Author's Note #1: This fanfic is based on the 1995 movie The Net. It stars Sandra Bullock and is directed by Irwin Winkler. I would highly recommend this movie if you have yet to see it. The characters are based from the anime/manga series Naruto. There will be some changes that differ from the movie, but will more or less parallel the original film.
WARNING: There will be some light yaoi a.k.a. homosexual pairings in the story so if such easily offends you, I would not recommend reading this fic. Instead just go out and rent the movie and imagine all of the actors/actresses as Naruto characters. Again, the yaoi will be on the light side so if you choose to read the story, I will warn you which parts have lemons so that you may choose to skip that part and continue on with the story.
Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE NARUTO CHARACTERS nor DID I CREATE OR DIRECT THE MOVIE The Net. I DO NOT INTEND TO MAKE PROFITS OUT OF THIS FIC!!! This is just something I want to do for fun!!! PowerMac and MacBook Pro is a registered trademark of Apple, Inc. XPS is a registered trademark of Dell Inc. FedEX is a registered trademark of FedEX Corporation. I am not affiliated with Honda Motor Corporation. Lexus is a registered trademark of the Toyota Motor Corporation. I DO NOT OWN PIZZAHUT or IN N' OUT or McDONALD'S.
Author's Note #2: Thoughts and dreams are denoted in italicized text unless other noted (such as song lyrics, signs, titles, phone/TV conversations, etc.)
Author's Note #3: Fic will contain ShikaSasu / SasuShika, and ShikaNaru / NaruShika.
Author's Note #4: This chapter WAS NOT beta'd so expect bad grammar and conventions...
Tagline: His driver's license. His credit cards. His bank accounts. His identity. DELETED.
Enjoy Chapter One!!! I hope you'll like it!!!
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It was a rather cloudy and grim day in Washington D.C. Despite the depressing atmosphere, citizens went about their personal business. Traffic was at a gridlock, the subway system buzzing with patrons trying to get from Point A to Point B, the sidewalks covered with pedestrians trying to get to their destinations, and of course, politicians trying to get to their offices around town.
After an exhausting day in Capitol Hill, Secretary of Defense Kakashi Hatake slowly began to descend upon the grand white steps to where he would meet his chauffer. The silver-haired politician was plagued with anxiety in his thoughts. Why won't people accept that such a move in our government would be severely dangerous to all? If it were to be implemented, who knows what demon could access such classified information… Anyways, I wonder what could the results be on that test from a week ago…
Before he could delve deeper into his train of thought, his cellular phone began to vibrate and ring inside the left pocket of his charcoal toned slacks. He lazily reached for it inside. With the phone in his hand, he checked into the screen to see who could be trying to contact him.
"Hmm, it's Dr. Tsunade… I better answer it." Kakashi pressed the accept button and slowly put the earpiece next to his ear.
"So… have the results come in yet?" the Secretary of Defense spoke in an unhurriedly fashion.
"They indeed have, Mr. Secretary," the doctor replied calmly, but with a hint of somber in her tone.
"Hmm… so is it… positive… or negative?" Silence came between the conversers after Kakashi slowly asked the question. It seemed as if the world around the secretary prolonged in pace. A cold breeze slowly blew onto his pale face while patrons around him ascended or descended the steps in a lengthy fashion.
"It's… it's… it's… p-p-posi… p-positive…" Dr. Tsunade replied in a grim voice. More of the hush atmosphere continued to descend upon the two. Kakashi closed his eyes for an inordinate amount of time, trying to take in the response from the doctor. He then managed to spit out a reply to the mouthpiece.
"I… guess… then… this… is… truly… a… reality…" The secretary then clicked on the end call button before putting the cellular phone back into his left pocket. He soon opened his eyes once again and continued to descend down the white colored steps. His chauffer was waiting for him to be completely on the sidewalk.
"Your car is ready Mr. Secretary," the chauffer meekly addressed.
"Thank you very much," Kakashi gave a reply as his driver escorted him to the limo parked on the side of the street. The silver haired politician stepped into the back of the automobile and sat comfortably into the ash toned leather seats. He let out an exasperated sigh as the limo began to traverse onto the nation's capital arterials.
The Hatake observed the landscape outside of the moving automobile. He saw the lush green landscape of West Potomac Park and the dark blue waters of Tidal Basin. The politician then let out a small sigh. He then spoke to his driver.
"Could you stop by the park please? I need a bit of time to relax in the outdoors."
"No problem sir," the driver immediately replied as he began to drive towards the park. They stopped at an area to where an available picnic bench was located. Kakashi then pulled out an apple and a brown paper bag inside the wet bar's cabinet before stepping outside. He then proceeded to stroll to the picnic bench while his driver remained inside reading The Washington Post. The silver haired man sat onto the bench facing Tidal Basin and the ducks by the shore while eating his apple in a very lethargic pace.
After managing to devour the apple, Kakashi began to gaze at the basin for a lengthy amount of time while delving deeply into his train of thought.
Do I really want to do this? Is there a way to fix the mess that I'm in? Could those results be a sign for something to come? Is there really no way out of this…? Well… I guess this is the only way out of this.
Kakashi reached into the brown paper bag and pulled the contents out of it. He now held a shiny silver magnum in his right palm. I guess reality has only one way out of it. The silver haired secretary proceeded to place the barrel of the gun into his mouth. He then began to silently weep as his finger met the cold metal of the trigger. This is it… I'm sorry… to all those whom I cared about and loved... that I must do this.
With that though completed, he pulled onto the trigger. A loud bang echoed throughout the entire vicinity as the ducks began to flee away from the origin of the sound.
"Why must life be so… troublesome? What a drag…" Shikamaru Nara sighed as he cleaned all of the dust off of the two computer systems that rested upon his grand office. Nara was a twenty-one year old young adult who lives a pretty lazy and solitary confined life in his Venice, California home. His stature stood at a slender 5'10". For hair, Nara had long, smooth, and soft brunet colored hair while sporting a seemingly spiky ponytail in the back. His eyes are of dark chocolate color. And aside for living such a lazy life, he is a work-at-home computer software beta tester for his company, Hokage Software, which is located in San Francisco.
Shikamaru's home was small, yet cozy. The interior of his home was plain and simplistic. His living room consisted of his personal workspace, an executive leather chair, a picture frame that contained Shikamaru and his mother, Yoshino, and a 42" plasma TV resting on a small glass stand. The dining room contained a small round oak table that was covered with dust and another computer system that can activate a variety of screen savers with a touch of a remote. The kitchen can be described as very small and very plain with all of the necessary appliances for one's need. The master bedroom only contained a queen sized bed, a dresser, a nightstand, a closet, and the bathroom. One common feature of the interior of the house were the portraits of deer that hugged the walls of the home. This showcased the love of deers that Shikamaru had in his life.
After Shikamaru accomplished the task of cleaning his computers, his head turned towards the front door as it rang.
"Hello, Shikamaru Nara?" a man's voice could be heard outside the front steps.
"Who is it?" the brunet responded towards the door.
"FedEx."
How troublesome. I have to go all the way to the front door, sign for a package, and open it… what a pain. "Okay, just a sec…" Shikamaru lugged his lazy self to the front door. He opened the main front door. He took a peek towards the screen door enclosing the porch before opening it. The brunette saw a tan-skinned man whom also had smooth brunette colored hair complete with a ponytail in the back. He also noticed the distinctive dark scar running across the bridge of his nose. He gave a small smile towards the FedEx employee after opening the screen door.
"Sign on line five please," the deliveryman instructed towards the Nara. After Shikamaru complied, the FedEx employee handed him an envelope.
"Have a nice day sir!" the deliverer said before leaving.
"You too," the brunette lazily replied as he returned back into his home. After closing and locking the screen and front door, Shikamaru opened the envelope and pulled out a CD case with a sticky note attached to it.
Shika-kun,
Can't figure out what's wrong with it. Try game first. Customer's name is Temari. Call her at (310) 555-1440 when you get software. Company has billed her already.
- Ino-chan -
"Hmm…" Shikamaru wondered as he put the game's CD into his PowerMac system. The title Sand Village Ninja popped onto the screen. The brunette began to play the game while looking for the problem. In the game, he was a ninja who had to take out all of the bad guys with kunais, shurikens, and special "jutsus" to save the Sand Village. At first, Shikamaru did not seem to play with much enthusiasm. As the game progressed on, however, he started to love the graphics and dynamics of it. Ten minutes into playing, the game seemingly crashed, leaving all sorts of jagged graphics all over the screen with random placed alphanumeric characters.
"Hmm… I think I know what the problem is." With that deduction, he turned on the speakerphone on his left side and proceeded to call Temari. The phone rang for a bit and a female's voice was on the other side of the line.
"Hello, this is Temari."
"Good evening, Temari. My name is Shikamaru Nara with Hokage Software. I have your disc and I'm pretty sure I know what's wrong with the game," the brunet gave his best professional sounding voice, despite giving a hint of a dull tone. He restarted the game as the customer responded back.
"Oh thank you very much Mr. Nara, it's very much appreciated," Temari responded with much enthusiasm.
"No problem. I also like to mention that this game is very dynamic indeed," the Nara added in.
"Thank you very much again. Believe me, this game gets as bloody and realistic as it can get. I'm sure that all of the kids will eat this up when it hits stores," Temari responded, "but you gotta tell me what's crashing the goddamn thing."
As the customer finished her last word, Shikamaru pressed the escape button on his keyboard. The graphics of the game began to "melt" as the phrase You Are Dead stood in the center of the screen.
"Well, Miss Temari, you have one hell of a fucking virus in your game… and not a very nice bitch either," the deer lover lazily replied.
"You're the best Mr. Nara! So what should we do at my company?" Temari asked the beta tester.
"Well, don't even think about hitting the 'escape' key on any of your systems for a while. One keystroke will wipe out your entire system." The brunet pulled up a scanning segment software onto his screen. He proceeded to type in several commands to search for the virus in the game.
"Oh god I d-don't know how these things happen. You know, I just got that new software from Itachi Microsystems. Jeez, what's it called… Ninja Guard?" the customer wondered.
Shikamaru blurted out a small chuckle. "That's what they all say Temari… Did you install it?"
"Absolutely! The minute we got it… I think…"
"It's okay. Everything will be all right and you should be able to get the game on the shelves by week's end the earliest," Shikamaru gave a reassuring voice to his customer. He then pulled out and inserted a blank CD into the drive. After a few more keystrokes, the virus was being transferred onto the blank CD. I'm sure this will make you happy for your collection, Ino.
"You are a genius Mr. Nara! I totally can't thank you enough!" Temari began to squeal over the phone.
"Heh, you might think differently once you receive my bill from Hokage," the beta tester lazily chuckled.
"Look whatever it is, it's worth it! Mr. Nara, I'd love to show you my appreciation. How about dinner tonight, a movie, and some drinks? You know, to get you out of the house, pllleeeaaassseee???"
Hmm, she's asking me out on some sort of date huh? Nah, that would be too troublesome for me. Picking clothes to wear, making sure my house is secure, driving there to meet her, actually talking to her… it's a nice gesture, but what a pain it'll be…
"I really, really, really appreciate it with all of my heart, Temari, but I unfortunately have other standing arrangements for tonight that I must attend to… but I really appreciate the offer… and I'll take a rain check for it."
"Are you sure Mr. Nara?"
"I'm sure Temari. Thank you very much though"
"Okay… well I'll hold you to that rain check Mr. Nara…" Temari paused a bit before giving her goodbye, "…well, you're still the best Mr. Nara. I'll talk to you later then. Bye bye!"
"See ya!" Shikamaru proceeded to hang up the phone. Should I have gone out with her? Nah, it'll just be too troublesome. With that though passing the brunette by, he went over to his Dell XPS system on his right. After a few clicks to open up the Internet browser and going through his "Favorites" folder, the browser displayed the Pizza Hut online ordering form.
"Hmm, I think I'll have a medium hand tossed sausage pizza with buffalo wings," the Nara said aloud and clicked his order away. After placing the order, Shikamaru sluggishly dragged himself into the kitchen to take out a can of Pepsi and make himself a Gibson, which is a martini with an onion instead of an olive. With his drinks in his hand, the deer lover went back to his office to set his drinks down. In addition, he grabbed the remote to his screen saver system and switched the screen from a fish aquarium to a roaring and crackling fireplace as it sets the cozy mood.
Man, what a drag to wait for my dinner to arrive. It's been like… what... half an hour! I'll never get my- YAY, it's here! The doorbell rang and the lazy brunette made his way to the door to retrieve his dinner. After receiving his order and tipping the delivery girl very generously, Shikamaru opened up the box of pizza. The hot steam took a good whiff at his face as he deeply inhaled the intoxicating scent of a freshly made pizza and buffalo wings.
"Alright! Time to chow down dude!" Shikamaru began to devour the pizza in a very non-lazy fashion. After a good fifteen minutes, only two slices of pizza were to remain in the box while all of the buffalo wings have been consumed. The brunette strolled into the kitchen to put the leftovers into the fridge and throwing away all of the trash. Hmm, what should I do now that doesn't require to do much… I guess it's online chat time... yet another lonely night...
Shikamaru returned to his PowerMac system. He logged onto a random chat room as "LazyD33rLov3r87" and began to randomly converse with the people inside the room. He was particular intrigued with what a SoundDude88 said.
"No one leaves the damn house anymore. No one has good fucking sex. The net is soooo the next condom."
The brunette decided to respond to that notion. "Come on SoundMan, talk like that will lead to the extinction of our species." The beta tester couldn't help but chuckle at what he had just typed to the entire room.
"My sympathies exactly LazyD33rLov3r! Let's have a date and totally procreate ;-)" the response from a CyberChoCho totally amused Shikamaru. He grinned as he typed away a response to CyberChoCho.
"lol, no thanks. I'm off on vacation in a few days. Just me, the beach, and a book."
"I'm there babe, look no further ;-)" CyberChoCho typed back.
"I'm flattered, but I can't with you as we don't have opposite reproduction organs, lol." Shikamaru relinquished out a laugh as he typed his response.
"Aww, too bad :-( but still, let's have a date" CyberChoCho's reply made the lazy beta tester roll his eyes while giving off a smirk.
"Sorry, I may be fair game to all orientations… but you're not my type," is what Shikamaru replied to the cyber acquaintance.
CyberChoCho immediately responded with, "I'm crushed :-( So wat do u want in a lov3r?"
Shikamaru gazed at the question that was just addressed to him. He gave it some thought before slowly typing away a response.
"Lazy... beautiful… brilliant… intelligent… must like deers… I guess you can say Vash the Stampede meets Maria Sharapova… or something like that :-)"
"Settle for one who loves doughnuts and tennis and who flushes the toilet with noise?" the brunet began to laugh hysterically at CyberChoCho's remark. After calming down a bit, responses from both SoundMan and CyberChoCho came on screen.
"Listen LazyD33rLov3r, ur dreaming, ur totally one of us," SoundMan typed.
"SoundMan is right on the money, u r definitely one of us :-)" CyberChoCho responded.
The brunet couldn't help but smile at their responses. He typed a simple "I knoe :-)" in response.
Shikamaru looked at the time on his computer. It's already 1:00 in the morning. Well, I better go to bed since I gotta pack for my vacation to Cancun and I have to visit mom at the rest home. The brunet logged off of the chatroom and turned off all of his systems and lights. He checked to be sure that all windows and doors were locked. After completing that task, he went into his room to get ready for bed. The brunet went inside the bathroom to take care of business on the toilet and to brush his teeth. After turning off the lights in the bathroom, he stripped off all of his clothes off to reveal a lean, slender body. With only his boxers on, he slid into the comfortable queen sized bed. He tried to drown himself into sleep knowing that if he didn't go to sleep now, that he would indeed have a troublesome morning. What a drag… Tomorrow is gonna be really busy for my tastes.
With that though passing through him, he drifted off to sleep facing the moonlit sky.
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YAY!!! First Chapter is done!!!
I do hope you all like the start of this story. Your reviews will help me keep the inspiration within me to finish this fic.
Sorry to all Kakashi fans that he had to die so early in the fic, but there is a reason for it... and it shall appear in later chapters. So again, sorry... but please continue to read the story.
Post-Author's Note #1: Again, sorry for the really bad grammar but this chapter was not beta'd. I'll try my best to fix all of the grammatical issues, but if anyone out there wants to be a beta for this story, let me know in your review, or e-mail me by going to my profile.
THANKS FOR READING!!! IF YOU WANT MORE STORY, DON'T FORGET TO REVIEW!!!
A/N: Vash the Stampede is the main character from the anime Trigun, for those who didn't know.
Ja neh!!!