Shinobi Otaku
By Moonraker One

A/N: Okay, so get this straight: I own neither Teen Titans nor Naruto. Secondly, this takes place in the Teen Titans world. Thirdly: in that universe, they are WAY farther ahead in the anime than we are here in real life. A shinobi is a ninja, and Konohagakure refers to the Village Hidden in the Leaves, for those who do not understand Naruto. Also, a jutsu is a kind of ninja spell. Got it? Good.

CHAPTER ONE

A cold breeze fired across the landscape of the cold forest outside the Village Hidden in the Leaf. Two skilled shinobi caught up in the battle to the death flung fists and feet at each other, utilizing the surrounding environment to their supreme advantage. One was a servant of the evil snake ninja Orochimaru, and the other was one of the finest of Konohagakure village. His radical clumpy blonde hair bowed to the wind's will as he dodged one strike after another in his goal to defeat his foe.

"Even if you destroy me, Uzumaki Naruto," the grayish-haired Kabuto swore, "you'll never defeat Lord Orochimaru! Even as a jounin you simply are not strong enough!"

Naruto parried his foe's strike, then took initiative by utilizing the moment's hesitation after blocking Kabuto's punch to sweep kick him onto his back. Before the evil ninja could leap to his feet, his usually cheery opponent—whose mood currently was strictly business—drove his ninja-to sword straight into his heart. The enemy gasped twice for air, uttered a final statement of inevitable destruction to Naruto, and then fell dead. He pulled his sword from the man's chest and replaced it into its scabbard on his back. Looking into the cold, dead eyes of his fallen enemy, he swore to himself, I swear on my blood I will bring you back, Sasuke. I've spent nine years tracking down Orochimaru's servants and killing them. I'm closer than ever, so please don't surrender yet, my friend.

Just then, a feminine figure came running up. Naruto waited until she was immediately behind him, then yanked his kunai dagger from his pocket and whirled around with inhuman speed to kill her, but stopped short of her neck when he saw her. She froze in place, until he put away his weapon. He breathed a sigh. "Sakura!" he flatly stated. "Lady Hokage ordered you not to come!" he wiped his brow. "You'll probably only be a hindrance!" He looked down at his defeated foe for leverage to prove his point. "Hell, if Kabuto had seen you, I'd have had to protect you."

"I don't care how much better you've become in these nine years since those days when we were twelve and all together for the last time!" she argued. Just the thought of the whole group being together, before all the crap with Orochimaru and Itachi and the Akatsuki brought tears to her eyes. "I'm coming regardless of what Lady Hokage said!"

"You'd better keep up," he informed her, being uncharacteristically serious. "I can't protect you anymore." They walked off.

"Naruto-kun?" she called. He stopped walking and turned around.

"Hmm?" he replied.

She stalled a moment. "I…miss Sasuke too."

He rolled his eyes, to hide his true feelings. "I don't miss the bastard. I just want him back, because no one deserves to be molested and used as a toy."

She folded her arms in disgust at the male inability to admit the truth. She knew he cared for Sasuke as much as her (although perhaps not in the same way as her), but being a man he couldn't tell her for fear of it ruining his tough act he'd put on since becoming the youngest jounin in thirty-six years at age fifteen. He was currently nineteen and had turned down a job as the second in command of Konoha's entire ANBU defense organization.

At the same moment, on the viewing end of a television set, the ending music began to play as the voice of Naruto announced the next episode. "Hi, Naruto here," the speakers emitted, as the short next episode preview showed scenes from next Saturday. "Yeah, I decided to take Sakura along. Hey, why not? She may actually be useful. You know I miss Sasuke, but if she knew that I'd be ruined. I just killed the traitor and I'm going for the man himself; you guessed it. I want Orochimaru himself; I want his head on a platter. And I'm gonna get it if I have to fight all week. Next time on Naruto: The Fox and the Snake!" The credits began to roll as the ending song played.

Robin stood up from his seat on the couch and began to dance. "Yeah!" he looked at Cyborg, who sat staring into the TV. "Tell me, Cyborg, is that not the greatest show ever?" He never was giddy, except when he watched his favorite anime, Naruto.

Cyborg raised an eyebrow. "Uh, why were they fighting?"

The boy wonder's jaw almost dropped as if his mechanical friend had committed blasphemy. "Cyborg! They were ninjas and Orochimaru is holding Sasuke prisoner and…" he went into ten minutes about the plot. He was so engrossed in his explanation that he failed to take notice of the fact that it went right over Cyborg's head. When he finished, not only Cyborg, but Beast Boy, Raven, and Starfire all looked at him white-eyed with confusion.

"So," Beast Boy inquired, "they didn't like each other?"

Robin rolled his eyes and left the room. "You guys just don't get the awesomeness that is Naruto."

Raven leaned back and stared at the texture of the ceiling. "At least he's not arguing for thirty minutes with Beast Boy like last week during the Great Goku Versus Superman Debate of 2005," she sarcastically muttered. "I swear I never cared less about something Robin considered relevant."

Only Starfire stood up for her dark-haired friend. "Everyone! Friend Robin is an enthusiast of this…" she struggled with the name for a moment, "…Naruto. Should we not allow him his thirty minutes of intoxication-like ecstasy?" She looked down at the floor for a moment, concerned. "Although, it seems abnormal that he should get so excited about a visually appealing young member of his own gender…"

Raven looked her straight in the eye. "Sometimes I genuinely wonder why you can't just say that he's a Naruto 'fan.'"

Starfire seemed confused. "Friend Raven, Friend Robin is neither an electrically mechanical nor a manual device for circulating the air."

Raven gave her an "are you serious?" look. "Uh, never…nevermind, Starfire." She decided it was time for her daily meditation.

Starfire left the room thinking, Perhaps some things I shall never understand. The very moment they were alone, Cyborg and Beast Boy brought out the video game set, and began to battle to the death in a way not very much unlike what Naruto and Kabuto were doing during the latest episode of Robin's favorite anime.

In a very dark part of the city, it was a very different scene. One particular abandoned warehouse, just outside of the brunt of the city's population, had inside of it a huge machine that had been constructed over the period of the last six months. Two people, a man named Slade and a young girl who had an exceptional talent for mechanical science, had worked together and built it from components stolen from a military transport. It took up the vast majority of the space of the warehouse, and had many different pipes coming in and out of it.

"Jessica," the villain told his young scientist friend, "this is the culmination of half a year of our finest efforts. With this device, we shall cross over to another dimension and gain tremendous power! Have you done all the fine calibrations?"

She nodded. "Yes sir, I have. I'm positive that this'll work perfectly. It's already fully charged, we just have to get the inter-dimensional gate open."

He popped his knuckles. "Excellent, my dear. Now activate the mechanism."

Complying with his command, she went over to the computer terminal that controlled the workings of the machine. With a few keystrokes, she had the water coolant intake flowing, and the engine began to hum. Everything began to work perfectly as the electrical surge made a dot of a portal appear. With a few more keystrokes, she had the portal widening. Nothing seemed out of place.

Neither considered it serious until a huge bolt struck the ground and the entire warehouse shook.

"The hell was THAT?" Slade shouted. Jessica at once dashed to the status indicator on the machine.

"Oh my G…" she screamed, but was cut off when a large bolt traveled through the machine and detonated the fuel drum. The explosion incinerated her instantly; she did not even have time to experience pain. Slade was propelled backwards several feet by the force of the blast, which ripped off most of his suit and part of his mask. A figure began to appear out of the smoke. A separate figure he saw appear immediately prior to the blast, but he was already long gone by then. The figure which was left stepped out of the smoke, wary of his surroundings.

Where the hell am I, the figure thought. As he entered the light, Slade saw him. It was an older teenager with blonde hair and blue eyes, a pair of flexible looking pants and a many pocketed coat, and a headband with a bizarre leaf symbol on the front. He slipped one of his hands into his large side pocket, presumably to ready a weapon.

"Who're you?" they asked in unison.

"Uzumaki Naruto, stranger," Naruto introduced. Slade knew by the name that he must be of Japanese origin, and from the expression on the kid's face, he had to have seen many a battle.

Slade utilized his manipulative voice tone. "I can be your best friend or your worst nightmare, depending on certain things," the villain replied.

"Let me tell you something, mister." Naruto did not flinch, and he did not drop his guard. "I've fought enemies you wouldn't dream of. Right a few moments ago, I was fighting a sonofabitch named Orochimaru. Quite possibly the deadliest enemy ever. Does the name ring any bells?"

Slade shook his head. "I don't know anyone of that name," he admitted.

"Then you're of no use to me whatsoever." He prepared to leave.

"Daresay I know of someone who might," Slade said, taking a calculated risk.

Naruto nodded slightly. "Speak. I'm listening."

Slade handed Naruto a piece of paper. It contained information on the Teen Titans and the location of their home base. "Here's what I know. Let me tell you about them; they're names are…"

"Thank you," Naruto said, cutting him off. He began to walk away.

"W…wait! How do you plan on getting information from them?"

Naruto stared a hole through him. "I'm a ninja. It's what I do for a living. If I can't sneak into a large steel structure and pose as one of them, I may as well hang it up."

Slade smiled wickedly underneath his mask. A ninja? As in a traditional Japanese shinobi? With jutsu spells and all? This, he knew, could potentially be one of his most talented apprentices ever, if he played his cards right.

Naruto marveled at the city. He had never before seen such a large network of buildings and gatherings of people. What kind of hidden village is THIS? He wondered. It's huge! There must be a million people in this place! I wonder what their skill levels are? He looked around, and saw people acting very casually, very stubbornly and selfishly, so he knew they could not be shinobi, because they did not act as though they were ready for battle. Wherever the hell he was, he was in a city of weaklings. Which meant Orochimaru had a lot of potential prey who had absolutely no way of defending themselves. Whoever these…"Titans" were, they'd have to know something, and fast.

Inside the large warehouse, Slade was pacing back and forth, trying to think of the useful ways he could manipulate this "Naruto" character into being his apprentice. An honest-to-God shinobi would be unbelievably useful, but how could he go about controlling someone more talented at combat than he? He'd have to be even more clever than usual.

The sound of footsteps alerted him to someone's presence. "Who's there?" he nervously shouted. The footsteps, which were up in the rafters, turned into calm footsteps moving towards him. He turned around to face the source, and saw what had to be the most unusual looking person he'd ever seen. To call this man a person, even, was slightly stretching the mark.

"Who the hell are YOU?" he inquired. The man had long black hair and a pair of pointed earrings. The man had the palest skin he'd ever seen on any living thing; not even the Titan Raven had as pale a skin tone. His eyes were black slits against a yellow background, just like a snake's. His face alone was enough to terrify the otherwise rock-solid Slade.

The creepy-looking man grinned in a way that petrified Slade. "Me? I'm Orochimaru," he introduced himself, "and I can tell that you're inclined towards the darkness much like myself. Perhaps you can help me." Slade might have declined if he had the nerve.

"W…what kind of help?"

"Well, I know you gave some information to my enemy, Naruto. If you maybe helped me, there might be something in it for you."

The prospect of mutual help intrigued Slade. He handed him a piece of paper exactly the same as the one he gave to Naruto. "Here is…what I know. What about it benefiting me?"

With a wider evil grin, Orochimaru traveled across the room in a thousandth the time it would have taken Slade to blink. Pulling back the damaged metal which covered his neck, the snake ninja drove his deadly fangs into the back of the man's neck. Falling to the ground, the villain at once began to shake and convulse.

"It'll benefit you, IF you're worthy of surviving my curse mark."

Absorbing the paper's information at a glance, Orochimaru began to walk away.