This is not entirely my idea. This is a challenge fic from Soulblazer87. However, all I got was an outline, so I still want 99% of the credit because I still have to think of most of it!
I have other fics, so this one will probably progress slowly...
Voices
"I hate D-Rank missions!" Naruto whined. They had just finished up yet another round of annoying, tedious, boring and lame-rank missions. Or at least that's what Naruto called them.
"We know," Sakura glared, "you only remind us once a minute!"
"It might not be so bad if you actually did something." Sasuke rolled his eyes.
"Or maybe you just need to stop worrying about messing up your pretty face, teme!" Naruto glared.
"Whatever..." Sasuke scoffed.
"Oh, that's all you got huh?" Naruto smirked, "is it because I'm right or are you just too stupid to think of a comeback."
"That's rich coming from you, dobe." Sasuke glared.
"Just ignore him Sasuke-kun, he's an idiot." Sakura said. Naruto twitched slightly,
"That... hurt..." He thought.
"I'm going home." Sasuke sighed.
"O-oh... bye Sasuke-kun." Sakura stuttered, disapointed.
"Yeah, just go home teme, you know I'm right." Naruto crossed his arms.
"Well it's better than standing around near your ugly ass." Sasuke smirked.
"You know what teme, I should just kick your ass." Naruto twitched.
"As if you could." Sasuke rolled his eyes.
"Wanna make a bet?" Naruto grinned.
"A bet?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow, "lemme guess, loser pays for ramen."
"No!" Naruto denied it, ". . . yes. . ." He conceded.
"Fine, whatever." Sasuke, "let's just get it over with." He said and walked towards the nearest training area, Naruto following close behind.
"Grr, guys, always thinking with their testosterone. DAMMIT NARUTO!" Sakura stomped the ground angrily, fuming, "I wanted to get Sasuke-kun alone, but nooo!"
- - -
"Are you ready?" Sasuke asked.
"Of course I am!" Naruto took a basic fighting stance.
Sasuke rolled his eyes at the poor stance, "Just promise you won't cry when you lose."
"Yeah yeah, real funny. Let's do it!" Naruto grinned in anticipation, "If I win this maybe Sakura-chan will like me more!"
With that it began. Naruto charged at Sasuke, beginning strong with a powerful punch... that completely missed causing him to fall flat on his face.
"That's just pathetic." Sasuke shook his head almost sadly.
"I'm j-just getting warmed up!" Naruto argued as he got up. He rushed at Sasuke with another punch, but Sasuke easily twisted around him and kicked him in the back, causing Naruto to once again crash to the ground. Naruto got up again, and turned to face Sasuke, only to get a fist square in the face. He stumbled back, clutching his nose in pain. Sasuke didn't let up, following with a fist to the gut and then a quick knee to the face.
At this point Naruto's nose was bleeding from the combined abuse of the punch and the knee. Once he recovered, he made a hand seal,
"That's it, I'm done playing!" Naruto growled, "Kage Bunshin no jutsu!" With that five new Narutos appeared.
"Great, more Narutos..." Sasuke sighed, "well then I guess I should try a little harder. Sharingan!" The Uchiha's eyes turned red and two tomoe appeared in each of his eyes. With time seeming to slow down, Sasuke easily outmaneuvered the clones, dispatching them within seconds. That was when he realized that there were none left. On a whim, he spun around with a backhand. It turned out to be a good whim as he came within centimeters of Naruto's face.
And 'eep' of surprised escaped Naruto's lips at that,
"Did you just... squeak?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow.
"N-no!" Naruto denied it.
"Yes you did." Sasuke crossed his arms.
"Shut up!" Naruto threw a punch to shut Sasuke up, but the Uchiha side stepped and then kneed him in the stomach and followed with an elbow to the back of the neck that floored his blond opponent.
Naruto lay on the ground, groaning sightly, "Dammit... I'm getting my ass kicked." His hands balled into fists in frustration. He always went on about becoming Hokage, or Sasuke being an arrogant prick, but here he was being beaten by him easily. He was pretty sure he hadn't even touched Sasuke yet.
Naruto struggled to his feet, and turned to face Sasuke,
"Why are you just standing there, I'm not done yet!" Naruto growled.
"Well I am, this is getting boring." Sasuke muttered and turned to leave. Naruto growled angrily and then went to slam his fist into the back of the Uchiha's head. To his surprise, it hit. So surprised was he that he just stood there with a stupid look on his face. Sasuke on the other hand began to turn around slowly, and obviously quite angered. Naruto, in his surprised stupor, barely noticed that Sasuke was about to return the favor, and then some.
'Duck' Naruto suddenly heard in his head, his eyes widened as he realized doing so would be a good idea. He ducked just before Sasuke could further abuse his nose. 'Back' Naruto heard again. At first he wasn't sure what it meant, but he noticed Sasuke was about to kick him and then quickly hopped back. At this point Naruto was confused, as he had never before had a voice telling him what to do, and he was wondering where the hell it had been all his life.
"Hmph, did you finally learn how to not suck?" Sasuke glared.
"Umm, maybe?" Naruto replied, not sure what was going on himself. Sasuke, however, was done talking and dashed forward.
'Right, block.' The voice ordered. Naruto realized it was a female voice, furthering his confusion. However, the advice was still good. He raised his hand to block a right hook from Sasuke, 'Low front, block' This time it warned Naruto that Sasuke's right knee was on a collision course for his stomach, and he raised his own knee to take the hit. 'Rotate, elbow, left temple.' Naruto could barely understand the orders, but he managed to follow them. He spun around, disengaging from Sasuke, and then brought his elbow up to land a satisfying blow right to the side of Sasuke's head. All of this, starting from the first block, happened in about four seconds.
Sasuke stumbled away, clutching his head. He looked back at Naruto, shocked. He couldn't figure out why Naruto was suddenly not just holding his own, but winning. He shook his head, deciding it was too early to say Naruto was winning.
'Forward, sweep kick.' The voice gave the next move. Naruto obeyed, moving towards Sasuke, but then dropping low to attempt to sweep Sasuke's legs out form under him with his leg. However, Sasuke had plenty of time to react thanks to his sharingan, and jumped over the attack. 'Turn, support with left arm, right high kick.' Again, it was getting complicated, but Naruto figured it out in time. He twisted his body, landing on his left side and raising his right leg to kick Sasuke while he was in mid air, knocking him to the ground.
As Sasuke lay on his back, he began to consider the possibility that maybe it wasn't too early to say Naruto was winning.
'Pin opponent!' The voice ordered with urgency instead of the formerly cool and calculating tone. Naruto didn't really care about that though as he quickly moved to pin Sasuke before he could get up. When Sasuke struggled, the voice gave a new order, 'Strike!' Naruto obeyed and raised his fist to hit Sasuke. The order was given again, and again Naruto hit Sasuke. It was given again, and again, each time urging him to hit harder until suddenly Naruto realized Sasuke wasn't struggling much anymore and for the first time since it had first spoken, he didn't obey the order.
"Err, S-Sasuke... are you OK?" Naruto asked a bit nervously. Sasuke just replied with a weak groan, "Well... at least he's alive." Naruto thought.
"Ugh... g-get off me... dobe..." Sasuke spoke weakly.
"Oh, right..." Naruto quickly got up, even holding his hand out to help his teammate up. Sasuke ignored it and just rolled onto his hands and knees, clutching his head with one hand. After a minute he got to his feet.
"I'm... going home..." Was all the Uchiha said and stumbled off. So battered was he that he didn't even try to yell at Naruto.
"Heh... he's gonna be pissed tomorrow." Naruto said to himself nervously.
- - -
Sakura had decided to wait until her two teammates had finished fighting in hopes of another chance to seduce Sasuke. Or something to that effect anyway. However, she was surprised when Sasuke exited the training ground stumbling and with his face bloody and swollen.
"S-Sasuke-kun!?" Sakura shouted and ran over to him.
"Not. Now." Sasuke growled and waved her off.
"B-but-"
"Go away." Sasuke muttered as he did his best to straighten his walk and head home. Deciding she didn't want to make him mad, Sakura didn't follow him. She turned around just in time to see Naruto attempting to sneak away.
"NARUTOOOOO! WHAT DID YOU DO TO SASUKE-KUN!!!???" She roared.
"I... umm... beat him?" Naruto gulped fearfully, for in his mind Sakura had just turned into a fire breathing demon from hell.
"You hurt him!" Sakura glared.
"Sorry?"
"You have five seconds to explain before I beat you senseless." Sakura cracked her knuckles. She didn't care what Naruto said, he was as good as dead.
"Th-the voices in my head made me do it?" Naruto cringed.
"That's... the best you can come up with?" Sakura twitched.
"It's true..." Naruto whimpered, eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable agony of being knocked through a few fences.
"You're an idiot, a pathetic idiot." Sakura sighed and turned to walk away, suddenly just wanting to go home and forget Naruto existed. At least until tomorrow.
Naruto sighed in relief. He supposed pathetic was better than dead. However, he hadn't been lying to her he remembered. He really had been listening to voices. At the time the voice had been helping him so he hadn't questioned it, but now...
"Would it have made me kill Sasuke?" Naruto wondered. He also wondered why he had heard it, was he going insane? Had Sakura hit him just one too many times? So many questions. But he was hungry so he decided to think about later after he had eaten some ramen. Then he remembered,
"Dammit Sasuke, you owe me ramen you cheap-ass!"
- - -
Three things alerted Kakashi to the fact that his team was not right. One, nobody yelled at him for being an hour late, two Sakura was looking at Sasuke worriedly instead of the usual fawning, and three Naruto looked distant. Naruto was supposed to be hyper, not brooding.
"Alright, what's going on?" Kakashi asked, crossing his arms.
"Naruto hurt Sasuke-kun!" Sakura spoke up instantly. Kakashi raised an eyebrow at this,
"How?"
"I beat him in a fight..." Naruto muttered. Sasuke lowered his head at this, as if trying to shrink away.
"Really? That's a surprise." Kakashi commented without really thinking.
"What's that supposed to mean!?" Naruto shouted.
"That you're improving, obviously." Kakashi tried to diffuse the situation.
"He didn't have to pummel Sasuke-kun's face." Sakura glared at Naruto. The mention of that particular part of the beating caused Sasuke to shrink further. It hurt his pride having Kakashi hear all this.
"Naruto?" Kakashi raised his one visible eyebrow.
"I uhh... got carried away?" Naruto laughed nervously.
"Sparring is one thing, but you shouldn't be injuring each other. If an accident happens, fine, but don't go beating each other into a pulp." Kakashi scolded. He glanced at Sasuke and his eye widened when he saw the amount of swelling. The Uchiha had two black eyes, "just how carried way did you get?!"
"According to Naruto the voices in his head made him do it." Sakura rolled her eyes, "baka..."
"Really?" Kakashi muttered. To most they would think it was just the stupid excuse of a child, but to someone who knew what Kakashi knew, it was most troubling, "Umm, do you want the day off Sasuke?"
"No, it doesn't even hurt anymore!" Sasuke snapped.
"Oh really, so if I poke your face you won't mind?" Naruto asked.
"If you want to lose your finger, go ahead." Sasuke hissed.
"Right then, we'll just do more D-Rank missions today since you clearly had plenty of training yesterday." Kakashi interrupted before the two killed each other. Naruto hung his head in despair.
- - -
After a day of boredom and tedium, Team 7 went their separate ways. Except for Kakashi, he stopped Naruto before he could leave,
"We need to talk." Kakashi said seriously.
"Wh-what about?" Naruto gulped. Kakashi had a rather scary look on his face.
"Sakura said 'voices' told you to beat Sasuke?" The jounin asked.
"Well I needed to say something to keep Sakura from killing me, so..." Naruto lied. Kakashi saw through it,
"As much as I believe she would have, I also believe you're lying." Kakashi crossed his arms, "what happened? I'd like to believe you've really just improved, but to be able to beat Sasuke to such an extent seems a bit extreme."
Naruto looked at the ground and then started speaking, "Well... Sasuke was actually beating me, I couldn't lay a hand on him; especially when he started using his sharingan." Naruto sighed, "then, when I was starting to think about giving up I heard this voice. It told me what to do, like, it told me how to block before Sasuke even moved or how to hit him. It was always right, every time. Then I managed to pin Sasuke and it told me to hit him. It just kept telling me to hit him over and over, harder and harder." Naruto was trembling slightly at this point at the memory of what he'd done, "I stopped when I realized what I was doing... but... but..."
"You don't know when it would have had you stop?" Kakashi finished his thought.
"Y-yeah." Naruto nodded solemnly. Kakashi was rather disturbed by this, but he believed Naruto regretted what he had done, and he had stopped, so the voice couldn't completely control him.
"Is there anything else you can tell me?" Kakashi asked.
"Well, it was a girl's voice." Naruto shrugged, not knowing what else he could say.
"I... see..." This puzzled Kakashi greatly. His first thought had been that perhaps it was the Kyuubi. But was the Kyuubi female? Then again if it could, even with the seal, communicate with Naruto, who was to say it couldn't alter its voice? Besides that, Kakashi had no idea what the Kyuubi sounded like in the first place; or if this even was the Kyuubi.
"Sorry..." Naruto muttered.
"It's fine, but I want you to listen carefully." Kakashi said, looking Naruto in the eye, "if you ever hear this voice again, ignore it, and come tell me the first chance you get. You can only break this rule if it is to save your life, understand?"
Naruto nodded, "Yeah."
- - -
Naruto changed after that. Some would say for the better, but to those who knew him even a little, it was rather disturbing. He was quieter, and was actually useful during D-Rank missions. It went so far as,
"Sakura-chan, stop staring at Sasuke's ass and get back to work." Naruto muttered. Sakura's face turned bright red,
"Wh-what!?" She sputtered.
"You know you were." Naruto smirked a little.
"You... you... GAH!" She glared at him, but she was too embarrassed to argue and went back to the task at hand.
Moments like these were growing more common much to the dismay of his teammates. Especially Sakura because, unlike before, Naruto easily avoided any attempt of her's to bash his skull in. Usually in an infuriatingly casual manner.
All of this just served to increase Kakashi's concern. He was afraid something in Naruto had snapped, and that this change in behavior was just the beginning. Who knew what was going on deep inside the boy.
- - -
It had been two weeks, and aside from Naruto's consistently unusual behavior, nothing overly strange had happened.
"Alright, you guys know the drill, let's go get some missions." Kakashi said.
"No." Naruto said quite simply.
"What was that?" Kakashi asked.
"I know I've said it before, but D-Rank missions are stupid." Naruto explained, "we're ninja, you should be training us more. For now it's nothing that hard, but one day we could be sent out to assassinate someone or something." At first Kakashi was going to give a simple response and just wave Naruto off... until he realized his argument was actually rational.
"Well, that's true enough I guess-" Kakashi began, but was cut off,
"Not to mention we've been doing a lot of D-Rank missions, for nearly a week straight, we really need more training. I mean just look at Sakura, she can't do much of anything." Naruto continued.
"HEY!" Sakura glared.
"And the only reason I can do anything besides the absolute basics is because I stole a scroll of forbidden jutsu. I mean seriously, Sasuke is the lucky one because he got extra training from his clan. What about the rest of us?" Naruto crossed his arms. The three other members of team 7 just stood there, slack jawed and wide eyed.
"You stole a scroll of forbidden jutsu!?" Sakura asked incredulously.
"Heheh, yeah..." Naruto replied, "how do you think I learned Kage Bunshin no Jutsu?"
"That's horrible!" Sakura shouted.
"Calm down Sakura, it's not entirely his fault, he was tricked into doing it." Kakashi tried to calm her down.
"Still..." Sakura crossed her arms.
"This is all beside the point though. What about training us?" Naruto asked Kakashi. Kakashi didn't answer right away. There was a reason he'd cut back on training. He still had no idea what had happened to Naruto, and he didn't want to provoke another incident. However, Naruto had a good point. If Kakashi continued to just grind D-Rank missions because he was too scared to train his own team, he would be holding them back unfairly. Also, Kakshi realized that Naruto's assessment of their team was entirely correct. Sasuke was the most skilled, Sakura knew the basics almost perfectly but was horribly below average besides that, and Naruto's only real skill was his ability to use Kage Bunshin no Jutsu.
"Alright Naruto, we'll do training today, you win." Kakashi nodded and turned to lead them to a training ground.
As they followed, Naruto turned to Sakura,
"Sorry about that Sakura-chan, I just wanted to convince him to train us." Naruto smiled.
"Save it, jerk." Sakura brushed him off and walked faster.
- - -
And thus, Kakashi began training the team. Mostly just some simple chakra control exercises and basic taijutsu training. It wasn't long before Naruto spoke up,
"Sensei, these are barely more than warm-ups, what about real training." Naruto complained.
"What do you want from me Naruto? You want me to teach you an S-Rank forbidden jutsu so you can kill yourself? Go steal another scroll if you're that desperate!" Kakashi snapped. Naruto cringed slightly at the harsh reprimand. He hadn't expected Kakashi to be so angry. Kakashi himself realized he had said too much, but he wanted the conversation to be over so he left it at that.
After a few more exercises Kakashi took out his Icha-Icha book while they continued training on their own with the instructions he had given. Naruto took the chance to take matters into his own hands.
"Hey Sakura-chan, wanna spar with me?" He asked.
"What, so you can ruin my face too?" She glared.
"N-no! I would never hurt you!" Naruto replied earnestly. Sakura looked at him, and decided that given how often he annoyed her by asking her out he probably meant it.
"Why?" She asked, still not wanting to say yes.
"So I can help you train." Naruto answered, "it's not like Sasuke will train with you."
"How do you know?!" Sakura glared intensely.
"Because you already asked him twice and you're still training on your own." Naruto explained.
"Y-you saw that..." Sakura twitched. She glanced at Sasuke one last time, and then turned back to Naruto, "fine." She gave in.
"Alright let's start." Naruto took a stance.
After only two minutes, Sakura realized that Naruto was much better than she expected. She had always thought of him as some loser who just flailed around in battle and relied on clones to get the job done. Naruto on the other hand realized that Sakura quite simply sucked at taijutsu. Sure she had the basics down to a T, but after his fight with Sasuke he knew that what Sakura knew wouldn't be anywhere near good enough in the long run.
"That's enough." Naruto said a minute later.
"Don't be lazy we just started." Sakura scowled.
"There's no point, you can't learn anymore like this." Naruto said.
"Well then I guess I should just move on to something else." Sakura said pridefully.
"No, you still suck, but you've already memorized the basics so I'm gonna teach you new stuff." Naruto said boldly.
"What was that!?" Sakura glared at him murderously.
"It's true, the academy taijutsu training is just a stepping stone, you need to improve upon it." Naruto explained, "I'm not saying I'm a master of taijutsu or anything, but I'm sure I can help you at least a little."
"Do you even have a fighting style?" Sakura raised an eyebrow.
"Err, well, not really. I just try to react to my opponent." Naruto admitted.
"See? So what the hell can you teach me, baka?!" Sakura glared.
"This. Take your stance." Naruto looked at her, his face serious, if not just a little annoyed at the way she was talking to him. Sakura noticed this and decided to obey, "now, Sakura, what would you do if I did this." Naruto asked and threw a simple punch.
Sakura blocked, as she was taught in the academy; she threw her arm up and knocked the blow aside. What she didn't expect was Naruto to quickly follow up on his first move. His other hand came forward and slammed into her blocking arm, knocking her off balance and leaving her open. After that all it took Naruto was a kick to her left ankle to take her off her feet.
"See? Your reaction time is below average, and I doubt you know how to counter any of the more complicated attacks known by people with more advanced fighting styles." Naruto lectured. Sakura just stared at him from the ground, wide eyed. When the hell had Naruto gotten this skilled and smart?
It took her a moment to realize that Naruto had his hand held out to help her up. She accepted it,
"I... umm... I guess you're right." Sakura sighed.
"It's alright Sakura-chan. I'll help you." Naruto grinned.
"Thanks..." She mumbled.
"What was that?" Naruto teased.
"I said thanks!" Sakura crossed her arms.
"Thought so." Naruto laughed.
"I still hate you." She said with a 'hmph' and turned to walk off.
"Wh-wha?" Naruto looked at her, completely confused. Not able to comprehend female thought patterns. After all, what young boy could?
- - -
After the training session, Naruto headed home. He was underwhelmed by Kakashi's efforts to train them, but he figured he could pick up the slack if he had to. After all, he was getting better fast enough for all of them right? He realized then though that he shouldn't be getting better that fast, he hadn't been training, he had been dealing with D-Rank missions for the last week or so.
"Why am I getting better?" Naruto asked himself, looking down at his hands ponderously.
'Because you are.' He suddenly heard. He stopped, startled, looking around for the source until he realized it was coming form his head again.
"N-not again!" He clutched his head. What was worse, it was a different voice, older and male, more raspy.
'Do not argue with strength and knowledge. Embrace it.' Now he was seeing things, as a spectral form was leaning on a wall before him, the source of the voice. It was an older man of about 40 in a green cloak. He had mid length stringy brown hair and 5 o' clock shadow. His eyes were a pale gray, almost hollow in appearance.
"Wh-who are you?" Naruto asked nervously, rather spooked by the man's ghostlike appearance. Naruto hated ghosts.
'I am nothing but something. I am no-one.' He replied cryptically.
"What the hell does that mean!?" Naruto shouted.
'I will be the knowledge you have lacked. And you've already met the strength you wanted.'
"The strength I..." Naruto muttered, "Wait, you mean the other voice that made me hurt Sasuke?" He asked.
'If you wish to call her that.' The man nodded.
Suddenly Naruto heard other voices, but they weren't in his head,
"Look at him, he's talking to a wall!" "Stay away from him son, he's not right in the head." "Freak..." Were just some of the things people watching were saying.
"Crap." Naruto groaned. Wanting to avoid any more ridicule, he ran as fast as he could towards home.
He wished he could run away from himself.
And that be chapter one. Are things going well for our hero? Some might say yes for the most part. We'll just have to see now won't we? Even I don't know exactly where this will lead.
You'll notice a few changes in Naruto. Smarter, stronger, and more willing to say what's on his mind. I won't give too much away, but that's just the start of it all. The tip o' the iceberg. The... the... something else that means what I've already said.
Lastly I just want to say this is already looking to be the my most challenging fic ever. I guess that's why it's called a "challenge fic." So leave me a review to tell me how I did!!
Til' next time.