Hey, guys! This fic was inspired by 'Become a Ninja? Hell YES!' by Carmen-Uchiha-Bunny, who was awesome enough to let me borrow her idea and kind of give it my own little angsty twist; there will be some laughs, but this technically isn't listed in the humor category, and also I don't know if there will be any pairings, so if you have any suggestions, then please put them in the review along with your reasoning and I will see what I can do.
I love Aiden, really, I do, but I have go to wean him of that little break in habit that he's developed.
Honestly, when you just get out of the shower and are in nothing but a towel, the last thing that you expect to see is your best male friend sitting on your windowsill grinning crazily.
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?" I shouted, after throwing a shoe at him; he burst into laughter and ducked out the window onto the tree limb outside, graciously turning his back on me so that I have some semblance of privacy.
"Not my fault that your house is easy to sneak into~" He sing songs, and I can hear the smug smile in his voice. I sighed, and pulled on a random pair of panties from my drawer, as well as my favorite pair of jeans, and a comfortable tank top.
Outside, it was the perfect summer day, despite the fact that it wasn't quite halfway through June; magnolia trees were in full bloom, like a white explosion of feathers, their scent carried on the wind up to my room, while in the very tree that Aiden was hiding, the mockers and the nightingales had resumed their age old fight in trying to claim the tree for nesting rights. The heat, changing according to the part of summer, was just a dry bubble that seemed to fry your skin, rather than the humid heat that would suck all the air from your lungs and made you feel like your bones were weighed down. There was even a bit of a breeze, and that was why all the windows in the house were thrown open (that and the A/C was on the fritz again).
It took a little bit, but I managed to restrain my curls into a ponytail, and that was when I let Aiden back in.
Aiden's that kid that always seemed a bit different…from his appearance (the shaggy sunshine-corn colored hair to the bug eyed slate blue eyes that seemed ready to pop out of his skull; thin as a rail and bony as a skeleton, he's got some muscle underneath the deceiving frailty since him Mom let him join karate and tae kwon do, to his mind, to his hobbies (no joke, the guy makes napalm in his garage when he gets bored).
"What do you want, Ade?"
"You know how I got that job as a beta tester?"
Of course I knew; he couldn't shut up about how great it was to get paid to play video games for a pay check.
"Yes, I know. What, did you get to test a new Halo package?" I'm not really a video game person; my parents didn't let me have anything more than a Nintendo, so most of my games were free online because I'm too much of a cheapskate to pay for a membership to anything. Besides, I'm weird with video games; it's not necessarily the game play I'm interested in, it's the story. Like, I'll watch walkthroughs on YouTube for the sole reason of watching the story play out.
"Better!~" I sighed; Aiden loves to play mind games, and I respect that, really I do.
"What is it then?" He stood up and grinned at me, broadly.
"Well, since I happen to be the best tester in the place, I was given a game to test out a full year before it hits the shelves."
"And?" I sat down on my bed and folded my legs under me.
"It's an AR game." That made me perk up.
AR, or artificial reality, is a new type of game play that had recently become…possible, or so said the internet. Daemon Studios, the company that Aiden works for, is rumored to be developing it for the public for couple of years now, and supposedly, with the right medium (I'd recently heard that it was a sort of eye/ear/blue tooth thing), it was able to trick your brain into believing that you were actually experiencing the game directly; something to do with electromagnetism and visual trickery, combined with a hypnotism thing.
I've been wanting to get my hands on one since I heard about them; my favorite games are rpg's, and AR is the ultimate form. To be honest, I'd been thinking they were just a rumor.
"Shut the front door. AR?"
"I KNOW! And, I just might be offering to let you test it with me." I restrained myself from hugging him, barely.
"What's it called?" I demanded, that was when I thought that his grin might break his face.
"Naruto: Way of the Shinobi." I'm pretty sure that my mouth may or may not have gaped like a fish before I tackled him to the ground, squealing like a fan girl.
I'm a bit of an otaku; I watch almost any anime that I can get my paws on, I try the food, more or less, I've gone to a comic-con for a birthday treat from my parents, and I collect Shonen Jumps; but my absolute, all time favorite will always be Naruto. See, I actually turned Aiden onto it.
"Come on, Isla! Quiiiiiiit!" He whined, squirming in my grasp, I laughed and peeled myself off of him, although I couldn't stop myself from doing a bit of a victory dance that had Aiden look away with a bright red face.
Note; I'm never going to be thin as a rail, or delicate, but I've got some curves and my boobs finally made an appearance, so I can pull off some moves, and hugging Aiden, or my Dad or my big brother, had become super awkward.
"Alright, so what do we do? Where is it?"
"My house; I thought we could play it…here, take a look at this first, La." Aiden produced a book about the thickness of the 3rd Harry Potter novel from his backpack. I took it and eyed the cover; it was split into thirds; on one part was Naruto pre series, sitting on his swing at the Academy, grinning at a boy and a girl I'd never seen before; the girl had deep black hair swept away from her face with a hair clip, the boy was blond with shaggy hair reaching his shoulders. The other two panels had Naruto with the same two characters, only older, according to the series. "How long would it take you to read this?"
"Eh…" I glanced at the text size and the pictures; it was a manual. "I should have it done by tonight at the latest." Fun fact; I read fuckin fast. I consciously have to remind myself to slow down at school, because sometimes facts don't click when you speed read and that is the last thing you want happening in trig or chem.
"Let's play tomorrow morning then. I can be here by 7?"
"Sounds good, man! So, how the hell did you wind up with this game? How do you have a second medium and am I allowed to highlight this?""When I test the games and critique and all that crap, all the stuff I tweak winds up being the best in the market; they want to know what to change, how the game works and whether or not they should rein it in."
"Rein it in?" I repeated; that sounded weird. He shrugged.
"That's what they said. Anyhow, I wound up with an extra because I 'lost' mine; it's a helmet by the way, with eye pieces and headphones built in. I don't know about the highlighting thing, but I'll just tell them that I did it, you know, to make sure I didn't screw anything up."
"How come you aren't reading it?"
"I have it memorized. Plus I took notes. Any more questions?" I thought about it, but then I shook my head, instead opting to begin reading. Aiden bid me good bye and then climbed back out my window…note to self; remember to lock the damn thing from now on.
On the first page of the manual was a diagram of the helmet thing that Aiden had mentioned; the pieces were numbered and explained on the opposite page what each piece did, without explaining how…the eyepiece brought in a visual, the earpiece channeled sound and doubled as voice recognition. It didn't explain how it would make everything seem real, though; that could be credited to the company trying to keep their technology secret, but at the same time, this really made me nervous.
It's an instinct in my family to distrust those in authority; my great grandparents fled war and hate and corruption in their country and they taught their children to always question, to always confirm, to always demand an explanation, and it had been drilled into my head by my grandfather to always take words at face value. This manual just…rubbed me the wrong way.
I read on; the game really was the ultimate rpg, it seemed overwhelming; you get to pick exactly which series you could appear in; pre (meaning academy days), the original, and the Shippuden. You get to design your character, background, there were endless instructions and rules and explanations…
"Um, Isla?" I looked up and saw Danny standing in front of me. I glanced at the clock on my desk; 5:10-I'd begun reading at noon. Hm.
"What's up Dan?"
"Mom wants to know if you want dinner or if you're gonna keep doin'…whatever it is you're doin." My brother just turned seven years old, and I love him so much. It's impossible not to think he's wonderful; he's a beautiful boy with his black eyes, his dark hair and his bright smiles that make anyone's day better.
I was always the baby of the family; my older brother was great with me, but we were treated differently because he was the first boy, and I was the first, and now only, girl. When Danny was born, I think that Mom and Dad were worried that I'd be jealous, but the moment that I held him, I knew that he was mine. Mine to protect, mine to teach, mine to introduce the world too.
I was the one who taught him how to walk, he said my name before anyone's ("Eye-yah!"); I taught him how to read, and he absorbed everything that I told him like a little sponge.
"Aiden's bringing a game over for us to play in the morning, and I'm going through the manual." I explained, he sat down, sort of burrowing into me like a cat. He cocked his head and I handed him the manual, I was only about 10 pages from being finished.
"Wow. Naruto?"
"Yeah, it's an rpg thing. AR, actually; Ade managed to get his hands on the project with his testing job." Danny is the video gaming type; but it's more a hobby than a lifestyle, if you know what I mean. Danny's the kid that will run himself ragged outdoors and then come inside to game if he's got time and patience.
"Cool…can I play with you guys?" I blinked and looked at him. Danny was examining the manual and frowning a bit as he tried to make sense of some of the words; he's a great reader, just like me, but he doesn't know what all the words mean, or how to say some of them.
"I don't know, Dan…" I introduced Danny to Naruto by accident; when he was learning how to read, he got impatient with the picture books my parents had for him, and he saw me reading the manga and demanded that I read it to him. The captivating storyline, coupled with the fascinating pictures, had him hooked instantly. We kept it secret, a sister brother thing, because our Mom would've hit the roof with the amount of violence in the series. "I'll call Aiden and ask if he can get an extra head piece, but if he can't, don't you be sulking, alright?"
"I won't! Thanks, La-la." He grinned and I carded my fingers through his hair gently.
Danny brought me my cell phone and I dialed Aiden with one hand, the other was busy playing with my baby brother's longish hair (he liked it long, he said, and my mother fell for his puppy eyes every time).
"Yeah?"
"Aiden, you know that you are, without a doubt, the best friend I've ever had, right?" I crooned, jokingly; out of the corner of my eye, I saw Danny stifle a giggle with his hand.
"What do you want, Isla? Hey, did you finish the manual?"
"I'm 10 pages from the end. But on to the reason for my call; Danny wants to play the game too." There was nothing but silence for a little bit, and I switched ears.
"Look…I don't know how we'd be able to get a second headpiece, but I'll see what I can do about it. No guarantees. I'll call my boss now and try and finagle something. You so owe me for this, La." Ade admitted, but as he talked I could hear the gears in his head turning rapidly, trying to come up with a good lie-or 'excuse' as he put it; Aiden could lie to the devil with a straight face, he was so good. Not to mention the fact that he could think on his feet and stay calm under pressure, even when someone confronted him with the lie.
"I know. Like I said, you're great, Ade."
"See you tomorrow, get some rest for the game."
"Got it, thanks again, man."
The line clicked off, and I turned to my brother, "Aiden said he'd try to get ahold of another set of gear but there's not guarantee that you'll be able to play with us. So no sulking, kay?"
"Alright! So, how does the game work?"
"You get to pick where in the series you're placed, what age you are, design your character and your background."
"Where are you going to show up?"
"Actually, the categories for placement have sub categories based on the arcs; I was going in about a year and a half before the series starts, so that I would be able to work on my skills and everything, I don't know about Aiden. Do you have somewhere in mind?" He shrugged and leaned on me.
"S'long as I'm with you, I'm happy." Honestly, the kid's too cute for his own good.
"Okay, Dan. Go eat something, I'll be down in a minute."
Danny nodded and ran off, and I finished the instructions.
After you get used to the way they explain, they really aren't difficult.
I closed the instructions with a snap and rubbed my eyes; I'd been reading without my glasses this whole time, meaning that my eyes were burning and I was starting to get a massive headache.
Stupid, stupid, stupid I berated myself as I changed into something more comfortable (sweats and a hoodie) and went to hang out with my family.
Dinner at my house is one of two things, depending on the emotional atmosphere; it can be a great place, full of drama and laughter, or it can be smothering in it's tension, to the point where no one wants to eat and everyone just wants to retreat to their rooms with their tail tucked between their legs.
Tonight was a rare medium; it had been uneventful for everyone. Dad had an okay day at work, Mom's classes were fine, Jerry was visiting from college upstate, I had a day off from work at the store, and Danny was having a great time on summer break. But it was quiet tonight, not tense quiet, just…quiet.
It's my chore to do the dishes, so I cleaned up and talked with my mother as she sat in the kitchen with me, our recent way to spend time together since she went back to college.
Everything considered, the rest of the night was actually, really uneventful.
I went to bed at 10, pretty early considering that it's the summer and I have tomorrow off as well as today, but I didn't know how long it would take before we got tired of the game (frankly, I was more concerned with not being able to stop, but hey, oh well).
Danny was already fast asleep when I hit the hay, completely covered by his comforter, with only a small patch of his hair showing.
I fell asleep, slipping deeply into unconsciousness without complaint.
(Line)
Unsurprisingly, Aiden woke me up the next morning by dumping a glass of ice water in my face. After I hit him on instinct, in the stomach (it was a reflex; if someone startles me, my reflex is to strike, strike hard and fast, and sometimes I can't get a grip on it before someone gets hurt; all my friends know not to startle me, at least not on purpose, including Aiden).
"Gah *cough* dammit, Isla come on!" I glared at him and Aiden cooled down pretty quick.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I demanded him, sitting up. He grinned and sat down on my bed, "waking a girl up at…" I glanced at the clock, "6 in the morning! How did you get in? I locked my window!"
"Back door was open." I growled at him, and Aiden shrugged. "Hey, not my fault your dog would make a burglar a sandwich." I threw a pillow at him, and he sighed, before scooting back so that I could sit up and get a better look at him; he was wearing a pair of cargo shorts and a T-shirt announcing a band that I'd never heard of (but judging from the picture, it was something loud, garish and violent).
"Did you manage to get another helmet?"
"Yup! I'll have you know that I had to go into work at 5:30 this morning just to beg my boss into letting me have another one, which he almost didn't, by the way! Do you know how hard it is to convince him that I'd lost a second one, which I'm almost certain he didn't believe, Isla?"
I rolled my eyes. "Oh you poor baby." He narrowed his eyes at me and I did shrug. "Okay, your boss is scary, I'll give you that much."
"Scary? My boss makes Orochimaru's rape face look adorable." I just looked at him and he made a face. "Okay, that comment is withdrawn, but it's damn close, and you know it."
"I'll give you that one, Ade." I stood up and stretched, feeling my back crack in a very pleasant way, and then rolling my neck to get the same effect. Aiden shuddered and I shooed him out of my room so that I could get dressed into something comfy.
"I kinda like Orochimaru," I said absently. I heard him snicker. "Not like that; in a scientific way. I have to respect the devotion to his goals, even if they are gross."
"A snake vomited him up."
"Yeah, but you gotta admit, he's one of the least predictable in the series."
"True…"
In the end I wound up in a deep purple T shirt with the batman insignia on my chest and a pair of faded black jeans, leaving myself barefoot, with my hair just pulled out of my face with a black scrunchie.
"You can come in now." Aiden immediately came back in with a backpack I hadn't noticed earlier, and then proceeded to start hooking up his Xbox 360, and then produced the headpiece, attaching them to an adapter of some sort so we could play at the same time. "Are you hungry?"
"Not very," was the only response. We really aren't breakfast eaters; Aiden usually doesn't wake up in time for breakfast, so his body adapted to not having it, and I can't eat early in the morning or I get sick to my stomach.
But I didn't want to play on an empty stomach, so I went down to the kitchen and grabbed a couple of apples for us to eat (I'm a great friend that way).
So we munched on apples and discussed a game plan; Aiden agreed to go in with me to Konoha a year and a half before the pilot episode, that way we'd be able to back one another up in the academy, and at least have someone to talk to, and naturally Danny was going to join at the same time, so I could make sure he stayed safe. Frankly, I didn't want him to be a shinobi, but he was obviously my brother because when he dug his heels into something he wouldn't budge, and I knew that was what he wanted to be.
"So, got any ideas for a name?" I asked Aiden, he shrugged.
"I like Asahi."
"Sunlight?"
"Yeah, what about you?"
"Yasei." I said quietly, and he laughed, loudly.
"Wild? Come on, La, you aren't wild."
"Alright, then, smartass, what am I?"
"Nariko."
Thunder…
"It has…a ring to it, certainly." I admitted, frowning.
"Think of it, Nariko and Asahi; the unstoppable wraiths of Konoha!"
"Where'd you come up with that title?"
"I just made it up now." I giggled just as Danny entered, his dark eyes lighting up at the head pieces.
There wasn't much talk after that, I made Danny promise not to go into the game at a different time line than Aiden and I, and not to change his age ("Oh come on, La!" "No." "BUT WHY?" "Because, Dan, if we're gonna be ninjas after a year and a half, imagine how much easier it'll be for you with a bit of time to learn at the academy."), and found out that he planned on naming himself Yasu ("Peace").
"Hey, are we all relatives in this?" Danny asked, just before we went in.
"Um…" Aiden quickly shot down the idea, saying that he planned on staying more or less the same in the game and he looks nothing like Danny and I.
And then we wished one another luck, before hitting the power button.
My goggles glowed blue, and I heard an electronic humming, not quite static but definitely a tech sound, and I felt the weirdest sensation, a kind of…mind tug is the only way that I can think of describing it, before my room, my brother and my best friend disappeared, and that was that.
(Line)
When I became aware of myself again, I was standing in darkness, and I was feeling seriously weird. Like my whole body was asleep and starting to wake up is the best way I can really explain it, but I know that isn't right either.
"Hello?" I called out, standing up. Nothing ahead but darkness, nothing to the left, nothing to the right. Nothing behind me either. "Freaking perfect, now I'm…" Just as I start winding up for a rant, there's a light, and I walk towards it, because, really, what choice do I have?
When I get there, I realize that the light was an icon, deep gold, and printed in black is the word Live. Without thinking, I reach out and touch it; the icon shimmers and suddenly there are more and more icons; Hair, Eyes, Body Type, Village, Kekkei Genkai, Age, Clothes, Drop Off Point: Select this Last, Clan, Name, Family Members, Skills, and things like that, I groaned a bit, but then I got down to it, and started with my names.
I wound up sticking with Nariko, only because I liked it better than Yasei, and if I went with my first choice, it would have been weird with my brother being named Yasu, so then came my clan name; I was pleasantly surprised to see that with the clan names came the details of each specific clan, eventually, I settled on Mizushima, because it had a great ring to it and they specialized in weapons (specifically wires and kunai) and genjutsu; despite being from the land of fire, their jutsu were usually Earth or Water based, but they didn't specifically have a Kekkei Genkai. I was almost certain that Danny would pick that too, because he's that special breed of kid that likes a challenge, and besides, we've always had a knack for coincidences. My clan's symbol, because they had one, was a triangle, but the base was three wavy lines, a symbol of the waves in our name. I thought it was interesting, but I wasn't obnoxious enough to have it on my everyday clothes.
Appearances came next; I'm detail oriented, and I knew from the manual that this was like the Sims, meaning that the features you pick as a child will shift and change like in a normal body when you grow, and I really can't remember exactly how I looked when I was 11 years old. So I selected the Shippuden body, since I'm that age, and made my features and body into that, so that it would be less of a hassle.
I kept everything that I could from my real body, even though I was sorely tempted to become this amazing beauty, but I'm not made for the spotlight. I like watching people, not being watched. So I bypassed all the icons of interesting features and body parts (I saw a pair of fluffy golden fox ears, and I went by them real quick before I could pick them), and found the ones that matched mine; I kept the almond eyes that expressed too much emotion, the rounded face that made me look like I was either 12 (despite my body) or 25, the high cheekbones, the round nose, and many other details that you'd be bored reading about. The only thing that I really changed was my chest size, and that was only a bit, because I'm still a girl, and I can't help that I'm sensitive to the normal self consciousness that everyone of my gender suffers, whether they admit it or not. In real life, I'm a low C-cup, depending on my weight (because it shifts with me just a bit). Here, my chest certainly isn't bigger than Hinata's (seriously, she needs to ditch those sweatshirts, and start wearing something that flatters her figure, because girl's got it goin' on), it's bigger than Ino's. I'm the medium! Wahoo!
My shippuden clothes are a black, long sleeve, off the shoulder top with a silver blue dragon curling around it, the head resting on my naval, it's eyes a burning neon emerald, while I'm also wearing a black version of Sakura's skirt, but instead of just short beneath, I had leggings halfway to my knees made of the same material, and black bootlike sandals. I like the outfit, it just says, 'Isla'…or, now I guess it says 'Nariko' (it's gonna take me forever to get used to the name change *sigh*).
In the original series, I'm wearing a short grey jacket with black piping, a black tank top with mesh armor beneath it, black capris, and black sandals. Nothing flashy, but it's apparently really durable (I physically touched samples of the material, I freaking love AR), and I like the effect.
Don't get me wrong, you have the option of changing your outfits in the game, but they want you to pick a base outfit so that you aren't appearing naked.
Obviously, in Family members, I wrote out Yasu, younger brother.
I selected Konoha as our village, and then I picked skills. In this part of the designing phase, you only get about 20 points to distribute in various facets of the physical and spiritual aspect of being a shinobi (or kunoichi, in my case). I really didn't know how to evenly pick all of this, because if I totally sucked then I'd never be able to graduate, but if I was completely awesome, then I'd have some explaining to do…damn.
I wound up putting 7 points into strength, 5 into speed, 5 into taijutsu, 3 into ninjutsu and I figured that I could build genjutsu up along with my weapons skills
There were other things, and I started to get curious, how many aspects are there to this game?, before finally I was finished, and all that was left was the drop off point.
I took one last glance around, to make sure that I hadn't missed anything, and finally selected the icon.
Listings popped up, and one caught my eye in particular.
Clan Compound.
I hit info, and found out the history of my clan; the Mizushima were a small clan, so the compound certainly wasn't as big as the Hyuuga, or the Uchiha, but it certainly would be large enough to accommodate Asahi, Yasu, and I, and here's the best part; no one was living there. The last of the Mizushima had taken off on a mission to find themselves, taking their child with them (if the game was inventing this back story to accommodate me, or not, but this was totally working). Not only that, they hadn't been seen in some time, and it was assumed that they'd had enough of being shinobi and used the supposed meditation time to defect, off the record. The last time any of them had been seen was 12 years ago, conveniently before Yasu would have been born, and I selected that as my drop off.
A blue white gateway opened in front of me, and I stepped through it without hesitation, only to feel myself fall, and that was all I registered for awhile.
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