A few quick things before I get started with my story: 1. This is my first fanfic here, so please be courteous. 2. I don't speak Japanese, so if you see anything in brackets [ ] just pretend it's a translation of the Japanese name. 3. This is an Elsewhere fic; don't count on Naruto and the gang making more than a couple cameo appearances. 4. I use the Japanese naming format with full names, so if you see a full name it is last name first. 5. I like the use of Japanese honorifics, and I hope I'm using them correctly. If you know better than me, feel free to correct me. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoy :-)
Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Naruto or any related media.
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NARUTO: TALES FROM IWAGAKURE
Bam! Bam! Bam! There was a loud pounding on the door to Yukio's room. "Hey! Yuki-kun! We're gonna be late, man! I want to find out if we get to be on the same team or not!"
Yukio rolled over away from the door. "How late can we be Ren-chan? The sun's not even up!"
"You know they have the graduation ceremony at dawn. We've got three minutes to get all the way across Iwagakure. Move your lazy butt!" Ren then kicked in the door; he was dressed in the standard issue flak jacket and his favorite pair of blue pants. He had gotten his hair cut recently, the silver locks were pulled back in a short ponytail and his bangs had finally been removed from blocking his equally grey eyes. Yukio looked him once over with bleary eyes and said grumpily "Did you shrink again? I could have sworn you were taller yesterday."
"Come on you lazy bum. We have to get going." Ren walked over to Yukio's dresser and picked up his fleece bomber jacket and shoes, then moved over to Yukio's bed and proceeded to lift him up with one arm. Ren slung him over his shoulder and proceeded to make several hand signs [Summoning: Palace of the Sultan]. A door appeared in the air in front of him. Ren opened the door and stepped through. On the other side was a huge, mostly empty room, with numerous doors on every wall. Ren unceremoniously dropped Yukio on the floor.
"What would I do without my best friend, the alarm clock ninja?" Yukio grinned as he put on his sandals. He checked the pockets to make sure his scrolls were in place, then stood up and dusted himself off. He was much taller than his friend, with short, light brown hair and hazel eyes. He had managed to grab a shirt and pants as he was being dragged out of his room, and changed quickly into the dark green shirt and black pants then put on the bomber with his house insignia (a diagonal cross made from a black and a white feather) on the back.
"Well clock-kun, how late are we?" Yukio asked his good friend as they walked over to one of the doors.
"We're not late at all, sleepy head." Ren replied with a grin. "We've got about an hour before the graduation ceremony starts."
"Then why did you wake me up and drag me into the castle?" Yukio questioned indignantly.
"So I could do this." Was Ren's response. He opened the door quickly, then shoved Yukio through and closed the door behind him just as fast. Yukio landed right in the middle of a circle of girls who were chatting away while they waited for the ceremony to start. They screamed as he fell into the middle of them.
"Yukio-kun you pervert! What were you trying to do?" One of them screamed at him.
"Sorry Kami-san. It was Ren who pushed me through the door, I just happened to land in the middle here." Yukio pleaded.
"I did no such thing! Yuki-kun was hoping to get a peek down your shirt and fell through the door." Ren said with a mischievous grin on his face.
"Yukio-kun, I swear that I'm going to…" Kami started.
"You'll do what?" Said a strong female voice from behind them, it was Yukio's mother, Ozuru Chiatsu.
"N-Nothing, ojou-sama." Kami replied nervously.
"My little Yuki-tan was just curious about what girls look like! He didn't mean anything by it." Chiatsu said in a cutesy voice as she ran over and crushed Yukio in a hug. "He's growing up soooooo fast! Don't worry, Momma will teach you aaaall about lady parts, Yuki-tan."
"What the hell?" Yukio said as he struggled free of his mother's iron grip. Everyone around him was laughing. "What was that for? I don't need you to teach me anything like that! Yuck!"
"Ooh, Yuki-tan, don't say such mean things to your mother. I think I might cry…" Yukio's mom flopped to the ground with a pout on her face. Everyone began to laugh even harder. One of the girls was laughing so hard she fell over. It was all Yukio could do to keep a straight face, eventually he couldn't hold it in any more and he began to laugh as well. Chiatsu smiled, and then joined in, hiding her laughter behind her hand.
The laughter died quickly when the stern face of Montaro Mikami, Ren's father, appeared. "We are ready to start the graduation ceremony." He said in a deep voice. "I would appreciate it if you all did not waste any more time." He turned and walked away before anyone could reply.
Yukio helped his mother get up from the ground and walked with her to her seat. Ren called him over behind the curtain, where they were supposed to stand before receiving their headbands. There were 33 graduating students this year, including Ren and Yukio, the presenter, Akahana Choko read them off as each student came up to get their head plate. When she called Ren's name, Yukio slapped him on the back as congratulation. Three names later and Yukio was called. He proceeded slowly up to the podium, and took his headband with proper respect. His mother smiled when they announced that he had placed in the top ten in the class. After all the Shinobi had been called up the presenter spoke.
"Congratulations to all of you who passed the exams, you are now shinobi of Iwagakure. Do not dishonor this village and I won't have any reason to bring you back to my academy." She said with a laugh. "I am proud to have taught the largest graduating class that Iwagakure has had in over thirty years. Congratulations to all of you. Your team assignments will be announced after lunch, which the Montaro family has so graciously provided."
Lunch passed without much fanfare, it was a picnic outside of the large cave that made up the ninja school. The new genin all sat together talking and laughing, discussing what they knew about the jonin that had been given teams to lead this year. The boys were excited because Suzu Maeko, the tattoo ninja, had been declared as one of the jonin senseis. They all talked about what it would be like to work with someone like her, she was widely believed to be one of the top ninja in Iwagakure, and was definitely the best kunoichi around.
"What's so great about stupid Maeko?" Kami asked her friend, Nakamura Ai.
"I'd love to get to work with her." Ai squealed. "She's so pretty, and she's totally the best ninja in Iwa, except for the Tsuchikage of course."
"Yeah, but no team she leads is going to be effective if she's got boys on it. They'll just spend the whole time drooling over her body." Kami replied.
"Well boys do that to me already. Maybe if you weren't so flat you'd get some attention too." Ai teased.
"You know who I'd love to work with?" Kami asked her friend.
"Ito Renji-kun…" Ai replied dreamily. "He's so beautiful, and he's at the top of the class too, he's probably the only boy you'd ever want to work with."
"I think she'd rather just play with him," Said a voice from behind the two girls. It was Ai's twin brother, Nagato. He had snuck up behind the two girls and was sitting in the tree above them. "You know…" He said as he made a rude gesture.
"Nagato just shut up. You're jealous because you look so much like a girl it makes you ugly." His sister snapped.
"The only girl I look like is you, so if I'm ugly I guess that means you must be too." He sneered. Ai's face turned bright red and she muttered something under her breath. Kami started to giggle.
One of the senseis from the school began walking around handing out envelopes. As he did so he began to speak. "In each of these envelopes is a note with a set of coordinates. The coordinates are going to be where you all will meet your new teammates, so each team has different coordinates. You are not to speak to any other genin about the contents of your envelope. You will each have five minutes to arrive at your destination; you may leave as soon as you get your envelope."
As soon as the new genin received their envelopes they started to leave, by the looks on their faces each place was a good distance away, especially if they only had five minutes to arrive. Ren vanished into a doorway as soon as he got his envelope and Kami was off and running before she had even opened it. Yukio took his envelope and opened it up; the coordinates were to a densely forested area well outside of town. He wasn't worried about the time limit, He might not be able to move through the castle like Ren did, but he had his own methods of transportation. He pulled a cord on his vest and a pair of glider like wings sprung out from the back.
"Bird, Dragon, Tiger, Hare…" He said as he made the hand signs. "[Ozuru Clan Secret Technique: Phoenix wings]!" He leapt into the air and flames began to shoot out from the bottoms of his feet. He launched himself high into the air before cutting off the flames, and used the glider wings to guide himself to the coordinates. As he approached the clearing that his note had indicated, he looked down to see if anyone else had arrived, it appeared that he was the first one there.
Just as he touched down from his flight, he felt a kunai at his throat. "You don't pay much attention to your surroundings, do you?" a voice whispered in his ear.
"No, I guess not." Yukio replied. He made three quick hand signs, and a huge gust of wind spiraled out from his body, sending his attacker flying. "Then again, you should know better than to get so close to somebody with my family's kekkei genkai. Am I right Ren-kun?"
"Ha ha. Yeah, I never could get you with that stunt. It's always fun to try though." Ren said as he picked himself up. "I'm kinda surprised to see you here Yuki-kun. I guess that means we really do get to be teammates."
"Yeah, I guess so. I wonder who our Jonin is…" Yukio responded.
"That'd be ME!" Said a loud female voice from across the clearing. She strode out into the open with an air of extreme confidence. She wore little more than a glorified bikini top and short shorts. She had long black hair, dark skin and an incredibly full chest. However, her most striking feature was that she was covered from the neck down in tattoos.
"The name's Suzu Maeko. You all can call me sensei, or I'll beat you to a pulp." She said as she strode over.
"We know," said Ren in a dazed voice.
Yukio slapped him on the back of the head. "You're drooling, man. Get it together."
"Hey, aren't there supposed to be three of you?" Maeko asked. She looked around the clearing, Yukio and Ren just shrugged, for all they cared this was the perfect team already.
"Sorry! Sorry I'm late!" called another female voice. Kami came running out of the forest behind Maeko. When she reached the other three ninja she bent over to catch her breath. "I'm so sorry sensei! I'm not late am I?" She asked.
"Nope, you're just in time!" Maeko replied with a smile. "Meet your new team! Iwagakure Team 5!"
"This can't be my team!" Kami shouted. "I can't work with these two! They're a couple of stuck up perverts! Besides, aren't the teams divided up evenly by our test scores? All three of us placed in the top 15!"
"I placed second." Ren added helpfully.
"Well, that might be the case most of the time, but everybody's scores were so close this year, and we had such a large graduating class that we've decided to divide up teams based on their techniques and fighting styles. Right now our team is supposed to be a long range reconnaissance and assault team. You all were selected for your very different fighting styles and the fact that all of you showed incredible endurance throughout your training." Maeko explained. "This way we've got a wide variety of options: Yukio is a master of long range combat, you're a taijutsu expert and Ren here is supposed to be really good at medical and defensive techniques."
"What do you mean 'supposed to be'?" Ren pouted.
"That's not important right now!" Maeko exclaimed. "We've got our first test as a team right now!"
"What are we gonna do?" Asked Yukio.
"We're gonna play a game. OF CAPTURE THE FLAG!" Maeko proclaimed. "And I'm our flag!"
"HUH?" Was the three genin's response.
"Well, it's supposed to work like this. Each team of genin will be working together to protect their jonin from the other teams. The goal is to capture the other team's jonin and try to carry them outside of the forested area. The jonin on each team will be able to move around and try to dodge other teams, but they won't be able to attack at all. The last team standing will be given a special award, and the first three teams eliminated will be sent back to the academy."
"Wow, the stakes are pretty high then." Commented Ren. "So when do we start?"
"Now." Replied Maeko. A bright pink dome formed over top of the forest area, it was about four miles in diameter. "That would be the border we have to cross to eliminate a team. And since it's up. That means it's time to start!"