Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, but I do own the cover image! (not to brag, but I made it myself... Ok, never mind, I am tottaaaly bragging... well, just read the story...)
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- Chapter One -
Naruto sat at Teuchi's Ichiraku ramen stand, shovelling in ramen at an inhuman pace.
"Old man, your ramen's always the best!", Naruto said between loud slurps of ramen.
"I thought I told you not to call me old man!"
"Eh heh- sorry!"
Naruto grinned and lifted the bowl to his face, slurping up the last of the ramen, while trying to think of a way to get a second bowl.
Now that he thought of it, Kakashi-sensei had promised him a bowl of ramen...
Teuchi surprised Naruto by refilling his bowl with ramen. "This bowl's on the house," he said while smiling. He was always glad to see Naruto in such high spirits, especially since he had seemed so down after coming out of the hospital.
"Alright!" Naruto gave the resteraunt keeper another of his trademark grins before noisily wolfing down his second bowl of ramen.
"You know, I'm sure you haven't heard of the legendary ramen..." He trailed off, stretching out the word legendary.
This immediately peaked Naruto's attention. "The Legendary ramen?"
The old man had a twinkle in his eye.
"Yep. It's a rumour among ramen chefs that if you collect the roots of the nemar plant, it will create a ramen broth so delicious, that it will trump all ramen dishes."
"EHH?! Old man, where can I find a nemar plant?!" Naruto urgently questioned.
He pointed beyond the cliff where the hokage's faces were carved. "Beyond that cliff there are a bunch of them. If you bring some to me, I'll be able to cook you the legendary ramen..."
Naruto's grin spread from ear to ear as he tipped the ramen up to his mouth and once again emptied the bowl, all the while slurping loudly.
"Alright, old man! I'm going to get some nemar, believe it!"
Naruto once again grinned at the old shop keeper before jumping to the rooftops in the direction of the stone hokage faces.
Teuchi started to clean the dishes as he smiled to himself, before being hit by a sudden realization.
"Hey, Naruto!" He yelled. "You forgot to pay for your ramen!"
~~~•~~~
A day later, Naruto excitedly carried a bag of roots to the ramen Ichiraku stand. Teuchi looked up, surprised that naruto was able to collect so many in such a short time. Nemar plants were, after all, rare and quite hard to find.
Plunking down the bag on he counter, Naruto asked, "Old man, is this enough?"
Teuchi inspected the bag, saying,"This is more than enough. I would be able to make about twenty bowls of legendary ramen with this."
"TWENTY BOWLS OF LEGENDARY RAMEN?!" Naruto could barely contain his excitement. Naruto started jumping the roof tops in the direction of his apartment as he shouted behind him, "I'll be right back, I need to get my favourite Ichiraku ramen chopsticks that I save for special occasions!"
Teuchi smiled at his enthusiasm as he began preparing the nemar roots for the ramen. He kept a special pair of chopsticks for special occasions? That would be something to tell his daughter when she came back from her expert noodle making classes.
He suddenly frowned, as he inspected some of the roots. Hmmm... Something about them seemed strange, and they were not as big as they were supposed to be...
Teuchi dismissed this idea, realizing that they were probably just smaller because they had been picked earlier than usual.
~~~•~~~
Alright! I'm going to eat some legendary ramen!" Naruto was holding his special occasion chopsticks in his hand, while racing back towards the ramen stand. A trail of drool came out of the corners of his mouth as he anticipated the delicious aroma of heavenly-
"HEY! Not so fast!"
Suddenly a pink haired kunoichi blocked his path to the yumm-a-liscious bowl of heaven.
"EHH? Sakura, what are you doing here?"
"I've been sent to get you to Tsunade, so come with me."
"What?! Whatever it is, I didn't do it!"
Sakura, using monstrous strength, brought down her fist on Naruto's head, causing Naruto to implant his face into the floor. "You idiot, she's giving us a mission!"
She cracked her knuckles as Naruto pried his face from the ground.
"But Sakura-chaaan, I need to go to the Ichiraku ramen stand so I can-"
Too late. Sakura was already dragging Naruto to the hokage's office while Naruto flailed his arms.
"But wait! I need my legendary ramen! I spent an entire day gathering nemar roots! Sakuraaa!"
~~~•~~~
In Tsunade's office, Tsunade looked at the group of ninja with stern authority.
"I have hand picked you all for this mission, considering each of your strengths and weaknesses, while considering how you would work together in a group"
"It looks to me like you just got us because all of the other ninja were busy," Shikamaru deadpanned.
Tsunade's face became red. "What? No! I picked you according to your skills!" She exclaimed.
"Darn it, they're on to me," she thought.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Everyone looked at Naruto, who had an idiotic grin in his face as he stared outside the window. Trails of drool trailed down his face where they gathered at the bottom of his chin, and then fell to the floor. "Ramen..." He murmured.
This time, fists from both Tsunade and Sakura came down on his head, causing him to indent his face into the floor and groan.
"Pay attention!" They both yelled, while cracking their knuckles.
Everyone in the room sweat-dropped, including the two hidden ANBU ninja that served as the hokage's bodyguards.
Naruto once again pried his face from the ground (in which this case was cold tile, not soft dirt) and rubbed his hand on the back of his head as he laughed nervously. "Heh heh... Ok granny Tsunade"
"I told you not to call me granny Tsunade!"
Naruto gulped as he sweat-dropped. An angry Tsunade was a scary Tsunade. He didn't want to pry his face out of the ground again, so he stood attentively and listened as she ran the group through the mission details.
"Shikamaru will be the captain of the group. He will be leading Team 7 and 8."
Sakura and Naruto both lamented over their recent loss of Sasuke. "Team seven... Sasuke..." Both of them looked down, shadows covering their faces.
"Hmm. I forgot that they were both so touchy about that," Tsunade thought.
"Anyways, Shikamaru will lead team seven, which consists of Naruto and Sakura, and team eight, which consists of Kiba, Shino, and Hinata"
Each of them nodded before she went on. "Your mission will be to retrieve a scroll containing top-secret information from the village of Sengon. Normally, this would be a C-rank mission, but due to the importance of the scroll, it has been raised to an A-rank status."
"An A-rank mission! Alright!" Naruto exclaimed loudly.
Hinata stole a look at Naruto before blushing and staring at her hands as she twiddled her fingers, thinking, "I get to be on a mission with Naruto-kun?"
Kiba did a mental face palm as he thought, "I have to be on a mission with that idiot?"
"All of you will meet at the front village gate in two hours. This is a three-day mission, so prepare accordingly"
~~~•~~~
Immediately after he had been released from Tsunade's office, he had raced to Teuchi's Ramen stand.
Naruto jumped onto a seat as he asked, "Old man, is it ready?"
Teuchi nodded as he answered, "It's about time you got here." He pushed a bowl over to Naruto and said, "One bowl of legendary Ramen"
Naruto held his special occasion chopsticks in his hand as he grinned and sampled the dish. The noodles were perfect, the fish cake was perfect, and the broth... It was so savoury and delicious that it was Iike eating a peace of heaven!
"Ahhh! Old man! This is so good!"
He shovelled down the ramen so fast that his hands were a blur. He brought the bowl up to his face and slurped the rest of the ramen out, grinning like crazy.
"Seconds!"
Teuchi dished out another bowl, which Naruto quickly devoured. In between conversation, it soon became a race to see if he could dish out bowls faster than Naruto could eat them. Third, fourth, fifth... Sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth... the nineteenth bowl!
Now there was only one bowl of legendary ramen left.
The old man had a solemn look on his face as he said, "This is the last bowl of legendary ramen in existence."
Naruto gulped at the suspense. This one he would eat slowly, he would savour each bite of the yum-a-liscious, awesome-mazing bowl of heavenly delight-
"NARUTOOO!"
Naruto looked up to see a pink-haired kunoichi.
An angry pink-haired kunoichi.
"Sakura? What are you doing here?"
"NARUTO! You didn't forget about our mission, did you? We've all been waiting for fifteen minutes already!"
"But Sakura! I was eating my legendary Ram- Augg!"
Sakura grabbed Naruto's collar and dragged him with her as she stomped towards the front gate.
"Hey! Sakura-chan, you're -Augghh! -choking me! Ah Sakura wait! I need my ramen! It's the last bowl! It's legendary! SAKURAAA! Wait! MY RAMENNN!"
~~~•~~~
Teuchi, seeing Naruto leave (rather unwillingly), looked at the last bowl of ramen. Naruto had said that he had a three-day mission... if he kept the ramen until then it would go bad. "No," Teuchi thought, "I'll just have to eat it myself"
He smiled as he sampled the ramen, but then widened his eyes in surprise. He definitely tasted nemar, but he tasted a different root too, one that came from the dreaded yppah plant.
The Yppah plant was known for looking very similar to the nemar plant, but if consumed in large doses was known to cause dizziness and hallucinations... And Naruto had just eaten nineteen bowls of ramen!
Teuchi sighed, contemplating on how Naruto, the orange ninja, never ceased to surprise him. He chuckled, knowing he had a good story to tell his daughter when she returned.
~~~•~~~
Sakura arrived at the front gate, still dragging Naruto in her iron grip.
"Ah, Sakuraaaa! That hurts!"
Finally, Sakura released Naruto, as he rubbed his neck where his collar had been choking him.
"Finally, you're here! If you had taken any longer, Akamaru would have peed himself," Kiba exclaimed, while pointing to the dog on his head.
"Yeah, let's go!" Naruto grinned as he walked with his eyes closed and his hands behind his head.
Hinata felt herself blushing.
"Umm, Naruto?"
"Yeah?"
"You- you're walking the wrong way."
"WHAT?" Naruto looked around and scratched his head. "So where are we going anyways?"
Shikamaru sighed as he murmured 'troublesome' under his breath.
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A/N And that's the first Chapter! I'm new to this so please rate and review and give tips if you have any :) Don't worry, Chapter 2 will be served soon...