AN: Alright, now that I feel comfortable enough with my basic writing skills, I'm going to test my imagination with this story. I don't exactly know how it's going to go along, but I'm sure I can come up with something interesting. Let's just hope that it doesn't take me a whole year to make another chapter.
Disclaimer: This one does not own Naruto, its characters or most of the themes that are expressed in this story. Only the actual story and setting can be claimed by this one.
"Talking"
Writing
Flashback
'Thinking or References to Speech'
Spiritual Entities Speech
In a huge, dark circular room there is a large round wooden table lit by an overhead light, with are large area of the center cut out of it. Gathered around the table were 5 people, all keeping silent as if waiting for something to happen. Then out of the darkness came an old man who looked to be in his 60's. He had grey, slicked back, spiky hair and a grey goatee. He wore a hat and haori, along with a red, full-length gown that was tied using a white sash. The five others around the table all stood up and bowed to the old man, who waved his hand as a sign that they could be seated.
The old man sits down and says:
"I'm sure you're wondering why I called you here."
"Yeah, Mayor, why the hell would you call us here; other than to mess with our busy schedules with your nonsense," said one man off to the old man's right. Just as soon as the man finished, a person to the old man's left got up and slammed their fists down on the table.
In a woman's voice the figure yelled at the rude man, "Don't you talk to him that way or I'll kick your ass in front of your entire school!"
"Now, now you two, it is not necessary to be fighting, and yes, there is a reason for me summoning you all."
"Well then, by all means, begin explaining." The man said irritably.
"Very well, now, I know you are all aware of that incident sixteen years ago-"
"Of course we know."
"And I believe you've all heard about what's been going on recently-"
"You mean the recent thefts, murders and disappearances?" This time it was the woman who interrupted.
"Exactly, well evidence suggests that they may be tied to the Akatsuki."
"You mean the infamous mob that has a zealous obsession with matters of the Occult? But they haven't been seen since Itachi took out Madara sixteen years ago," said a man off to the woman's right.
"Yes, well it seems they've risen again, but we don't know who runs it, what their plans are, or if they even committed these crimes."
"So, then what makes you think the Akatsuki are involved?"
"Well, you all remember what the result of all that commotion was all those years ago? He's about to turn 16 and enter high school." The room was silent for a few seconds, and then someone asked:
"Which school will he go to?"
"Konoha High."In a large mansion on the outskirts of Kiri—the city district—lives a number of orphans ranging from birth to age 17. Every day there are children playing, both inside and out; adults are supervising, cooking or playing along, and it is rather joyful. Some days are somewhat gloomy, like on rainy days or on days where a kid get punished, but rarely is there ever a time where the residents are not happy. Well, for the most part, but there is one person in particular who sees every day in this place as a horrible nightmare. Luckily for him, however, he only has to put up with this place for a few more minutes.
He is standing at the door to his room, staring inside the now-empty space. Then an old man-with a large mane of white, spiky hair, and a full face, two red tear streaks going from the corner of his eyes to his chin, and a small stud on the left side of his nose-came up behind the boy.
"Are you ready to leave?" He asked.
"It's strange…I thought I'd be glad to leave. I thought that never seeing this place again would be the greatest joy, butt…" He fell silent, staring in to the room.
The old man his arm around the boy's shoulders, thinking, for a split second, about how this boy had grown to be such a handsome young man. He had bright-yellow, spiky hair, deep cerulean eyes, and a full face, with whisker marks on his cheeks.
"Come on Naruto, you'll feel better when we get going."
Naruto turns to the old man with tears in his eyes, but a smile on his face.
"Okay Jiraiya, let's go."
Naruto and Jiraiya got into the car and drove away from the mansion. As they got to the gate, Naruto caught his last glimpse of the sign, which said Jiseigakure Orphanage with a notice below it saying: Funded by 'The Gifted Children Act' made by Mayor Hiruzen Sarutobi.
Naruto looked at the sign with mixed feelings. He's stayed here since he was born and throughout his stay he's been ignored by the adults or beaten up by the kids and the only time he was ever given attention was by the two visitors he got un-regularly: Jiraiya, his godfather, and Mayor Sarutobi, concerned adult. Not to say the adults willingly ignored him, but the kids were first scared of him and this fear turned to hatred when they saw the adults give him attention, because they thought he didn't deserve it, and they often beat him up when they were alone. This caused the adults to believe that ignoring him would protect him, but, obviously, it only hurt him more. Now, there would be a few exceptions, most of the adults tried to help him out, but others would actually turn a blind eye to the violence and let him get beaten up. There were also some kids who tried to help him, mostly the older ones, but a few of the really young ones, though they were either beaten into despising or ignoring Naruto by the other kids, or they saw the results of what happened to those who tried to play with him and would just stay away. The happy-go-lucky kid, at the age of five, became a shy, excluded spirit by the age of ten onward. Now, at 16, he finally gets to leave, and it's like there's something missing.
Jiraiya and Naruto had been driving almost half-an-hour without talking and Jiraiya knew that he was thinking about the past so he thought it would be best to break the silence.
"So, are you excited for school to start?"
Naruto took a few seconds to emerge from his mind's wanderings in his past and excitedly replied:
"Yeah, I'm ready! I can't wait to meet lots of new people."
'People, who don't hate me,' he added in his head.
"That's good to hear. Are you ready for the classes too, or just the people?"
"Yeah, I was able to sign up for some classes that weren't offered at my previous school. I've also had a fun time with math and science, especially with physics and chemistry."
"Really? I like that you had fun, but what's so fun about them?"
"Well, chemistry and physics have fun experiments, and math is easy for me and the teacher would tell me things like 'Good job,' or 'You're awesome,' and that would always make me feel good and would make it easier for me to want to work out the hard problems."
"Yeah, when I went to school, if you weren't motivated to do your work, then you often didn't do well."
"That's how it is with the other students. They believe that math is so useless and so they refuse to do the work, when all they have to do is do the work and they wouldn't have to worry about doing it wrong. Sure, not everyone can learn on the first few tries, but the reason most people complain about math being so hard is because they refuse to learn the content."
"So the source of their problems isn't from math itself, but from their desire to not do it?"
"Exactly, they don't have to enjoy doing it, they just have to stop wanting to burn their textbooks and dance on the ashes."
"Hahahahaha, that's true, and I suspect that's true for other classes as well?"
"Yup, but after you get over that, all it is, is practice. You can want to do it all you want, but unless you do it a lot, you won't get it. Experience is the most important thing after the desire to attain experience."
"You are perfectly right. You're one smart kid, you know that."
"Hehehe, thanks."
"Well, here we are."
They pull up to the parking lot of a group of apartments. From where they're facing, they can see a four-story apartment in front of them with two other four-story apartments on either side of the first, each turned towards the first, so that you can see all of two walls, and they all had parking lots. There was a walk-way that curved around, connecting with a walk-way that led to each apartment, and in between each apartment there was a walk-way that led behind the apartments where they can't see. Other than that, all Naruto could tell about the overall size of the block is that it was big and he'd only seen a small portion of it.
"Wow, you live here? You always brought me presents when you visited, but I never imagined you'd be able to live in such a big place."
"Well, it's not really all that great, these buildings are old and are in need of some repairing, and there are four apartments per floor, so they aren't all that big, but it is a little too much for a high school kid, that's for sure."
Naruto stood there staring for a few seconds, but then he walked to the trunk of the car, opened it, and grabbed his stuff.
"Where am I taking this stuff?"
"I'll show you."
They crossed the lawn over to the apartment. The apartment was separated into two sides by an external area where there was a ceiling that could be used for shelter, but it didn't have any walls other than the ones for the houses. They climbed the stairs to another hallway like the one downstairs with another staircase to their left. They climbed that staircase and Jiraiya went in between the next staircase and the previous one and opened up the door on the right side of the hallway.
They went inside and entered a long hallway which opened on the left to show a living room and on the right was a kitchen. The hall went on and on the left there were two doors spaced a few meters apart, on the right was one door and there was a door at the end of the hallway.
The kitchen was rather unremarkable. There was a stove/oven, dishwasher, microwave, dinner table and chairs, and many cabinets. The living room, however, was incredible. When you walk in you see a big couch that wraps around the left wall and the wall farthest from the entrance. In front of the couch was a coffee table that could be moved off to the side to allow someone room to play motion sensing games. Then on the right wall there was a huge flat screen TV and on the table in front of it was an Xbox 360 with the Kinect and a Wii.
"Whoa! This is so cool!" Naruto exclaimed.
"Yeah, I know, I got this about a month ago and it still amazes me."
"But it looks like you're missing a PS3."
"No I'm not; I even have games for it."
"Then where is—," Naruto stopped and looked at the box he was carrying, which held his 160 GB PS3, and games.
"You bought me a PS3, so you wouldn't have to buy games! Naruto exclaimed.
"Well now, that's not the only reason," Jiraiya said, trying to hold himself back from laughing. "It was also meant to be a lesson in money management, and it was a way to brighten your stay at the orphanage."
"Whatever, it's not like I'll be keeping it in there, anyway."
"Exactly, let me show you your room."
Jiraiya led Naruto down the hallway and stopped in front of the first left door.
"Here it is," said Jiraiya as he opened the door
The room wasn't very big, but it was enough for five people to sleep comfortably, bigger than Naruto's room at the orphanage. In the corner farthest from the door was a mid-sized bed that could probably fit three people, along the back wall, which had a large window with some curtains covering it. In the middle of the room, next to the door, was a large, black shelving unit. It was about the width of half the wall and reached the top of the seven foot ceiling, and in the center-most shelf was a large black monitor that fit into the space perfectly, and the shelf was bigger than any of the other shelves, and two rectangular holes on either side contained a speaker that looked powerful.
Whoa! Is this really for me?!"
"Yep! The monitor can be used for gaming consoles and desktop computers, and the speakers have amazing bass while being able to bring out any sound that could be made on the monitor. They don't take up much power either, and this room is mostly sound proof, while mine is entirely, so you can play in here and blast your music as much as you want."
"That's amazing! Thanks Jiraiya, you're the best!
"Hahaha, I know. Anyway, I'll leave you to set up your room the way you want it, see you in a while, I'll be taking a nap."
"Alright, see ya."
Jiraiya left the room and Naruto started to unpack. The first thing he did was set up his PS3. He put it up on the shelf above the TV. There were a series of holes on the bottom of the back panel and he threaded the HDMI cable from the PS3 to the TV through one of them. He grabbed the power cord and looked behind the shelf for a plug and there was a power strip, so he connected it to the power strip and through the hole into the PS3.
Afterwards he continued to arrange his possessions in the manner he desired. By the time he was done, he could tell that it was nearly dusk because the sun was setting in full view from the window with a reddish glow. He got up and looked out the window and he could now see that if he opened up the window he could gain access to a balcony overlooking the field, with a guard rail, set inside the walls of the apartment, making it obvious why the room was so small.
He got out onto it and looked down and what he saw was amazing. At first, he thought the space behind the apartments was rather small, but it was actually about the size of two American football fields in length and width. In the center there was also a large pool area, the sun's light reflecting off the water magnificently. The flowers in the field gave the impression that the grass was on fire and Naruto wondered what sort of flower could make that happen. There was a large wooded area past the field and Naruto could tell that it went on for miles.
The sun was more than half way behind the trees when there was a sudden knocking on the window, making Naruto jump a little since he wasn't paying attention to anything other than the view in front of him. He quickly turned around, and Jiraiya was standing there chuckling.
"Calm down, it's only me. I see you like the view."
'Yeah, it looks incredible. I didn't think there would be this much space around here."
"Well, you did just come from a more urban area. This is the countryside and there's always a lot of room out here."
"Yeah, I've never seen anything like this. Everything looks like it's been lit on fire and the wind just adds to the effect."
"And the reason for that is because these flowers don't grow anywhere other than in this meadow."
"Really? Why's that?"
"No one knows. There have been tests conducted on the soil in these parts and all of it has exactly the same composition as any other soil in Konoha."
"How come I've never heard of it? Surely a flower this rare would have been the talk of the town anywhere."
"There was a time that this phenomenon was what everyone talked about, and there is some chatter here and there when someone new to this information wonders about it, but after a while, people decided it was best not to spread this kind of information. Anyone who would be greedy enough to try and make a profit off of something so rare would pick this field dry until the flowers couldn't grow anymore. Not that it would work."
"What do you mean?"
"Well there have been a few people who decided to pick the flowers and decorate their house with them, but for some strange reason, when these flowers are picked, they can't glow anymore."
"Whoa, that sure is pretty strange. Have they just picked the flowers and put it in different soil? Maybe if they just took the dirt from the meadow and put it and the flower in a pot, the flower would still glow."
"Hmmm, I never thought of that, and it's worth trying, but not tonight. Tonight is a school night and we need to eat dinner, I ordered some pizza."
"What's on it?"
"Mushrooms and anchovies"
"WHAAAAT?! That's gross!"
"Hahaha I'm just kidding, it's actually onion and pineapple."
"Jiraiya!"
"Okay, okay, it's pepperoni, sausage and olives. You're just so much fun to mess with, you know?"
"Yeah, whatever," He said in mock annoyance.
For the next hour, Jiraiya and Naruto ate dinner, talking and laughing and sharing stories and just having fun. Then, once they started to settle down, Jiraiya got up from the table.
"Alright, it's time for bed, you have a big day ahead of you tomorrow."
"Yeah, it's my first day of high school, I'm so excited."
"Then go to sleep, the morning will come faster then."
"Aww, but I'm too excited to sleep, wouldn't it be more entertaining to play Halo instead?"
"Hmmm…that's a hard decision to make, but we must resist the temptation, you need to rest up to be coherent on your first day, what will people say if you show up looking like a zombie?"
"But then I could act like a zombie and play around with them."
"Good point. Well, how are you going to focus if you go tired."
"There's not much thinking needed to be done on the first day. The middle school tried to make our last year seem a bit more like the high school level classes, but it's not actually that hard. Some of the kids in the orphanage were in high school and they all said that high school was actually much easier than middle school, though that could quickly change should you become too lazy. They said that if you just listened in class, the work would be very easy, and the teachers are very helpful if you still don't get the content."
"Oh, well, what about the neighbors? Halo isn't something that can be played quietly."
"We'll only turn up the volume until it can be heard in the kitchen and we'll keep the yelling down to a minimum.
"All good points and I will have to say…I get the good controller!" Jiraiya yelled as he rushed past Naruto.
"Hey! No Fair!" Naruto yelled as he ran after Jiraiya, tackling him to the ground.
AN: Okay, I know it has been a while since I updated the other story (almost 6-8 months I believe), but I have been working on this story almost the entire time. I know the first chapter doesn't seem like much, and I meant for it to be longer, but I feel that I need to post this much and see what kind of feedback I get, so that I might feel more motivated to write the stories. I have gotten a job during this lull, and I have only ever worked on the story during the half-hour break I get on some days. Now don't feel like you have to post a review to get me motivated to write, I'm not a review whore, but the reviews I get do help me want to actually write the stories (that and my desire to make video games, be it the animation, character/landscape design, programming, or storyboard, I'm more inclined to programming and storyboard, but I would like to be able to design awesome-looking scenery and characters, though I'm horrible at drawing and I don't pay too much attention to detail.), so I would appreciate a few good reviews. Alright, well tell me what you think and suggestions and criticism is welcome. Now back to My Little Minecraft!