Disclaimer: Naruto is owned by Kishimoto Masashi and The Gamer is owned by Sung Sang-Young
Gamer Cross Go!
"Oi, Hibachi!"
At the sound of his name a young brown-haired boy turned from his friends. His gaze landed on another boy, a blond, who waved to him as he crossed the schoolyard at a run. Hibachi scowled.
"The hell do you want Naruto!?" he yelled back angrily. The two boys shared a rather…tense history and both understandably took every chance to ignore the other's existence.
The young blond-now identified as Naruto-skidded to a stop in front of him. He gave a sheepish chuckle and scratched his whiskered cheek awkwardly. "Ah…yeah. I heard you got your hands on a katon jutsu! Is it true?" he asked, blue eyes lighting up in excitement.
Hibachi narrowed his eyes and scoffed before drawing a slim scroll from his pocket. "Ah, it's true. There's scrolls just laying around everywhere in a village like Konoha if you know where to look." A smug grin stretched across his face. "Just you wait dobe! Once I master this jutsu I'll leave everyone in the dust! The No.1 ranking is mine!" he crowed pompously. Behind him his friends whooped and jeered at their leader's words.
Instead of being bothered by this, however, Naruto simply grinned in an over the top manner, his face taking on the look of a fox. If the boys were better at discerning emotions they would have noticed his eyes were twisted in a rather sly manner. "Heh heh, that does sound cool. In fact, I think I would rather like to have that scroll myself."
"Ha!" Hibachi scoffed at the notion. "As if I'd ever give something so valuable to a loser like you! Maybe if you had anything worth enough to trade we could work something out, but you can barely afford those rags you call clothes!" His cronies laughed again, as if he had just told the funniest joke ever written. Naruto had to stop himself from beating the shit out of them.
As Hibachi turned away in dismissal Naruto's smile became even further strained, as if he was forcing himself not to snarl, and instead of becoming angry simply spoke in a light-almost jovial-tone.
"Ah, I see…in that case I suppose you wouldn't be at all interested in a little…wager."
Hibachi stopped.
"…Wager?" he called over his shoulder.
Naruto's grin twisted deviously.
'Hook…'
"Ah," he confirmed. "A bet on a simple game of dice. You borrow one of your buddies' pair and roll them. If they come up snake eyes then I get that scroll."
Hibachi turned.
"And what do I get when I win?" he asked dismissively, only Naruto noticing the slight twinkle of greed in his eyes.
'…line…'
Naruto smiled brightly and pulled a stack of photos from his pocket. Only the top picture was visible to the other boys but it was more than enough to drop all their jaws. It showed a busty, dark haired, woman in glasses part-way through undressing. Nothing truly risqué was shown but it was more than enough to set all their twelve-year-old faces aflame. The blond snickered quietly at their poleaxed looks. "Pictures of Suzume-sensei as well as the location of where I managed to take them from." He offered offhandedly, as if he were discussing the weather and not nude photos of their surprisingly bodacious teacher.
"Oh deal!" Hibachi all but shouted in excitement. He grabbed a pair of dice from one of his friend's bags and threw them in the air.
'Ha! As if I would actually play fair with you loser! These dice are loaded! A real ninja would have checked them first!'
Naruto allowed his eyes to open just a tad, a malevolent blue iris flashing through the gap in his lids.
'…sinker.'
The dice landed. They began falling onto their sides, sixes.
They hit each other and began tipping the other way.
"Snake eyes", one of the boys said in shock. Even Hibachi had been stunned into silence.
Instead of gloating pompously like the boys had expected him to, Naruto simply allowed his grin to fade into a satisfied smirk. He reached over to his longtime foe and pulled the scroll from between his nonresistant fingers. What could Hibachi even say, after all? That Naruto had cheated? Known which pair of dice he would use? Which ones were loaded? That he had somehow manipulated Hibachi's own roll? If they were both jounin these might have been valid complaints. Instead they were students who couldn't even call themselves true ninja. The notion that Naruto had actually manipulated events in this manner never even occurred to him.
"Pleasure doing business with you." Naruto said over his shoulder as he walked away. His hand rose to give a dismissive wave to the boys behind him.
As he made his way off of academy grounds he allowed his devious grin to truly shine through for the first time. 'Nice try Hibachi, but a real ninja always stacks the deck in their favor even while making their opponent think the opposite is true.'
"Status!"
Name: Uzumaki Naruto
Class: The Gamer
Level: LV 1
Title: [Dobe]
HP: 780/780
MP: 2400/2400
STR: 25
VIT: 80
DEX: 22
INT: 9
WIS: 1
LUK: 67
Points: 0
Money: 300 Ryo
*Ding!*
[Congratulations! Through repeated turns of fortune your LUK has increased by 1!]
*Ding!*
[Congratulations! By raising your LUK above 50 you have gained a special skill: Lucky Strike!]
'…eh?'