Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Naruto.

Warnings: Rated T for violence and a few words of bad language.

-This is my first fanfic! Constructive criticism is welcomed. No flames please.

Being Flashy

By:

Naruto liked being flashy. It was something he was since he was a young child.

It had started off with his clothes, and orange clothes seemed very flashy to him. He could say the only reason he got clothes when he was younger was because the villagers didn't want their ragged clothing; orange was the only color they seemed to throw away though, so orange clothing is what he got.

It was bright and loud so he did not mind.

Since he lived alone, he had to be creative on how to get the things he had needed. Pranks would often distract the people in shops and vendors on the streets for him to get what he needed. It was always just the basics, a few pairs of socks and undershirts and underwear from the clothing store, a few burnt loaves of bread from the bakery (the baker would have thrown it away anyway), some of the smaller pieces of fruits and vegetables that people wouldn't buy from a vendor, etcetera.

Basically he had to be creative to be flashy, and being flashy actually kept him alive.

Quite an oxymoron, a flashy ninja was.

His creativity and flashiness had carried on to his jutsus. When he learned the Kage Bunshin, he used it for everything in his everyday life: chores, missions, training, and other things. On his training trip with Ero-sennin, he had learned to incorporate his Kage Bunshin with his jutsus. He had also found out early on that whatever a bunshin learned was sent to the original, which was quite useful when wanting to read all the jutsu scrolls he had gotten from Ero-sennin. By the time he had come back to Konoha, Jiraiya had taught him summoning, different variations of the Rasengan, exploding Kage Bunshin, Yomi Numa, Hari Jizo, at least ten different futon jutsus, a few stray katon jutsus, skills in the spy network (i.e. tracking, information gathering, etc.), kenjutsu, and much more control over the Kyuubi.

So, yes, his jutsus were very flashy.

Naruto was normally careful with his jutsus. Honestly he was, although people didn't believe that most of the time (which were normally the people that underestimated him the most). He did not use a large scale jutsu unless he had to (unless it was pranking; that was different). Today, however, it just seemed like he just wasn't careful enough.

Here he was, bleeding out in the middle of a crater impaled with three long katanas—one through his right lung, one in his left kidney, and one in between his bottom two ribs of his right side. He had been on his way home from an assassination mission from the Land of Tea, eagerly looking forward to several large bowls of steaming hot miso ramen, a very long hot shower, and a date with his bed. The mission had been slightly botched; the target had been taken out but the guards had been alerted, leaving Naruto to fight his way out of multiple hordes of enemies. He had to kill them all with a very flashy and powerful jutsu. Although he had a large amount of chakra, the fight plus the journey from the Land of Tea to Konoha left Naruto very tired and chakra drained.

For that reason, Naruto had no idea that an Akatsuki member had been tailing him on his way home. The Akatsuki member had picked up on his jutsu in the Land of Tea. Akatsuki had been recruiting members, trying to make up for the losses of some of their other members. Luckily for Naruto, this Akatsuki recruit was nowhere near the skill level of the other members such as Itachi Uchiha or Hoshigaki Kisame. Unfortunately, he had caught Naruto on a really bad day. By the time Naruto had sensed his presence, the Akatsuki had initiated a battle with him and Naruto was caught extremely off guard. The fight had started just as Naruto had entered Fire Country and he was starting to lose. The Akatsuki, albeit poor in ninjustu and taijutsu (he did not use any genjutsu as of yet, so Naruto had no idea if he was a genjutsu user), was extremely skilled in kenjustu, being able to fight with three katanas at once. Although Naruto was trained in kenjustu it was not his strong point.

The Akatsuki had gotten in quite slices. Apparently he had been aiming to kill. Naruto had gotten a bad gash going across his shoulders and collarbone—a dodged shot to the neck, a deep slice across his shoulder blades—a ducked slice to the spinal cord, and a faint gash going from his left shoulder to his right hip—a missed cut that fortunately only clipped him. It seems like the other Akatsuki members did not tell this recruit that he had to bring in a Jinchuuriki alive. Naruto thought it curious that they would send a low level recruit who did not even have a partner (Akatsuki seemed to always travel in pairs) to the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. It would be a bit different if it was the Nibi, the Nibi only had two tails where as the Kyuubi had nine tails worth of power. Naruto thought that the Akatsuki were sending this guy off to his death—they probably got tired of him, he guessed.

Getting very irritated at being beaten by a low level enemy (low level compared to his usual enemies), Naruto decided it was time to get creative and flashy. Scrounging up some of the remainder of his chakra he made two exploding Kage Bunshins, one was regular and the other he had managed to incorporate a Goukakyuu no Jutsu and pump full of futon chakra. One of the exploding Kage Bunshin managed to hold the Akatsuki recruit down while the other flung itself at him, flitting through hand signs to detonate itself. Just before the second Kage Bunshin got to the Akatsuki recruit, faster than Naruto could react, the recruit had thrown all three of his abnormally long katanas at Naruto.

The clones exploded. The Goukakyuu no Jutsu had combined with the wind chakra inside the second exploding Kage Bunshin. That had created an enormous fireball; one that Naruto was positive could be seen from Konoha—that was his plan, after all. The actual explosion from the Kage Bunshins not only helped in expanding the fireball, it had killed the Akatsuki recruit right way.

Unfortunately, Naruto had not managed to dodge the katanas.

So, here he was hoping that someone would find him before he ended up kicking the bucket. He had virtually little to no chakra, the Kyuubi was taking too long to heal his wounds, and he was way too tired to move. Oh, and he was fairly sure he was losing too much blood. Naruto let out a faint sardonic laugh that reverberated through his chest. "That explosion was definitely my style. They had better recognize it," he thought as his laugh turned into a wet cough and he had to turn his head to spit out a glob of blood. His normal sun-kissed skin was starting to looks quite pale. "At least I took that out that recruit. He deserved it, the bastard."

Naruto sighed tiredly and closed his eyes. Well, if he went out, at least he went out doing something flashy—something that was definitely him.

"Naruto!"

Naruto's eyes snapped open. That was Sakura's voice!

He looked around. Naruto saw Sakura, Sai, and Kakashi all around him. "Naruto, are you alright?" Sakura asked as she got on one knee to start assessing his wounds. "Yeah, I'm okay," Naruto smiled weakly, "did you guys…see my epic fireball?" He winced and coughed another glob of blood—though not as large as before—as Sakura quickly pulled out the katana in his lung and started healing him, her hands glowing with green chakra.

"All of Konoha could see that fiery explosion, Dickless," Sai said with a very faint smile on his face.

"Oh yes, Naruto," Kakashi said with his usual eye smile. "Once we saw it, we instantly knew that it was made by you. No other Konoha-nin really breaks out the flashy jutsu coming into Fire Country. Plus, it was already within the time frame we were expecting you home." Kakashi crouched down low so he could speak to Naruto without Naruto straining himself. "Tsunade dispatched us immediately. You got her rather worked up, you know." As Sai also crouched down, he looked around the surrounding area. The crater they were in was at least ten feet deep and had a thirty foot radius. The ground inside the crater was scorched black with Naruto in the epicenter. The serene landscape of the tall green trees of Fire Country contrasted sharply with the desolate blackened earth. "Let me guess, this was the aftermath of your 'epic' explosion?" he asked.

Naruto nodded his head with a smirk on his face and tired half-lidded blue eyes were twinkling rather mischievously, fox-like if they would say so.

"What exactly happened?" inquired Sakura.

"I'll tell you guys…the whole story back home. Long story short, an Akatsuki recruit…followed me home and I was…caught off guard. I got into a fight."

"Did you take him out or did he escape?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto was starting to feel much better now that the katanas were out and Sakura did some quick first-aid to staunch the bleeding. He would still have to go to a hospital of course; he was half-dying on the forest floor after all.

His grin was absolutely vulpine as he laughed faintly, "Ya' damn right…I took him out! I blew him…straight to kingdom come!"

Sakura looked up from healing him and shook her head fondly. "C'mon knucklehead, let's get you home."

Naruto smiled and closed his eyes. While being flashy got him into this situation, it actually also saved his life. So, Naruto would stick to being flashy.

It was just what he did.

A/N: Published 3/36/11; So, I hope you all liked this! Review please! :)