he noticed Naruto had disappeared from where he had been previously standing. One second he was there, the next moment, he wasn't. He spun around when he heard the voice at his back.
"My my, aren't you the impatient one, and here I thought the heir to the Uchiha clan would be more perceptive." Naruto was grinning like a fool and Sasuke gritted his teath in frustration.
Sasuke growled and was about to throw a punch when a new voice cut in. "Naruto, I would prefer if you did not provoke the genin." Everyone turned to the door again to see the newcomer. He was probably in his mid twenties and had silver hair. He wore a black mask that covered the bottom half of his face and his forehead was tilted to cover his left eye leaving only one eye visible on his whole face.
"Ah. Kakashi-sempai, you're here. I'm glad. I was just introducing myself to the genin, but now that you're here, we can get the ball rolling."