Hi-ya, Fellow Fanficitoneers! ;)
This is (obviously) a new story of mine! FEEL FREE TO READ IT, BUT I SUGGEST LOOKING AT THE FOLLOIWING NOTES FIRST, otherwise some of it won't make sense.
Note 1: Team Groups
Group A: Kiba, Shino, and Hinata
Group B: Naruto, Sakura, and Ino
Group C: Neji, TenTen, and Rock Lee
Group D: Shikamaru, Kakashi, Might Gai, and Chouji
Note 2:
THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! I am an English-dubber, and so will use only english-dub names for Shaman King characters! Here's a quick list to get you Japanese readers on track - I can't think of many now, so let me know if I missed any!
Hao = Zeke
Horohoro = Tre
Eep! And before I forget, here's the disclaimer: Shaman King = Hiroyuki Takei and Naruto = Masashi Kishimoto. Enjoy!
CHAPTER ONE: HERE WE GO
Yoh Asakura cast one last look back at the house he had just left.
It was more of a palace than a house, but his Queen wouldn't have it any other way, and besides; a bigger house made it easier to hide the path to the Sanctum where the Spirit King resided.
His Queen. Anna.
Yoh smiled fondly as he turned away before his face melted into an uncharacteristic frown.
"Ready, Amidamaru?" he asked seemingly empty air.
An iridescent blue ball with spikes resembling hair surrounding his eyes and miniature red armor across hid back appeared at Yoh's shoulder.
"I am ready, Yoh," Amidamaru informed his partner.
"Good," Yoh replied, and his mouth pulled into a lazy, half smile.
"Let's do this."
And with that, Yoh Asakura closed his eyes and called on his other partner – the King of Spirits. As he made contact, balls and streams of pure, colored light appeared around Yoh, swirling and enveloping both he and his Guardian Ghost.
Yoh's forehead wrinkled as his intense level of concentration grew. At the peak of his power, as he struggled to maintain control over his massive amount of spiritual power, Yoh had but a moment to turn to Amidamaru and remind him.
"Remember, Amidamaru. Because this will be the first time I've tried this, it will take a lot out of me, so – " Amidamaru cut him off.
"Don't worry, Yoh, I will protect you."
Yoh grinned at his friend just before the light teleported both away.
He smiled for more than one reason. The most prominent being returning to save the world at his friends' sides, and the other being something that the Spirit King had said to him just before their connection was cut.
"Good luck."
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– KONOHA ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
A blood-curdling scream rent the air throughout Konoha, but the locals merely glanced up curiously before going back to their day-to-day activities.
It seemed that Sakura Haruno had found another reason to nearly beat Naruto Uzumaki into a pulp.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
"Wonder what he did this time," a few villagers pondered.
Little did they know that Naruto had committed one of the greatest crimes of the century – at least in Tsunade and Sakura's book.
In their eyes it easily warranted a full-out beating, which Naruto didn't even try to defend himself from.
All he did was squeal pitifully every time they punched him hard enough to farce his body to create a crater.
Wimp. They weren't even trying (that hard), but here was Konoha's second-greatest hero screaming like a little girl while trying to explain himself to the two furious women.
"I can explain!" Naruto sobbed; he was sure his right leg and a few ribs were broken.
"You stole Tsunade-sensei's sake! That is unforgivable!" the cherry blossom screamed as she broke his other leg.
"Ow! I only took them because if she drank anymore she would've gotten alcohol poisoning," he gasped.
The truth was out.
Tsunade and Sakura's expressions turned much more docile.
"Well, why didn't you say so?" they grumbled in unison.
The captive audiences of this drama – though unnerved by the sudden quiet – were brave enough to peak through their fingers to take in the carnage.
Audible sighs resounded from the Rookie 8 – along with Kakashi Hatake and Might Gai – when they saw a bloody piece of orange and yellow being healed by the two fierce medic-nin.
Within minutes, Naruto was back on his feet.
Tsunade brushed the dust from her clothes as she addressed all of the shinobi present.
"Alright, now for the real reason I called you here," she announced.
"You have a mission. Don't interrupt me, Ino. The level of this mission is S-rank. Listen carefully to the details.
"An unknown male has appeared in a village on our western border. The reason this concerns us is because of his means of arrival. To put it frankly, this guy wasn't there one minute, and the next he was. He didn't fall out of the sky or anything like that. Our reports say that he appeared in the middle of the street, surrounded in light.
"And before you ask, we do not think that his arrival was because of a jutsu he performed. There were three ninja on the scene at the time, and what he used apparently 'did not feel like chakra.'"
"Are you saying that this guy used magic or something?" Ino interrupted skeptically.
Tsunade sighed, "I don't know, Ino. But there's something else . . . ."
Everyone leaned forward expectantly.
"When he appeared in broad daylight, surrounded by civilians on a busy street, not one batted an eye. They didn't even seem to register that he was there when they passed him. Only our shinobi could see him."
All eyes (including Kakashi's) widened.
"So how do we know this guy's still even on the western border? Did the shinobi you talked about tail him?" Kiba inquired, showing a brief stroke of brilliance.
"Yes. They managed to tail him to a boarding house. Along the way the target entered an alley, and after he emerged it seemed that the civilians could see him, because they began to show signs of registering his presence," Tsunade answered.
"Here's your mission," Tsunade continued while handing Kakashi a slip of paper.
"Kakashi's team leader and you're all going. The reason I'm sending so many of you is because this guy could be a very big threat, and the more help you have; the better. You are to spy on this man. Find out who he is, what he wants, where he's from . . . the basics. If he is a viable threat to Konoha, it's up to Kakashi whether or not to kill him or bring him in," Tsunade concluded.
"Any questions?"
"Yeah," Shikamaru voiced one they were all thinking.
"What does he look like? You haven't mentioned his features at all; just a few abilities."
"I'm glad you brought that up, Shikamaru," Tsunade said.
"The thing is that the chunin who first discovered him can't seem to remember his face."
Cue shocked expressions.
"WHAT? And these guys are chunin, why?" Ino screeched.
"It's not really the chunin who are at fault. I think it's more like something the guy did to them."
"Like a spell?" Chouji asked incredulously.
"I don't know," Tsunade responded simply.
"But I do know that he is wearing a dark cloak and hood with unusual white embroidery that hides his entire head. You can't miss him. Anything else?" she said, becoming slightly curt at the end – after all, there was sake to be consumed elsewhere.
Silence was her answer.
Tsunade nodded, "Good. You leave ASAP; we don't know how long this guy'll hold still, so you need to catch up to him fast. I don't know how long this'll take, so pack enough to last you a couple of weeks."
She looked each and every one of those in attendance in the eye before she turned away, calling over her shoulder, "Good luck."
Every male breathed easier as soon as she was out of sight.
Finally, Kakashi stood. He eye-smiled at them all.
"Okay, you guys. Meet at the gate when you're ready to go. We leave at dusk."
All disappeared except for the former mentors in puffs of smoke.
"What do you think, Kakashi?" Might Gai asked his "rival."
"To be honest? I'm a little worried," the team leader replied.
"After all, this guy's capable of making people forget his face – so why not his unusual cloak as well? Actually, I think it's a trap."
"Oh?"
"I think he wants us to come to him. We have to be on our guard."
"Agreed," Gai said.
"See you in 45 minutes or I run 300 laps around Konoha!" he continued, back to his normal self.
Kakashi just nodded and teleported away. Grumbling, Gai followed suit.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 8 HOURS LATER––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
The team of Konohans arrived just before dawn broke. They remained in the forest in order to catch their breath. Hundreds of miles on foot in 8 hours tends to leave one a little oxygen-deprived.
As the others stretched their cramped limbs, Naruto sat down and leaned against a tree.
He was a little apprehensive because an unnerving thought had struck him on the way; what if this guy was an Akatsuki?
They wore cloaks, and apparently so did this stranger.
What if . . . .
No, Naruto rubbed his temples. I don't know anything about this guy, so who am I to judge him?
Suddenly coming to a conclusion, Naruto nodded to himself and stood up – he would give this guy a chance to prove himself one way or another.
The quiet around him made Naruto wary, and he raised his eyes to see the rest of his team staring at him curiously.
Undeterred and back to his old self, Naruto grinned and with a swift, "What are we waiting for? Let's go," he was gone, having broken cover and entered the little town.
Sighing at his abrupt cheerfulness, Kakashi, Gai, Sakura, Shino, Chouji, Ino, Neji, TenTen, and Hinata followed him.
Shikamaru and Kiba, however, hung back.
Kiba glanced at Shikamaru, looking slightly disturbed.
"Was Naruto nervous just now?" Kiba mused.
"Yeah," Shikamaru nodded, "I've never seen him like that. It worries me . . . . Wonder what's got him so spooked?"
Kiba shook his head, "I have the really creepy feeling that we're gonna find out."
It took Kakashi's team until noon the next day to find their target.
When they did, Naruto was disappointed; shopping for vegetables didn't seem like something the mysterious guy he'd imagined would've been doing.
Now covertly killing and/or planning to bring about the destruction on Konohagakure? That seemed more his style . . .
. . . But then again, this was based purely on speculation –.
Oh, wait, Naruto cut off his own thought, that's what the Akatsuki would be doing . . . .
Naruto roused himself from his thoughts and got back to what he should be doing: observing.
Apparently, their target was a pretty experienced shopper – if the animated conversation he had engaged a vendor in was anything to go by.
Naruto was just getting to the point where the melons to his right were beginning to look very tasty, when he heard a boisterous laugh and looked up to see the salesman the man in black was talking to slap said cloak-wearer heartily on the back and point with his free hand to an inconspicuous dark alley down the street.
The target nodded, shook hands with the vendor, and began to walk.
Naruto was immediately on alert.
"He's on the move," the blonde whispered into his wire headset.
"I see him," Kakashi responded, "All groups fall in and tail him, but stay in your assigned units."
A chorus of affirmations followed.
Instead of going back to the place he was supposedly staying, the stranger slipped through the crowded streets until he reached the outskirts of the little border town.
Without a backwards glance, the man entered the forest, oblivious to the ten people who followed him soon after.
As the trees began to thicken, it became harder to keep their tailee in sight; he seemed to melt into the shadows around him, which, while not unusual to the shinobi, certainly made keeping track of him an annoying chore.
At least he was making plenty of noise . . . perhaps a little too much in Kakashi's opinion.
Was the guy really naturally clumsy enough to snap every twig and hit every branch he came across?
Very suspicious indeed.
The stars were twinkling high up in the sky by the time the man stopped. It was only years of experience the supplied the Konohans enough grace to stay on their branches.
What he did next nearly made several people fall out of their trees.
He spoke.
"Why are you following me?"
Oooh, I start off with a bang - er, cliffie!
A note about the Naruto-verse war; all the enemies (including the fake-Madara) disappeared after the reincarnated Mardara was defeated - apparently this put a bit of a kink in their plans . . . But don't worry! You'll see all the bad guys soon. After all, what fun would this fic be without any excitement?
Tune in next time!
- Home By Another Way
