ARMOURED.
ARC ONE:
From Academy to Upstart
This is the one and only authors note for the entire first arc, a primer of sorts to the story. All other chapters in the arc From Academy to Upstart will start without preamble, that said feel free to skip to the story, I know that I tend to tune out most author's notes myself so I wont hold it against you.
Armoured is an au story, so there will be slight changes made to the history and to several characters. That makes it more interesting, I think. Both for you and for me, the writer. I hope so, at the least. I wont be rehashing each and every arc in the story and simply changing the jutsus being thrown around or cutting to the side characters every five seconds to show their reactions. You've already watched the anime so there wouldn't be anything to surprise or excite you if everything was the same with only a paper thin veneer of change. That said, the reason I'm writing this story is because I so enjoyed the original story so many things will remain constant. Naruto's upbeat, amusing nature willremain a constant for example, if somewhat altered to incorporate a bit of his dad, who was arguably the coolest character in the story.
If you've enjoyed smart Naruto stories, or stories where he has a different skillset than in the anime or manga you will enjoy this. Fuuinjutsu- yes. Puppeteering- yes. Cool techniques- yes. All of it with a twist to satiate my need to meddle with things that may be better off left alone. There will be no 'bashing', and I will do my best to avoid worn out, cheesy clichés. I am still a newbie writer so I don't know how great this is going to turn out, but if you've read fanfiction for a while this will be worth your time because I actually edit chapters so that the grammar and spelling wont send you into an apoplectic fit of rage.
This story is an experiment of sorts, my primary directive is to improve my skill as a writer and to do that I may experiment with the writing style from time to time but not at the expense of the storyline. I aim to have a simple, concise writing style that conveys depth and imagery without the need for flowery language and five-dollar words. I am a simple guy and I want my writing to reflect that. Naturally, your enjoyment of the story is also very important to me so don't expect this to be a completely self-indulgent work of fiction.
I wont whore out the story by giving you choices in pairing or what you feel should happen, the stories (or rather, writers) who do that tend to either fuck up a good thing, be fucked up from the get go or have writers skilled enough that they want that extra challenge and can pull it off. The latter is pretty rare, though. I wont be following most conventional Japanese honorifics, terms or technique names. I find that the mixing and matching of technique names in a story when using Japanese tends to make me somewhat confused. I am not very smart, so sticking to English as much as possible would be my best bet, I think. Unless I think that swapping a term out for an English one will detract from the story, there is no exact English equivalent or I forget I will be going with English equivalents.
I would love hearing from you directly, especially if you can give me advice to improve my writing and any obvious mistakes I've somehow missed while writing the story. Send me a PM or write a review asking me for feedback and I will be sure to get back to you. I'm always on the lookout for engaging discussion.
As I tried to upload this story most of my editing went out of whack and I attempted to patch it up before publishing. Please forgive any mistakes that may have occured as a result.
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A siren signalled the end of the academy. Five minutes later and high-pitched prepubescent voices were engaged in the sort of totally unimportant conversation only the childish could enjoy with such seriousness.
'Hey Mizuiro, you going to the chunin exams?'
'Of course! My dad ordered the tickets online as soon as they went online, we'll be in the fifth row back.'
'Ahh, you're so lucky. You'll be able to see everything from so up close. I'll be up in the stands. We wont be able to make out a thing from way back there!'
'You're lucky to have even gotten a ticket at all, they soldout in like two days. Besides, you'll be able to make out everything from the big tv screen in the stadium, so you don't need to be that up close anyways.'
'Its called a jumbotron, idiot.' Called a passing girl, who the two boys ignored completely.
'Its not the same! I might as well have watched one of the broadcasts from back home...' the boy whined
The same conversation was being hashed out by nearly all the kids slowly stampeding their way home, except for a few outcasts.
Outcasts like him. Naruto sat forlornly on the playground swing, idly noting the buzzes of laughter and discussion all around. The Chunin Exams had been the talk of the town for weeks, ever since the second stage had been illegally recorded and passed around for everyone to see. The fire-breathing, backflipping and flashy feats had captivated the population, making these final exams the most anticipated in history.
Gramps or one of his crotchety old advisors had caught on, and now instead of being a show reserved for the ultra-elite it was going to be broadcast to every television in the elemental nations.
Everyone was talking about it, and the lucky few headed to the arena were elevated to royal status in the academy. He wouldn't be going. The tickets were too expensive, even if he cut back to two bowls at Ichiraku's a week it wouldn't be anywhere close to enough. Damn, he really should have started saving. He didn't even have a television to watch the broadcast, and it wasn't as if he had any friends he could visit as an excuse to plop himself down infront of their tv.
But damned if he was going to sit around here feeling sorry for himself! So he took off, jumping from rooftops with thoughts of mischief on his mind. There was no cure for depression quite like orchestrating a cream pie in the face to an arrogant jerk.
Or, in todays case, a pair of jerks. He stopped and crept silently when he spotted them heading to the unofficial food district. When he got within earshot of the teenagers he paused to scope them out, they were two boys who had graduated from the academy a little while back and who had once called him a little brat. Well, if they wanted a brat he would be sure to deliver. Let it not be known that Naruto Uzumaki was above petty vengeance. He dropped down onto his hands and knees, years of experience in tailing prank prospects had instilled in him the importance of silence.
Crawling silently on the tiled roof, he listened intently to the two genin he was stalking until they paused. A red cloth, dyed and patterned to match the roof tiles he was now spying from, was bunched up in his right hand. An experiment of sorts, it had taken him more tries than he could recall to get the colour and pattern just right. And the thing wouldn't even work for all rooftops, because some people were just selfish enough to go with non-standard roofing.
'Hold up... Did you hear something just now?'
Acting quickly so that he wasn't spotted he threw the cloth over himself and stopped, face scrunched up in fear of discovery. The genin glanced over his hiding spot on the roof.
'I guess I was mistaken.'
The other slapped him upside the head. 'Ahh, Izumo. You've become all jumpy since the exams started. Man, you really need to calm down. Pausing at every sound. Who would want to follow us to lunch anyway?'
Izumo flattened his ruffled hair. 'Sorry. I suppose that crazy blonde girl got to me. But anyway, are you sure you don't want this?' he flourished a book at his friend who looked at him blankly
'My dad's a jounin and a slob. He probably has a dozen of those things lying about the house at all times. I don't need another.'
'Guess I'll just get rid of it then.' Izumo said, throwing the book into the alley behind himself with a careless backwards toss.
'Hey... I know I said I didn't want it but you shouldn't just go throwing it away like that. We could get in trouble if a civilian picks that up.'
The sound of a bin being knocked over caught their attention and just as suddenly there was a 'woosh!' and the pitter patter of running feet. When Izumo and Kotetsu looked for the book it would be long gone.
'Mission Success!' said Naruto as his apartment door closed. He hung his cloak- designated model red32 –on a peg, kicked off his sandals and ran into the kitchen. No one could tell him not to run around in his own apartment after all.
The book he had stolen from those oddball genin was put onto his kitchen counter and opened without preamble. Though, could it really be considered stealing if they had first tried to throw it away? He supposed it could be considered an anti-prank tax.
Unfortunately, as it turned out, there were no super cool jutsu to be found in the pages of Naruto's stolen book.
'Bingo?! What do old people games have to do with being a ninja?!'
The Konoha Central Stadium. It had undergone a rapid transformation in the past month. Literally overnight there had been another two thousand seats added by extending the convex sides another three metres turning the whole thing into some sort of giant earthen bowl. There were loads of benefits to having ninja who could literally command the elements, it seemed.
Gramps, known by most as their venerable Third Hokage, leader of the village and un-retired ninja badass extraordinaire, had surprised him with a ticket to the entire two day event. It was a heartfelt, tasteful gift and he had been really grateful. The best part of it all was that he had been given tickets way up in the third row- close enough that he'd been forced to sign a waiver. That meant he could proclaim his superiority to the entire class the day before. More than a few jealous glares had been shot at him.
The chumps would have to watch the thing at home, on the television. How very sad.He'd been so excited that he had raced pass the pop-up bazaar-esque attractions from merchants all over the lands and instead seated himself early. Or rather, he had been seated by a very moody genin on account of his metaphorical golden ticket. The poor amateur ninja must have drawn the short straw when it came time for mission assignments. Who took a ticket taker mission?
Lets see, we have three missions available. You guys could fight a gang of bandits to rescue a priestess, track down an escaped convict or make sure people pay for their tickets and are seated real comfortable at the Finals. So who wants what?
'Hey Naruto! I didn't know you were going to be here!' Spittle and crunching accompanied the comment, Chouji wasn't a fan of eating etiquette.
Both Shikimaru and Chouji seated themselves to his left, with the eternally lazy Shikimaru spacing out within seconds of dropping into his seat, as usual. The two, or maybe just Chouji now that he thought about it, had stocked up with two grocery bags of snacks. Maybe he shouldn't have been so hasty in getting to the stadium proper. That bag of crisps Chouji was palming looked pretty good right about now.
'Yo, Choji. Didn't I tell everyone about it yesterday?'
'Well, yeah but you say a lot of stuff. That doesn't make it true.'
He grimaced. Accusing the future hokage of being a liar, the balls on this guy... 'Well, I'm here aren't I? Gramps surprised me with a ticket a few days back. I'm glad I got to sit next to you guys, though. I thought I'd have to sit next to some boring old guy the whole day.'
A polite cough to his left revealed a gentleman in silken robes with greying hair. 'Ahh, I mean, I like old guys and stuff but most of them just talk about the good old days and other old people stuff like haemorrhoids and false teeth. That's really boring for us normal people, y'know.'
He distinctly heard the supposedly sleeping Shikimaru slap his hand to his head in disbelief. The old man was now blushing and he felt compelled to clarify.
'Umm, sorry, I don't mean to say that you're boring. There's always an exception to the rule. I mean, even Gramps has moments where his youthful awesomeness shines through.'
'... I'm only fourty-seven...' the man mumbled almostinaudibly.
Satisfied that he had completely settled the man's sensibilities Naruto nodded to himself and regarded his two kinda-sorta friends once more. 'So, you guys looking forward to the matches?'
Choji nodded. 'Yep, one of my cousins is actually going to be participating. The whole clan turned out to support them. Shikimaru actually has a cousin participating too, so they might actually have to face off in one of the later rounds.'
Shikimaru snorted for some unknown reason.
'Whoa. So if Choji's whole family is here does that mean yours turned up too, Shikimaru?'
'Nope. I'm the only guy in my clan here. Those lucky old bastards refused to come, they're all probably taking it easy back home. My mom threatened to kick me out of the house if I didn't go with Choji, troublesome old lady.'
'Figures that the rest of your clan would be as lazy as you. Maybe we should announce that the Nara clan has a life's just too much of a bother bloodline trait. Powers include the inability to stay awake for longer than five seconds.'
Choji burst out laughing and even Shikimaru seemed vaguely amused.
The morning passed with fun banter and awed cheerings, barring the third member of their party. Shikimaru preferred to alternate between staring up at the sky in a daze, napping until disturbed by loud noises and refusing all attempts to get involved in watching the fights.
'The next match is between the eighteen year old puppeteer Mahmoud from the sand village and sixteen year old Chewa Zeem, a martial arts and staff user from the cloud village. Will the competitors make their way to the arena floor?'
The announcer was a pretty redhead with a chunin vest. He hadn't paid much attention to her long winded introduction during the opening ceremonies but he remembered seeing her around town a few times. The balding middle-aged men demographic was paying real good attention to her though, and their wives weren't appreciating it all that much.
The announcement had caught his attention too,recalling something he had read in the 'bingo book' he turned to Shikamaru. 'Hey, Shikamaru, sand village has a lot of puppeteers right?'
'Yeah...' Shikamaru took a few moments to answer drearily, as if he were on the verge of falling asleep.
'Well, what do puppeteers do exactly? Don't they usually tell stories and stuff to little kids?'
'Troublesome. Why are asking me anyways?'
'Well, you're smart and stuff aren't you? Right Choji?' he asked
Choji nodded, not even pausing in his demolition of a party-sized bag of crisps. The Akimichi had three more packets but had been on the verge of attacking him when he had grabbed a handful. Stingy...
'You're about to see one fight for yourself. Take notes if you want to know that bad.' Shikimaru said, waving him off.
'Lazy ass. See if I don't get you back for this.' He saidShikamaru just sighed and lay back, head up to look at the clouds.
The Suna nin, garbed in white loosely fitting cloth that fluttered about in the breeze, made his way down to the ring accompanied by a life sized mannequin. The mannequin's face was all but featureless, only a wide unnerving smile and two beady eyeholes were carved in. Naruto shivered at the sight.
His opponent was similarly unnerved, his poorly hidden grimace easily visible on the massive television screen of the stadium, the commentator pointing it out with a laugh. Chewa didn't seem to be a pushover though, his physique was tall and muscular. The guy looked like a bear, his scruffy beard and chest hair ridiculous on someone his age. A huge wooden staff was tied to his back, more tree than stick to be fair. It would have been too thick for Naruto to wrap his hands around, even if his hands weren't a tiny bit smaller than average.
The fight was short but impressive. Chewa had been fast and strong, his staff wrecking fixtures and leaving cracks on the ground. The impressive staffwork had been bolstered by amazing acrobatics, twists, flips and the amazing feats of flexibility were even more amazing when coming from a guy so huge.
But the puppeteer had been even more amazing, and he couldn't help but recall that passage in the stupidly named Bingo Book about Sasori of the Red Sands, the kage killer. Projectile gadgets, poisonous devices, caltrops and an infinite assortment of otherwise deadly attachments could be built into a puppet and for someone who liked to tinker as much as he did it all just seemed perfect. And super cool!
After watching Mahmoud's menacing puppet unleash a flamethrower after dodging a vicious downswing it was all but carved in stone. He, Naruto Uzumaki, would be a puppeteer!
Just... you know... a lot cooler than all the other ones.
Mahmoud was nervous. Waiting with all the other chunin hopefuls on the second floor, he tried to relax by sipping on a juice bought – at a ridiculous price- from a vending machine. Curse the effect of supply and demand on his underwhelming earnings. He was still but a low-earning genin, the only genin from his village to make it through to the final round of the exam. His teammates didn't particularly like having their defeats shoved in their faces for the month they'd been forced to wait after the second exam so there was no one rooting for him up in the stands.He sighed. Frankly, he didn't want to stay here that much longer himself. His chances of making it through to the next round were slim to none now that he had been forced to show off all his tricks in the first round.
'Hey, hey, is something the matter scary-puppet guy?'
He waved a hand at the young boy in a pacifying gesture. 'No, don't worry about it.' Wait. How old was this kid anyway? 'Hey, kid. What are you doing here? This area is for competitors only, and I don't remember seeing you in the tournament.'
He had heard tales of Konoha's ridiculously young prodigies, it had been said that the copycat ninja had been made genin at five and chunin before ten, which was both amazing and really hard to believe. The kid laughed.
'The name is Naruto Uzumaki, future badass-iest hokage of all times. Hey, could you teach me how to use puppets like you do?' Naruto boisterously declared, completely ignoring his question.
He blinked. This kid was really direct.
'Ummm... I'm not really sure if I can do that. Arent your parents looking for you?' he said, hoping the kid could take a hint.
'I don't have any parents. I'm an orphan.'
Now we felt like a jackass. That was just great. 'Well... I guess I could show you a few things. I don't want to be distracted before my next fight so it cant take any longer than a few minutes, okay?'
'Really?! Thanks so much scary puppet guy- sensei!'
He lifted his right hand exaggeratedly, pointing his fingers outwards in the direction of his unnamed puppet . It rose slowly, theatrically and the blonde boy nearly squealed in excitement. He smiled. 'The most important thing about puppeteering is being able to control your puppet. It doesn't matter how great your puppet is if you cant control it well, understand?'
The boy nodded sagely. 'Yeah, yeah, I get that but how do you get it to move?'
'Chakra, of course. You make invisible strands of chakra with your fingers. They take a lifetime to master, but some people have even managed to control two puppets at the same time just by improving their skill with chakra strings.'
'Cool!' he heard the boy exclaim, almost picturing him thinking of controlling an army of puppets whilst cackling maniacally.
'The puppet itself is the next most important thing. It can be practically any size or shape you can reliably control, built in any way that allows for desired movement of parts.
'Desired movement?'
'Basically, if you want the arms to move a certain way you have to build them in so that they can move that way, the same goes for any other part you install. Gadgets or devices like a senbon-shooter need to be trigger activated so that you can operate it with your chakra strings.'
The boy nodded, practically bouncing with excitement and shot off. It wasn't technically legal for him to reveal any of the secrets of puppeteering, at least not while still an apprentice under Chiyo-sama and certainly not to a foreigner, but he hadn't really given away anything.
The art was a whole lot more complex than that two minute primer could cover, and the blonde haired kid, whilst cute, hadn't seemed to be all that smart. He was just a kid, after all.
'Quiet down, quiet down. Naruto! Didn't I just tell you to get back in your seat?!'
The usual morning scenes were being acted out in classroom 3A, with Iruka having to hold himself back from marching across the room and slapping Naruto upside the head, Naruto standing atop Shikamaru's desk and acting out one of the battles of the weekend's chunin fights as Shikimaru slept and Choji watched on in amusement with some of the other students.
The rest of the class spoke excitedly about the exam, though the aspiring Kunoichi preferred to pick apart Yugito Nii's tournament outfit instead of the fights.
Ten minutes of threats, rebuttals, shouting and thrown paper-weights later and the class had settled down.
'Now, I know we are all excited about last weekend's chunin finals-' he hurriedly continued before a bruised Naruto could butt in and send the class into another hyped-up series of discussions 'and thats why I approached Hokage-samawith a special proposal for all of you...'
'What? What is it Iruka-sensei?' asked Naruto, beaming
'The third year classes will be holding a joint mock chunin exam, complete with a survival trial, fighting tournament and tactical exam. The prize is the winners choice of either 750ryo or a private ninja lesson with an elite ANBU ninja!'
Pandemonium descended and Iruka grinned along, the excitement getting to him too. He had so much fun putting all of this together and he knew that all the students would benefit greatly from it all, the hokage had been mightily impressed by his detailed proposal. True, the prize wouldn't be all that great and the Third himself had offered up one of his ANBU for the cashprize alternative but the excitable students would probably have paid to get into something like this.
'The first round of the tournament will be starting next week Monday. Mizuki and I will be handing out agreement slips at the end of the day with more details. Make sure your guardians sign the bottom and that you bring it back to class by no later than Friday..' He added the last line for Naruto and Shikamaru in particular, giving them a pointed look 'Those of you who wont be participating will still haveregular classes together with the other third years who'll be sitting out. Mrs Shigure will be heading the classes.'
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Naruto Uzumaki liked tinkering. This was something that very few people knew, but it was true nonetheless. There was just something he found really interesting about taking something apart and making something else.
So that's what he did, pretty much all the time. Apart from when he was pranking those who deserved it- or those whose reactions he thought would be funny- he would tinker with electronics, scrap metal, wood, broken toys and any junk he could find. The old man had learnt his lesson after two television sets, four alarm clocks, a refridgerator, two microwaves and dozens of radios so Naruto had been forced to find a place to source tinker-material three months into his new hobby.
He'd found that at the Konoha Dump, a plot of smelly land situated on the outer edge of the village, far enough away from the living spaces so that it was never really thought about by the average population but close enough that there were a few scavengers who took to it on weekends to collect bits and pieces they could use for their little pet projects. Naruto had once tried to christen them 'scrapsaviours' but that had not caught on, partly because he wasn't liked much by any of them and partly because the inherent subversive, lonewolf behaviour of the majority of the would-be saviours completely rejected the notion of having to conform to group rules and standards.
Still, for a budding tinkerer like Naruto the dump was the no.1 supply store for all things bent metal, broken electronics and otherwise miscellaneous in nature. Hey, he was a growing boy and needed to save all his money for food, you know? Kiba could go to hell if he didn't believe it too. He was just a late bloomer!Clang! He deftly avoided the falling steel as the two-metre tall pile came undone when he tugged at a thick, twisting spring that must have been taken off a rusty old car. Dozens of piles of garbage were tipped throughout, some on top of each other until they had formed stink stacks over three times his height. He wasn't at all surprised, he would usually have to dodge a collapsing pile at least thrice for every trip he made to the dump, big as they were.There wasn't quite as much rubbish as there should have been, though, seeing as how the hidden leaf village was a village in name only. In recent years Konoha's population had exploded with immigrants from all over the continent,now the village's population rivalled that of the capital city.So, what gramps would do twice a year was hire three or four flame-technique specialists to come in and burn the trash until it was little more than a smoky smear. It probably wasn't the most elegant, efficient or even environmentally friendly way to do things- some scavengers protested against having the 'burning days' at all, but having once seen the event in person he couldn't deny that the sight was awe-inspiring.
The short-term nature of the piles meant that nobody gave much of a care as to its stability so everything was thrown haphazardly, which was hazardous for his health. He was the only person brave enough to grab at things among the more shifty piles-and it was definitely bravery, not stupidity as one of his less antagonistic fellow dump scavengers once theorized. Everyone else pretty much stuck to the large, immovable piles. Better for their health, they said.
Which meant that he had first dibs on great finds like this! The old spring was just what he had been looking for, and with a grin and exclamation of success he hurried back home to continue his project.
He kicked off his boots, he would wash the gunk off them later. Right now he was more interested in his pet project: creating his own ninja puppet.
It hung eerily from a makeshift line nailed into the wall using salvaged ninja wire and in blatant disregard to the landlord's contract. Right now it was pretty much all arms and torso, the head lay half-carved from a log found in the training grounds, a shaky menacing expression sprayed on the face.
Naruto smiled. A mechanism of his own design lay beside the incomplete head, waiting on him to finish up and attach to his super-cool puppet. He couldn't wait to get this thing up and working, it was going to be so much fun!
He had already put in several sleepless nights into this project, sometimes starting to carve as soon as he got back from the Ichiraku ramen stand for dinner and getting so lost in his work that he would only stop when the light of dawn came into the room. Until he had thrown up a curtain to stop all that, that was. Now he could sleep in peace and head to the academy after lunch if he felt like it.
The socket joints for the puppet had been difficult to figure out, an embarrassing trip to a kindergarten puppet show the only way he had been able to get it worked out. The parents hadn't wanted him there, but he hadn't cared to give in to their frowns and passive-aggressive comments.The non-cool puppeteer hadn't been very accommodating either so he had borrowed a freaky clown puppet on his way out. He hadn't gotten permission to borrow it, but he had handed it over to the ANBU that had pitched up at his place a few hours later without any arguments so he didn't have any guilt about it.
