Here's the second chapter of The Clash of Time!
Standard Disclaimer
Ty to all of you lovely reviewers!
Please review! Constructive criticism is welcome. Flames will be ignored.
Once again, sorry about the late update! I didn't really change anything in this chapter, since I managed to avoid any but the most minor of plot holes. All I did was edit a few things. I might rewrite a bit later, but prolly not knowing myself.
With a thud Naruto rolled off of the couch that he'd fallen asleep on. After briefly struggling to untangle himself from the threadbare blanket he used during the warmer months, he sat up and dazedly looked around.
'Huh? Hey, Fluffy, what just happened?' he asked the demon in his mind. When he received no reply, he shouted at her to answer him. She remained silent. Wary now, he prodded his subconsciousness, searching for the fox's presence. He began to panic as his search came up negative, but then he noticed a trace amount of the now familiar youkai. He delved into the depths of his mind, following the paper-thin trail.
He straightened in the dark, dank passageway. Something about the sewer-like labyrinth within his thoughts still unnerved him. He always got the feeling that there was something other than the fox watching him, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.
He shook off his paranoia, turning down one of the many corridors, searching for the whiff of youki he'd felt earlier. He wandered for what seemed like forever, turning countless corners, passing an infinite number of dusty, unexplored passageways, leading off into the dark depths of his mentality, haunted by little shapeless things that darted in and out of the shadows at the edges of his vision. He could feel their ghostly, demonic eyes boring holes in the back of his head.
After all of eternity, compressed into the time in between moments, he reached the entrance to the cage room, and advanced into the darkness. He couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right. Wasn't this place supposed to be lit up 24/7?
What was with the sudden power shortage? Naruto shuddered at the very idea of what such an occurrence implied.
He peered into the surrounding void, unable to even see his own hand when he held it in front of him. Instinctively, he called on a fragment of Stella's youki, forming a dancing orange, red, and gold flame. He could now just barely make out the bars of the humungous cage, and the shadowy impression of a hulking figure beyond.
"Hey, Fluffy-nee, that you?" he called out, dreading the worst.
Vesper awoke from the nap she'd been taking with a start. "What in all the Hells!?" she exclaimed. She could've sworn that she'd just felt some idiot sending someone back in time. After combing over the disturbed section of the space time continuum, she determined that the identity of the idiot who was dabbling in time travel was none other than herself. She took back her earlier thoughts on the person being an idiot. Of course and naturally, if she'd had anything to do with it, it must've been a perfectly reasonable decision only brought about by the greatest of need.
"K, now that that's outta the way, who did I send back?" she asked aloud, trying to approach this new problem from a strategical direction. "Felt like a human, which means... What does it mean?" After careful deliberation, she arrived at a conclusion. "Oh yeah! It means that that person's probably in the Universe! Which sector though? Hm... Such a tough choice. Okay, Vesper, you need to decide which sector of the inhabited areas of the Universe is most likely to contain the idiot time traveler!" she told herself, little fires lighting in her eyes. "Here we go! Einnie, Meinnie, Minny, Moe..."
"Hello?" Naruto shouted, inching closer to the shadowy form. He carefully drew on a sliver more of the youki, causing the handheld flame to gradually increase in size. He was by now right in front of the cage, and could see the outline of what was definitely the fox at the edge of the circle of illumination. He was worried about why she didn't appear to be moving, though.
"Fluffy! Answer me!" he screamed, summoning up enough power to cause the illusionary fire to flare up tremendously, revealing completely the prone vixen.
Naruto was at first confused by how she was laying, curled up into a ball with her paws tucked under her belly and her tails wrapped around her, until he noticed the slight rise and fall of her chest, and the faint sound of snoring.
As suddenly as a bolt out of the blue, the pieces all fell into place. She was sleeping! But how? And why? Naruto for the life of him couldn't remember a time when he'd ever seen the demon fox sleeping. A distant memory tugged at his consciousness, though. Hadn't her youki felt just as far away in the real world before he graduated?
Thinking back, Naruto could now recall that he actually hadn't even so much as brushed against a foreign power until the night of his graduation, and even then he only just barely scrapped the youki. Also, since then, his awareness of the power held within him and gradually increased, until finally it was almost as if she was constantly in the same room as him.
After pondering for a bit, and vigorously sorting through his memories, he realized that both the seal and their power must have reset to how they were sometime before he graduated. Naruto added that conundrum to the list of the many things he would ask Stella when she eventually woke up.
"That one!" Vesper shouted, pointing at a holographic map that had appeared out of nowhere. Huh, it looked like the sector she'd chosen was the second least populated, and extremely low on any form of humanoid life, let alone actual humans. In fact, there was only one planet in the entire sector that was inhabited by human life. "This is going to be easy!" she exclaimed, settling down to skim through the people. Seeing as how the life form was a young male, and from the looks of things he was also some kind of fighter. Probably a ninja, mage, wizard, sorcerer, druid, priest, monk, cleric, maybe a paladin, or one of those smaller groups that keep on popping up. Which, all told, narrowed her search down to about a sixth of the population.
'Let's go!' she thought, actually not thinking aloud for once.
After about an hour of their time searching, and about five minutes of our time, she found who she was looking for. Nodding to herself she stood and opened the portal into the Highway.
The Highway was the only dimension that connected to every other dimension (excluding the occasional hidden dimension), and one of the only non private dimensions that was officially caught in between moments. There were several dimensions that had a tendency to vary how long each of their seconds was in comparison to ours, and would every now and then get caught in between seconds for an undeterminable amount of time. The Highway actually wasn't a material world, and instead was an enormous mindscape. It somehow encompasses the minds of every being in every dimension, and actually allowed for the transference of matter.
Vesper entered the void-like Highway, noting that, luckily for her, it was very busy at the moment, which meant that the chances of anyone actually noticing her were slim to none. After traveling for an infinite amount of time, she arrived in the area of the Highway that overlapped the Universe. It took her almost no time at all to find the proper residence, located in a solar system on the opposite side of the Universe from our own humble planet.
Stepping into the shadows of the run down apartment, she heard the voice of a young boy call out in confusion, and decided to make herself known.
"What in all the Hells is going on here?" Naruto asked the empty apartment room confusedly.
"Maybe you could tell me that," came the voice of a girl in her late teens. She was wearing jeans and a tight tee shirt. An about 6 inch strip of her stomach was exposed. She had watches all over her person. A few examples are the watch earrings, the watch bracelets, the watch necklace, the watch buttons, the watch barrettes, and many more other watch decorations. The watches varied in design, and some of them were alternate time pieces, such as hourglasses and sundials.
Okay, maybe the apartment wasn't as empty as we'd first thought.
"What! Who's there?"
Vesper strode out of the shadows, her bearing hinting at someone who knew who they were and what they planned to do with their life. "I am Vesper! Granddaughter of Time!"
Naruto blinked, a lil' bit confused. "Wait, so you're a demigod?" he asked.
"Duh! Who else would I be, Elvis?" she asked sarcastically, managing to lose the almost regal look she'd held just a few seconds earlier. Naruto only looked more confused. "Anyways, who're you?"
"Me? I'm Uzumaki Naruto!" he stated, regaining his bearing. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "Jinchuuriki to the Kyuubi no Kitsune and the Crown Princess of demon foxes. I'm also a shinobi of Konohagakure, one of the five great Shinobi Nations!"
Vesper blinked and tilted her head to the side when she heard who he was Jinchuuriki to. "Thought there was something familiar 'bout you! You're Stella's Jin!"
"You know her?"
"Yup! Man, I feel sorry for you! She's going to be in a bitchy mood when she wakes up!"
"Yah. I've already lived through her waking up once, you know."
"Oh, yeah, forgot. Whoops."
"Anyways, what the hell's going on here?"
"I guessing that my future self and Stella's future self conspired to send you back in time. The only reason I can think of as to why she'd do that is that something went wrong and her enemies got too powerful."
"Oh. Okay. So I'm supposed to fix what went wrong?" He wasn't too surprised about the whole time travel thing. Wierder things had happened.
"No dip, Sherlock. Oh, here," she said, tossing Naruto a circular pendant designed to look like a modern day clock, except the usual numbers were replaced by Roman numerals. The hour hand was stylized to look like an hour glass, although the minute hand was normal except for being made out of some type of gemstone, the facets of which showed off a plethora of colors, ranging from red all the way to violet, situated at the other side of the spectrum. The face of the clock showed a sun, lingering on the edge of the horizon. Naruto guessed that it was rising, seeing as how on the traditional compass rose the East is on the right, and that the sun was currently on the right side. Clouds floated lazily across the picture, capturing the suns rays. "It'll tell any idiot with half a brain and anything resembling connections that you have my favor." She then glanced at one of the many watches about her person, this one being situated on a golden bracelet on her right arm. "FUCK!! I've been away to long! Grandfather's going to kill me! Bye, Naruto! I gotta go now! Hopefully no one noticed I was gone!" Naruto watched in amusement as she had a meltdown, and he heard her voice reverberating as she entered the Highway. "Man! I'm going to be in SOOOO much trouble!"
"Wow. For a demigod, she acts a lot like... the closest comparison's Ino, I think." Naruto involuntarily shivered at the thought that such a powerful being had such a personality as Ino's. Scary!
Having failed to find any indication of his status as a ninja, and having noted that his calendar said he hadn't graduated yet (although he probably couldn't trust that thing), he set off for the academy with his goggles pocketed. He didn't want to look like a complete and utter moron if it was in fact after his graduation.
Along the way he noticed that neither Kiba nor Choji were wearing their headbands. The date was confirmed when he saw Sakura with her usual red ribbon holding her hair back, versus the headband that she'd used afterwards. Naruto then tied his goggles in their proper place around his forehead and followed Choji into the academy.
"Kiba?" Iruka called out.
"Here."
"Choji?"
"Here."
"Naruto?"
"Here," Naruto replied. Iruka blinked and looked at him. Apparently his teacher hadn't expected him to be in class that day.
"Alright, now we can begin today's lesson," Iruka said, ignoring the abnormal occurrence of Naruto actually attending class. "Tomorrow all of you will be taking the graduation test. I can't tell you just yet what it's on, but be prepared. When you do graduate and become shinobi, you'll perform various missions to help bring in revenue for our village. As genin you'll only be doing D missions and occasionally C missions. You'll be able to do higher level missions after you pass the chunin exams. They are held twice every year and consist of ninja from many different villages. Any questions?"
"Yeah," Naruto said, "When will we be able to take the chunin exams?"
"The minimal requirement is 8 missions of any rank. Past that it's up to your teacher." Iruka was relieved that Naruto had actually asked an intelligent question rather than babbled out some idiocy or another. "Anyone else have a question?"
"Are the chunin exams dangerous?" random non important person #986 asked.
Iruka sighed. "Depends on the protector. But usually they are indeed life threatening."
Over half the class gulped nervously. Life threatening? No way were they taking the exams! Naruto mentally groaned in frustration. How could they expect to become ninja when they couldn't handle a bit of risk?
"Naturally, as ninja, unless you do D missions all of your life you'll run into several instances where your life will be in danger, and the greater your rank the more the likelihood of running into a life threatening situation increases," Iruka told the class.
Most of the class at that point swore off of any missions higher than D-rank. Pansies.
"If none of you have any more questions, we'll go ahead and have a test on the three basic ninja techniques: Henge no Jutsu, Bunshin no Jutsu, and Kawarimi no Jutsu."
"Hai," was the general reply from the class. Naruto knew that he still couldn't use a regular bunshin, although he had been able to master Henge and was fairly successful at kawarimi.
They lined up for the Henge test first. Naruto was close to the middle. Everyone in front of him transformed perfectly. 'I wonder whether I should transform correctly or try to keep up the visage of being a hyperactive idiot,' Naruto wondered. What
arguments he had with himself as to what course of action he should take we will never know, but we can deduct that his mental wanderings lead him to believe that not acting like a total moron would be best, so that his teammates wouldn't suspect too much when he started acting like he knew what to do, because he chose to transform correctly into Iruka.
"Okay, next!" his sensei called out, secretly relieved that Naruto hadn't done something stupid and inappropriate.
After they had finished the transformation test, and run though both the bunshin and kawarimi tests, Naruto failing at the bunshin test, of course, the students were dismissed and allowed to go home.
Naruto walked home dejectedly. He'd forgotten that since he hadn't painted the monument, Iruka probably wasn't going to buy him any ramen. He hurried past the slumped over shapes of homeless drunks, thankful that at the least he wasn't them. After taking a few shortcuts through the many twisting alleyways in the poor section of Konoha, he arrived at the door of his dingy two room apartment.
Being careful not to pull the half rotten door off of its hinges, Naruto stepped into the 'living room'. In reality the living room was only a section of a larger room, separated from the bedroom by a screen. The living room consisted of the wide windowsill, which was large enough to negate the need for a table, and several cushions, blankets, and rugs that he'd scavenged over the years from various places. All of them were worn, with very little of their original color or design apparent. The bedroom occupied the third of the room opposite the outside wall and was blocked from the rest of the room by a foldout paper screen which had several rips and tears along it. The only furniture in the bedroom was a couch which Naruto used in place of a bed and a trunk that served as both a bedside table and a closet/dresser. The couch also had numerous tears and stains along it, and the trunk had obviously seen better days.
Naruto knew that if he entered the other room he'd find himself in the extremely small kitchen area. It was about the size of a large bathroom and consisted of a handful of small cabinets, a rusty sink, a fridge, and a small stove. A table and two chairs sat in the middle of the room. Naruto had only been able to get the table because no two of its legs were of equal length, causing him to have to stuff old clothes under the shorter legs to prevent it from toppling. One of the chairs was a weathered foldable that he'd found in a dumpster once. The other was actually a stool with the padding leaking out from the seams. There was another window in the kitchen, situated right over the crates Naruto used for weapon storage.
Naruto sighed and sat down on a particularly large cushion, contemplating what to do next. He wasn't planning on eating dinner, seeing as how he had limited food and wasn't going to be spending much energy for the rest of the day. Naruto knew that he wouldn't be able to pass the graduation test because of the requirement of being able to create a clone, and anyways he was hoping for another peek at the scroll and to be able to stop Mizuki. So that was taken care of. Now, all he needed to figure out was how to save the Sandaime Hokage, Haku, Zabuza, everyone that he'd ever helped, and also how to prevent Sasuke from leaving, all without revealing he was from the future or screwing things up even more. His head hurt just thinking about it.
'Most of that stuff I can worry about later when it's more urgent and I can know the situation at that moment,' he reasoned. Now all he needed to figure out was what he was going to do about the whole scroll fiasco. 'I wanna learn as much from the scroll as possible. I should probably use shadow clones to do that, but then again explaining that would be awkward if I got caught.' After carefully thinking out every possibility (which to Naruto means thinking that something might go wrong and then wondering what to do about it for a net total of half a second), Naruto decided to just go ahead and use shadow clones and if anything did go wrong to just wing it.
Having decided on his course of action Naruto took a scroll from his secret hiding place under the floor and started reading through it. He actually had a secret hiding place in the event of a couple of jackass villagers deciding to trash his apartment. Which, sadly enough, happened quite often, although not as much as it used to.
Naruto arrived at the Academy on the day of the graduation test only a minute or two late. He pretended to freak out when Iruka announced that the test would be on the Bunshin no Jutsu. When it came to be his turn to clone himself, he acted seriously and gathered chakra. Naturally, the chakra flared out of control he ended up with only one busted clone. He pretended to look hopeful when Mizuki tried to 'convince' Iruka to let him pass anyways, and acted sad when Iruka said no.
After everyone had finished testing, Naruto went out to sit dejectedly on the usual swing. He followed Mizuki when the chunin told him to come with him, and sat down glumly on the rooftop.
"You know, Iruka's only so stern because he wants you to grow up strong," Mizuki told Naruto when the blonde complained about how strict his teacher was.
"Yeah, I know, but I really wanted to pass!"
"Well," Mizuki sighed, clearly exaggerating, "I guess I'll have to tell you then."
"Huh? Tell me what?" Naruto asked, looking at Mizuki inquisitively.
"It's a secret, so you can't tell anyone I told you," Mizuki cautioned. Naruto nodded excitedly. "You see, there's this scroll..."
Naruto stealthily crept towards the Hokage Tower in the cover of the night. To this day he still wondered why no ANBU had noticed him. Dashing in through a conveniently open window, Naruto padded on cat's feet towards the scroll room. All his stealth was to no avail, though.
"Naruto, what in the world are you doing here?" the Hokage's voice came all of a sudden from behind Naruto.
"Uh... Uh... Orioke no Jutsu!" Naruto called out, not really knowing any other way to get the old man off of his back without harming him. The perverted old Hokage fainted from loss of blood due to a massive nosebleed, just like in the original timeline.
After shaking his head at how the great Sandaime Hokage could be beaten by such a cheap trick, Naruto finished his trek to the scroll room and, securing the large roll of paper to his back, high tailed it out of yet another conveniently open window.
That settled it. First thing he was going to do as Hokage, even before he fixed the whole Hyuuga clan mess, was going to be to get some damn security around here!
"Iruka! Open up!" Mizuki called, pounding on his fellow chunin's door.
"Huh? What is it, Mizuki?" Iruka asked, opening the door to his apartment.
"You won't believe what Naruto did this time! He stole the Forbidden Scroll!"
"WHAT!?"
"Hokage-sama! Naruto's gone too far this time!" random non important person #345 called out.
"Man, we need to find him before it's too late!" his buddy, random non important person #528
"Everybody settle down!" the old man interrupted them. "We will search for Naruto in a calm and orderly fashion. NO, and I mean NO unauthorized actions at all. Whoever finds Naruto will bring him back here, where I will explain to him the severity of his actions and make sure that he is properly punished. None of you are to take any negative or violent actions towards him. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes Hokage-sama," the gathered crowd grumbled in unison. They'd been hoping to at the least be able to beat the kid. Ah, well, maybe they could convince the Hokage to give the demon brat the death penalty. With that cheery thought in mind they set off to find the missing fox container.
"Naruto! What do you think you're doing?" Iruka asked, having finally located the kid. Naruto was sitting on the ground in front of an old shack, the scroll open before him. When he heard Iruka he closed the scroll and stood up.
"Heh," Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, "Man, you found me fast! I only had enough time to learn one jutsu!"
'He was training this whole time?' Iruka wondered. 'I can tell he's been working hard. He's all tired out.'
"Now I'm going to show you the jutsu I learned! And then you'll let me pass and become a ninja, right?"
"What gave you that idea?" Iruka asked, puzzled.
"Mizuki-sensei told me! He said that if I learned a technique from this scroll I'd be able to pass automatically! He told me where to find the scroll, and all about this training place, too!"
'Mizuki?' Iruka thought. Shifting his focus to the corners of his eyes, he saw a flicker of movement. "Get down!" he yelled, pushing Naruto out f the way of the barrage of kunai that came shooting out of the forest.
"Give me the scroll Naruto," Mizuki commanded.
"Huh? What's going on here?" Naruto asked, faking confusion perfectly.
"Mizuki tricked you and lied to you! He only wants the scroll for his own selfish gains!" Iruka told Naruto, still shouting. "Whatever you do, don't let him get his hands on that scroll!"
"HA! Me, lying to him? I'll tell you who's lying to him!" Mizuki exclaimed. "They've all been lying to you, for your whole life!"
"What do you mean?" Naruto asked, now faking fear.
"No, Mizuki! Don't tell him!" Iruka shouted.
"Even now he's trying to hide the truth from you. He's just like everyone else, telling you falsehood after falsehood, ever since the decree made twelve years ago!" Mizuki exclaimed.
"What decree?" Naruto asked, visibly shaking.
"STOP MIZUKI!!" Iruka screamed.
"The decree that only you can't know about! It states that no one can tell you that twelve years ago, instead of killing the fox, the Yondaime Hokage sealed it into you! You are the Kyuubi no Kitsune!" Mizuki stated triumphantly.
Naruto faked shock. "Wh-what?" he asked, eyes wide.
"Prepare to die, demon!" Mizuki shouted, spinning the large shuriken before throwing it at the prone Jinchuuriki.
"No!" Iruka shouted, preparing himself to see the spinning blade impale itself in his student. Suddenly, the blonde dodged, rolling to the side, before regaining his feet and dashing away.
"I'll deal with you later, Mizuki snarled at Iruka, bounding after Naruto. Iruka had been hit in many more places than in the original timeline, and was having a hard time moving, but he chased after Mizuki nonetheless.
The Hokage watched concerned as what appeared to be Naruto ran blindly through the trees, before being caught up to by someone who appeared to be Iruka. "Naruto! Mizuki's trying to kill you! Give me the scroll!"
Naruto, instead of responding, merely rammed into the chunin, sending him flying. He settled back against the bark of a tree with a grunt, the scroll held protectively in his arms. "How'd you know?" the Iruka-look-alike asked, before being surrounded by a cloud of smoke revealing Mizuki. "That I wasn't Iruka?"
The Naruto-look-alike grinned. "Because I'm Iruka," he replied, also being surrounded by smoke, revealing Iruka with a log in his arms.
"Heh. Why bother? You saw the look in his eyes. He's a demon!" Mizuki said, "He'll take the scroll for himself, and use its power to exact revenge on this village. After all, that's a demon's nature."
"You're right," Iruka said. While this dialogue was going on, Naruto was creeping into a position from which he could successfully attack Mizuki. "That is what a demon would do. But that's not what Naruto would do. He messes up sometimes, and everyone is hard on him, but he works hard and has a large heart. He isn't the Kyuubi. He's Uzumaki Naruto, number one loudmouth of Konoha, and more importantly, my student!"
Mizuki scowled at Iruka's speech. "I'd been wanting to save you for later, but now I'm going to finish you off first!" he shouted, charging Iruka. Mid charge Naruto barreled into him, though, sending Mizuki flying backwards.
"Don't you dare lay a hand on my sensei!" Naruto growled. "If you do, I'll kill you!"
"Oh, yeah? I could take a brat like you out with one blow!" Mizuki boasted.
"Bring it on, bastard! I'll return the pain a thousand times over!" Naruto snarled, slipping into the way too familiar pose.
"Give me your best shot, demon!"
"Taijuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Naruto shouted. He was in the danger zone on chakra levels, though, so pulling off such a move should have been suicidal. But, sensing the extreme danger her host was in, Stella stirred, and Naruto, in his frantic scrabbling for even a sliver of youkai, managed to latch onto and drag out enough of the demonic energy to create 999 clones, making for a total of a thousand of him, and have each one fully energized. Mizuki back pedaled when he saw all the Narutos suddenly appear, and ended up tripping over a tree root, a look of panic on his face. "Well, what are you waiting for? Weren't you going to wipe me out with one blow?" One of the Narutos asked. "If you're not coming to us, then we'll bring the fun to you!" another exclaimed.
As if on cue, all of the Narutos rushed forwards, pummeling Mizuki from all sides. He was sure to deal at the least one fatal blow to Mizuki, although he disguised all blows that stood a chance of killing as complete accidents. Mizuki was still breathing when Naruto finished, although he'd be dead within a day. He had extreme internal bleeding, and several vital organs were damaged beyond human repair, unless of course someone almost as high a level as Tsunade was in the area.
"Oops, guess I went a bit overboard," Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head.
Iruka grinned. "Hey Naruto, come over her. I have something I want to give to you."
A few minutes later, Iruka told Naruto he could open his eyes. Naruto immediately saw that Iruka was holding his goggles, and had no headband on. "I was thinking that we could go out to get some ramen in order to celebrate your graduation," Iruka said. Naruto then cheered and tackled his sensei to the ground, hugging him.
Sarutobi stepped out of his tower and addressed the concerned crowd that had gathered, unable to locate Naruto. "Don't worry. Naruto has been found. He'll be returning with the scroll shortly."
Various members of the crowd grumbled, but they all soon split up to go their own ways. Sarutobi sighed and turned to walk all the way up the stairs and back into his office. He was really getting to old for this.
Naruto sat cross legged on one of the larger cushions in his living room. He was currently trying to contact Stella, having sensed that she'd stirred, but it was all to no avail.
'God damn it,' he thought, unable to locate for than a shred of her power. Still, it was progress. He hadn't even been able to access this much when he first entered the current time line. And, of course, he could always use the jutsu he'd learned from the scroll to wake her up, although that naturally came with risks.
He sighed and stood up. He needed to get ready for school. Today was the day they'd be put into squads, and he didn't particularly want to be late. Knowing the fangirls they'd take the seat next to Sasuke as soon as possible. He really needed to hurry.
With the thought of the limited seating right next to the raven haired beauty in his mind, he quickly got dressed and went to go eat some food.
"Okay, let's see what we've got," he said out loud. "Cup ramen, spoiled milk, glob of green goop, cup ramen, dead rat, live roaches, cup ramen, and guess what... more cup ramen!" He sighed audibly, grabbing one of the many containers of store brought ramen, deciding to eat it cold instead of waiting for it to finish microwaving. 'Tastes 'bout the same either way.Downright disgusting.' Of course he still loved the kind of ramen made in restaurants, but the kind you put in the microwave was so chock full of preservatives and artificial flavoring that it made him want to barf.
After having gobbled down the extra small sized thing of ramen, he grabbed his headband and headed out the door, keeping his had down as he ran through the poor section of town. He decided to take a shortcut through the red light district, instead of giving the drunken shinobi and bitchy whores a wide berth like he normally would.
Dashing past the gambling houses, bars, and brothels as fast as he could, Naruto hurried to the Academy. He arrived within a minute, and slipped inside.
He discovered that he had come in after the vast majority of the class, and that Ino and Sakura were the only two to not have arrived yet. He walked over and sat a seat away from Sasuke, not wanting to draw attention to himself by sitting immediately next to the Uchiha.
Five seconds later the two bitchiest kunoichis that would manage to graduate in that year and three years previous entered the room. "I arrived first, Ino-pig!" Sakura screeched.
"No, I did, forehead-girl," Ino screeched back. The two of them soon stopped arguing over who was first, and shifted their attention to who got to sit next to their precious Sasuke-kun. Which, of course, raised a huge debate among the fangirls.
"Move over, moron!" Sakura shouted at Naruto, pushing him to the floor. "I get to sit next to Sasuke!"
Naruto pretended to be very, very annoyed by all of this. And he was. He wanted those bitchy fangirls away from his Sasuke-kun NOW!!
In the Hokage's office, the various jounin watched the fangirls argue over who got to sit next to Sasuke as Naruto got more and more annoyed. Any of them who dwelled on the matter (one or two at the most) assumed that Naruto was annoyed because Sasuke was getting the attention of almost all of the girls. "So, that's Uchiha Sasuke?" one of them asked, "The number one rookie of the year?"
Kakashi, unlike most of the jounin, wasn't thinking about Sasuke. His eyes were fixed upon the blonde demon host. 'Uzumaki Naruto, eh?' he thought, comparing the image of Naruto to the mental picture he'd already built up.
Back in the classroom, Naruto had had enough of the fangirls' bickering. Suddenly, he jumped on the desk in front of Sasuke and started glaring at the boy. "Naruto! Stop glaring at Sasuke!" Sakura shouted. This time around Naruto didn't even pay a lick of attention to her, and instead continued glaring at Sasuke, actually managing to match the infamous Uchiha Glare full force, waiting for random non important person #762 to push him into his crush.
A few seconds later, Naruto got what he was wishing for, and was pushing into Sasuke, their lips meeting. Naruto faked surprise.
'I wanted to be the one to get Sasuke's first kiss!' Inner Sakura raged. The other fangirls were pretty much thinking the same thing.
Naruto knew that the fangirls would beat him up pretty bad, but he thought it was worth it to be able to kiss Sasuke. Anyways, it was fun seeing them all so pissed off.
Speaking of... he could now sense extreme killer intent radiating off of the would-be brides of Sasuke. He gulped and turned his head, and started stuttering out that it was an accident. He still got beat up pretty bad anyways.
Iruka didn't manage to arrive until after the fangirls had turned Naruto's face into the equivalent of a tortured bowl of mashed potatoes. He apparently didn't even notice Naruto's state, and started explaining the whole teams of three thing. Everyone was focused on Iruka during this, and luckily nobody noticed that all the bruises, scrapes, and cuts covering Naruto's face magically disappeared.
Iruka droned off the first six team name finally arriving at Team 7. "Next, Team 7. Uzumaki Naruto," at this point Naruto looked up from his sulking, listening intently. "Haruno Sakura," at this point Sakura put her head down and groaned, while Naruto looked slightly miffed. His reaction surprised several jounin and Iruka, but they all figure his unenthusiastic reaction was because of the violent beating she'd just given him. Speaking of... their train of thought was interrupted at this point by Iruka called out Sasuke's name, causing Sakura to cheer, and Naruto and all of Sasuke's other fangirls to hang their heads.
Iruka finished up calling out the names without further major disturbance, and told the genin to wait for their jounin senseis to come pick them up. At that point Iruka high tailed it, not wanting to be stuck in a room with a bunch of excitable kids longer than he had to.
Hours passed, and one by one all of the teams were picked up by their jounin senseis, until only Teams 7 and 8 remained. The six remaining genin were all sitting off in a separate section. Kiba and Shino were sitting in random rows, both keeping their distance from the others. Hinata was huddled on the top row, trying not to be noticed. Sasuke was in the same seat he'd been in earlier, ignoring Sakura's blatant advances. Naruto had gotten up out of his seat, and was climbing towards the back row.
To the surprise of Team 8 (Sakura was too busy being a rapid fangirl and Sasuke was too busy being an emo prick to notice their surroundings) he sat down right next to Hinata. Shino just shrugged and went back to watching the door, while Kiba laughed until he couldn't breathe at how much Hinata was blushing. After watching the two and not seeing anything happening, he shifted his attention to the much more amusing show of Rabid Useless Fangirl vs. Egocentric Emo Avenger, Round 2.
Noticing that no one was paying attention to them, Naruto whispered to Hinata, "Hey, the last test we took wasn't the last one. There's another one to cut down on the number of genin who graduate each year coming right up."
"Wh-why are y-you t-telling m-me th-this?" she whispered back, having invented a whole new shade of red, and trying hard not to faint because Naruto was talking to her.
"I think that you have a good chance of passing, and I don't want you to be taken by surprise," he replied. Hinata almost did faint when Naruto complimented her, but reminded herself that doing such would make her look weaker than she already did.
"Th-thanks," she stammered.
Naruto plastered on his fox grin. "Don't be hard on yourself just because you can't master the Jyuuken, Hinata. It's really not your fighting style anyways. You should try to learn something that incorporates for graceful moves," he told her. "Or better yet, make up your own style!" Naruto was being sure to keep his voice down, and he'd also checked with a minute chakra web that the Sandaime Hokage was no longer watching the events of the classroom.
"Al-alright," she stammered out. She was actually determined to take his advice to heart.
"If you ever need any help, find me. Alright?" Naruto asked. Hinata was saved from having to reply, and very possibly from fainting, by the arrival of Yuuhi Kurenai. She stammered out a faint 'goodbye', and walked over to where her jounin sensei was standing. Naruto watched her go with amusement in his eyes. Although the kind, help everyone side of him scolded Naruto for embarrassing Hinata like that, the sadistic side of him actually enjoyed watching her almost have a heart attack because her hero was actually talking to her. Luckily for the inhabitants of Konoha the sadistic side of him was very small and most of the time didn't hold much weight.
Minutes dragged into hours as Team 7 waited for their tardy sensei. Naruto, anticipating Kakashi's lateness, had brought along a scroll on politics among the human nations, both shinobi orientated and non shinobi orientated. Sasuke sat where he'd sat since arriving there that morning, wearing the exact same expression and in the exact same position he'd been in when Naruto entered the classroom.
Sakura had yet to get bored with obsessing over Sasuke, and her endless tirade continued.
Half an hour later, Naruto started fidgeting more than he had been, extremely bored with the scroll. Deciding that it must be around Kakashi's arrival time, he walked over to the door and, snickering, settled an eraser in between the wall and the sliding door.
"Naruto! Don't do something so immature! We'll get in trouble!" Sakura scolded him.
"Heh, he deserves it, being late like this!" Naruto said, getting down off of the stool. Mere seconds later Kakashi walked in, the eraser dropping onto his head.
'I can't believe he fell for that,' Sasuke thought.
"HAHAHA!! You fell for it, sensei!" Naruto shouted.
"Hm, my first impression of you guys is... I hate you," Kakashi said. Sasuke and Sakura sweat dropped at that point.
Naruto just shrugged and said, "Well, at the least you have the decency to be honest."
Kakashi briefly recalled that he'd probably felt hatred from the villagers all of his life, and briefly felt sorry for the blonde, before forgetting the whole issue, the memory being filed away as unimportant. "Meet me on the roof in five minutes."
'Let's see... That means that we have about 5 hours before we even need to leave this room!' Naruto thought. He still followed his two teammates to the roof, though, not wishing to get in trouble.
"Alright, why don't you introduce yourselves?" Kakashi asked once they were all seated.
"What do you mean?" Sakura asked.
"What you like, hate, your hobbies, and your dream. Also tell your name," Kakashi replied.
"Um, sensei, why don't you go first?" Sakura asked.
"Alright... My name is Hatake Kakashi. I have no intention of telling you my like and dislikes. My dream is... I have few hobbies," he drawled.
"That wasn't very useful," Sakura whispered to her teammates, who were, coincidentally, completely ignoring her, "I mean all we learned is his name."
"Okay, you on the left, with the pink hair, go first," Kakashi said.
"My name is Haruno Sakura!" she declared. "I like... The person I like -insert glance at Sasuke and blush- My hobby is -insert another glance at Sasuke and a stupid giggle- My dream is to -insert glance at Sasuke and fangirlish squeal-"
"Well, what do you hate?" Kakashi asked.
"Naruto!" she declared.
'Girls her age must be more interested in boys that ninja training,' Kakashi thought, while Naruto was thinking something along the lines of, 'God damn it! I forgot how utterly useless she was!', or something like that. "Alright, you in the middle."
"My name is Uchiha Sasuke," he said in a dull monotone. "I don't like many things, and I hate a lot of things. I don't have any hobbies. What I have is not a dream, for I will make it a reality. My ambition is the resurrection of my clan... and to kill a certain man."
'You're not anywhere near Itachi's level, Sasuke. You do know that?' Naruto thought.
'Just as I suspected,' Kakashi thought.
Now let's see what was running through the pea sized brain of our favorite useless fangirl. 'Sasuke-kun's so cool!' -Sigh-. Remind me again how the hell she became a ninja.
"You on the left!"
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto!" Uzumaki Naruto exclaimed. "I like playing pranks, learning new jutsu, training to get stronger, and learning anything even remotely relevant to the current day. I dislike people who discriminate against others or judge them without knowing the full story first. I also dislike people who
can't see past their own noses and are either obsessed with themselves or with someone else. I really hate snakes and spiders. My hobbies are learning new jutsu and training. I have a dream, a goal, and an ambition, although I only feel like telling you my goal, which is to become the most powerful ninja ever!" Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, "And to become the greatest of the Hokages!" Over the years he'd learned that nations rose and fell, and that it was possible that, while he may become a great leader, that he'd never be accepted as Hokage.
Interesting Kakashi thought. "Well, would you mind telling us your dream and your ambition?"
"Yes, I would mind," Naruto replied coldly, "They are my business. Once I feel that I can trust you, I might tell you. Until then feel free to keep on guessing." Sakura snorted at how idiotic Naruto's statement was, while Sasuke just ignored the whole thing, although he was intrigued by the information that the blonde had an ambition. The way that he'd worded it, especially with Sasuke's introduction just a short while before, suggested the ambition being something that took precedence over both the dream and the goal, and the fact that he'd denied telling them it suggested a closely guarded secret. Kakashi's eyes narrowed at the suggestion that the blonde didn't trust his own team, before reminding himself that the boy's life hadn't exactly been the kind that would inspire automatic trust. He too was intrigued by Naruto's wording. The word dream suggested something that he wished would happen, but thought was very unlikely or had slim chances and so therefore he wouldn't dedicate himself towards its fulfillment until after he'd accomplished both his goal and his ambition. He arrived at the same conclusion about the ambition that Sasuke had.
"Listen up! Tomorrow we'll have our first mission," Kakashi told them.
"What kind of mission Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked.
"Survival training," he replied.
"Huh? But, Kakashi-sensei, we already had survival training in the Academy!" Sakura complained.
"This isn't normal survival training. The purpose of this is to weed out the weaker shinobi. Only three teams each year are allowed to pass, so that only the stronger shinobi actually make it into the ranks," Kakashi told them.
"B-but!" Sakura complained.
"No buts. Meet me at training ground 7 tomorrow morning at 5. Oh, yeah, don't eat breakfast. You might puke," Kakashi warned. Naruto didn't hear him though, because he was busy trying to figure out what shapes the clouds were in. He didn't notice that the meeting was dismissed until the other three had already left. He then scrambled to his feet and set off in the direction of one of the most deserted training grounds, in order to try and wake up Stella.
Naruto sat down in the middle of the most remote training ground in all of Konoha. Naruto was actually the only one who had come here in the past ten years. Here was where he slept when the villagers were being particularly bastardish and for the week surrounding his birthday.
He gathered as much chakra as he safely could, and as much youkai as he could access while calm and having Stella asleep, and started firing off a series of seals, some of them ones that hadn't been used in centuries. He finished the hand signs about 10 minutes later, and, slashing his palms open with a kunai, slammed his hands to the ground. The blood poured out into a red pool around his feet, the wounds refusing to even begin to heal as a side effect of the jutsu. Blue chakra laced thinly with red youkai picked up the blood and started spreading it in a pattern around him.
The main part of the seal consisted of Stella's clan symbol, the nine lines all joining a perfect circle that surrounded that emblem. Her clan symbol was an upside down pentagon, stylized to look like a fox's head, with nine lines spiraling out from behind it. The circle sat in the middle of a rectangle, its proportions that of the Golden Rectangle. Ancient runes were inscribed all throughout the design, forming twisting patterns. Hieroglyphics, run through with depictions of mythological creatures, also blanketed the area.
Concentrating as hard as he possibly could, Naruto started to chant in the language of the Ancients. He didn't understand what he was saying, and instead had memorized the verse he'd found written in the scroll. The seal started to glow a soft red color, all the shades of red shifting about within. The wind blew fiercely as the ritual continued, rivaling the winds of a hurricane. As suddenly as the gale had begun, it ceased, and the world was still and silent as Naruto collapsed, sinking into the very depths of his mind and soul.
Stella stirred. Something was tugging at her. She resisted, trying to return to the peaceful bliss of dreamless sleep. It didn't work. Whatever was calling her was too powerful to fight. She had to wake up and return to the world.
The great demon fox blinked and opened her eyes. She beheld a high ceiling, it and all the walls covered in leaking pipes. On the fourth wall were the steel bars of a jail or a cage. She shifted around and looked out.
The room before her was only slightly wider and taller than the cage door. It stretched back for a short distance, before hitting a wall with a single door in it. It was empty all except for a puny human child, who was just sitting there, staring up at her.
"Who dares interrupt my sleep?" she roared.
"I so dare!" the little blonde brat shouted back at her. Now that she looked closely at him, he resembled that blasted human who had had the nerve to seal her away.
"Come closer, brat," she snarled. Interesting that this boy didn't seem to be afraid of her. She'd just have to change that.
He just stared up at her. "Now, why should I do that? And, by the way, I have a name. It's Uzumaki Naruto!"
"Don't back talk me! You're nothing more than a pathetic human. If it wasn't for this cage, I'd rip you to shreds!"
"I beg to differ. I'm your Jinchuuriki, and thanks to that little seal there, I'm the one in control. Anyways, what's with the attitude?"
Stella was about to reply, but then she hesitated. Come to think of it, she couldn't really remember what had happened. Her mind felt fuzzy and the only thing she could perceive was that she was angry, and she wanted to kill something. But why? She shook her head, trying to get the cobwebs out of her brain.
"What's it to you, brat? And why the Hell did you wake me up?"
"Because I have something I need to do, and that's going to be hard to accomplish if you're being a complete and total bitch. I woke you up because at the moment we both have a few common enemies, and common goals, and because I need your help."
She narrowed her eyes. "What are you talking about?"
"Where's Kakashi-sensei and Naruto? They're late!" Sakura complained. It was currently four hours after their assigned meeting time, and so far only she and Sasuke had shown up.
About fifteen minutes later, Naruto came running up. Instead of his normal kill me orange jumpsuit, he was clad in black pant with orange stripes running down the outside. He also had a black turtleneck jacket on. Thin orange stripes ran horizontally across it. "Hey! Kakashi-sensei still isn't here yet?" he asked.
"Naruto-baka! Where were you? You're late!" Sakura fumed.
"Yo," Kakashi interrupted, poofing out of nowhere.
"You're late too! I can't believe you two! Both you and Naruto were four hours late!" she raged. Kakashi just shrugged.
"Hey, sensei, what's our test going to be?" Naruto asked, before Sakura could get any farther into her rant.
"The point of this test is to get one of these bells from me by noon," Kakashi said, holding up two shiny silver bells. "Whoever fails to retrieve a bell will be tied to one of those logs and won't be able to eat lunch, and will be sent back to the academy."
"Wait, then one of us is sure to fail!" Sakura complained.
"Yes, you're right," Kakashi said. "Doesn't matter. On three the test will start. One... Two... Three... GO!"
Both Sakura and Sasuke dashed off into the underbrush. Only Naruto remained in the open. "I'm going to get a bell from you and pass this stupid test!" Naruto exclaimed, and charged Kakashi.
Sasuke was watching the two fight, dwelling on how stupid Naruto was being, when he heard someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned his head to see... Naruto? Wait, wasn't Naruto fighting Kakashi?
Naruto put his finger over his lips in shushing motion. He then signaled Sasuke to follow him. The raven narrowed his eyes, but complied anyways.
When the two were a good distance away from Kakashi and Naruto, the blonde said, "I've got a plan, Sasuke, but it'll require us to work together."
"Hn. Why should I work with you, dobe? And anyways, how are you in two places at once?" Sasuke asked.
"Kage bunshin," Naruto replied, causing Sasuke to express disbelief. "I'll show you. Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" In a poof of smoke an exact replica of Naruto appeared. It was definetely real. "As to why you should work with me, why not? There're two bells, so we can both pass. Anyways, Kakashi-sensei's a jounin. No way one of us is going to be able to beat him. If we work together though, we might stand a chance. Also, I'll go Ahead and be the fall guy, so you don't have to take to many risks. I'll take most of the hits, and if we only get one bell you can have it."
Sasuke considered what Naruto said. The dobe did have a good point. "Alright. What do you have in mind?" he asked, planning on bailing if Naruto's plan was moronic in any way, shape, or form.
"Never let your opponent get behind you," Kakashi said, poofing behind the Naruto clone, forming what looked like a tiger seal. "Sennin Goroshi!"
The Naruto clone was then sent flying, and ended up landing in the water. Kakashi turned back to reading his little orange book. Unbeknownst to him, Naruto and Sasuke were currently putting their diabolical plan into action. Suddenly, fifteen clones of Naruto came shooting out of the water, and charged Kakashi.
'They're real!' thought Sakura. Really, wasn't that kind of… I don't know, obvious?
'I'd heard that he could create shadow clones,' Kakashi mused, before turning to the barrage of Narutos.
"Now!" Naruto whispered to Sasuke when their sensei was being pinned by the clone that had appeared behind him. Sasuke nodded and started going through the seals of the first fire jutsu he mastered, being careful not to make any sound. Then, holding the chakra, he crept up to Kakashi and released the ball of flame at him.
Kakashi, unable to move thanks to the clones pinning him, and having failed to prepare a counter attack thanks to the fact that he hadn't been expecting Naruto and Sasuke to work together, was hit full force. When the smoke cleared, none of the kage bunshins were left, and there wasn't hide or hair of Kakashi in sight. Sasuke's eyes widened, taking in this new information. Then, a hand shot up and pulled him into the ground. Apparently the Kakashi he'd attacked had been a shadow clone, too, and the real Kakashi had been hiding underground.
Sasuke cursed as he was yanked into the ground, buried up to his neck. He knew he shouldn't've trusted the dobe, let alone agreed to work with him!
'Now!' Sakura thought, remembering the cue that her blonde haired teammate had told her about. She, naturally, believed that the idea of the three of them working together was all Sasuke's idea, and seeing as how that was what Naruto had told her, it wasn't too outrageous.
(Flashback)
"Hey! Sakura-chan!" Naruto whispered, tapping his teammate on the shoulder. She spun around and asked him what he was doing. "Sorry, but Sasuke-teme told me..."
Upon hearing Sasuke's name, Sakura's ears perked up. What was he talking about? "Go on, what did Sasuke tell you?" she asked, while Inner Sakura shouted, "Cha! It was probably a declaration of love for me!"
"He said that the real purpose of this test is to see how well we work together, and that there are only two bells in order to drive a wedge between us, and make us work independently, but if we all work together, we will have a shot," he explained, still whispering.
"Naruto-baka, you do realize that one of us would still fail?" Sakura asked, while Inner Sakura shouted, "Sasuke-kun's so smart! Of course he figured out this test!"
Understanding dawned on Naruto's face, the expression that clearly said 'Oh, duh. Oops.' written on his face. "Don't worry Sakura-chan!" he exclaimed, "You can have my bell!" Sakura nodded. That way she and Sasuke-kun would be on the same team, without the idiotic Naruto-baka annoying her and ruining her love with Sasuke!
"Okay!" she whispered, "What's the plan?"
Naruto smirked inwardly as he explained her role in the plan. Hook, line, and sinker. He'd known that if she told her that Sasuke requested that she help, she'd do anything, while if he suggested it she would ignore him and he'd lose points for leaving her out.
(End Flashback)
Kakashi turned to the incoming bubblegum-haired kunoichi and sighed. He should've expected something like this from her. She was being a complete moron!
All three of the ones on the battlefield failed to notice Naruto sitting in the trees a little bit off. He was currently directed the actions of a young red fox using mental nudges and images, simple body language, sound, and scent languages not being able to convey complex enough information. His intention was that, in the confusion of things, Kakashi wouldn't notice the fox sneaking up to him. He was right. The fox went unnoticed up until when it had actually grabbed the bells in its mouth. It was able to do this because Kakashi was currently resting on his ankles, switching between lecturing Sasuke and poking Sakura to see if she was even still alive, let alone okay, after she'd fainted from the genjutsu he'd cast on her. In reality, she hadn't fainted, only pretended to, because she'd known about the likelihood of getting caught in a genjutsu and what to do from what Naruto had told her, and was tempted to jump up and hit her sensei as he poked her somewhere he really shouldn't have...
When Kakashi and Sasuke heard the jingle of the bells being disturbed, their attention was drawn to Kakashi's belt, where a guilty looking fox was standing on its hind legs, about to snap the string the bells were attached to. Before Kakashi could recover from his shock at such an unlikely event, it yanked the bells off of his belt and dashed off into the woods. Kakashi soon followed after it.
When he was sure that Kakashi was gone, Naruto jumped down to where his two teammates were, and started helping Sasuke out of the hole. Sakura then stopped faking and stood up. As soon as Sasuke had gotten up, the three heard the bell ring.
"Time's up!" Kakashi called out poofing in front of his team. He was slightly surprised that Sakura had woken up so fast and at Sasuke's speed in getting out of the hole, but he didn't show it.
Naruto fox-grinned and pulled out the two bells. "Looks like we passed, sensei!" he declared.
"You forgot something, Naruto. Only two of you can pass," Kakashi reminded the blonde. His grin only widened.
"Hey, Naruto, didn't you say that you'd give your bell to me?" Sakura asked, reminding Naruto of his promise.
"When'd he say that?" Sasuke asked, trying to figure out what the hell was happening. Sakura's involvement hadn't been in the original plan.
"After he told me about your plan, Sasuke-kun!" Sakura exclaimed. Sasuke was immensely confused by this, but he didn't show it.
"Heh, you're probably wondering what she'd talking about, teme," Naruto said. Now it was Sakura's turn to be confused. "I kind of told her that you came up with the plan, since I knew she wouldn't listen to anything I had to say, and that she'd jump at the chance to help you."
"Huh? What?" Sakura asked. But, hadn't Sasuke made the plan?
"He means I didn't make the plan, Sakura. It was his idea," Sasuke informed her, annoyance creeping into his tone. He should've been the one to figure out the plan, damn it! "I didn't even know that he was involving you. The plan he told me only involved him and me."
Kakashi's visible eye arched slightly. From the sounds of it, Naruto tricked his two teammates into working together, telling each of them what they wanted to hear in order to convince them to help. "What did he tell you, Sasuke?"
"He pointed out that since there were two bells, two of us could pass. The plan he told me had him being the fall guy in every way possible. He was intended to be the distraction for me to give me an edge over you, and he said that if we only got one bell he'd let me have it since it was his idea. I didn't know about how he'd planned for Kakashi to drag me into the ground or for Sakura to rush out, further distracting him while he pick his pocket," Sasuke said in a monotone.
"Well, it seems like Naruto managed to trick you both. Although, that still doesn't remedy the situation of there only being two bells," Kakashi said.
Naruto grinned. "But, Kakashi-sensei, wasn't the intention of all of this to test our ability to work as a team, despite the fact that one of us was sure to fail? Wasn't the whole two bells and three genin thing to divide our ranks and make us fight each other?" Kakashi's eye widened. How had the so-called dead last seen through his plan so efficiently? "Anyways, even if my assumptions are incorrect, I still know a way for all three of us to pass." His two teammates and one sensei were all confused for a second, before Naruto formed the ever familiar seal and called out. "Kage Koumoku no Jutsu!" causing a third bell to poof into existence in his hand. He then randomly mixed the three up out of sight, so that it was impossible to tell between them. He hen handed one to his slack-jawed female teammate and one to his scowling, cute male teammate.
"Where the hell did you learn that?" Kakashi asked. To say he was surprised would be an extreme understatement. He'd never even heard of that jutsu. The closest thing to it was the Kage Shuriken no Jutsu, which had quite different results. Which meant that either the blonde had learned an extremely little known technique, or that he created it himself.
"I made it up myself! It's a variation on the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. Instead of forming a clone of the user, it creates a clone of something the user's holding. I figured that if the principle of solid clones could be applied to living organisms and shuriken, why not to a whole assortment of items?" Naruto explained. Kakashi sighed. Apparently there was a lot more to this kid than meets the eye. It actually worried him. If the blonde was hiding such intelligence so artfully, and if he had been able to act well enough to fool his two teammates and one sensei so completely, then who knows what else he was hiding. Kakashi then resolved to keep a much closer eye on the boy.
"Alright, you three all pass! You seem to all understand the principle of working together in order to combine your strengths and therefore make yourselves much more powerful than you normally would be. Meet me on the bridge tomorrow at five for our first real mission!" So saying, Kakashi poofed away, heading to make his report at the Hokage's Tower.
Naruto turned to his two teammates and said, "If I were you two, I'd take this chance to sleep in. He's probably going to show up at the least three hours late again." Sasuke inwardly nodded. From what he'd seen their sensei was chronically tardy. Why not take advantage of that. Sakura, meanwhile, was thinking of how much of an idiot Naruto was. Of course they had to show up on time! The three then parted ways to go where ever it the hell they went when they had nothing to do with their time.
Naruto sighed and wandered off in order to figure out what effects the altered seal would have. One of the nasty side effects of the jutsu he'd used was that it changed the seal. The runes and hieroglyphics should've changed it into exactly what Naruto had intended, but he wasn't sure that he'd gotten everything correct and, anyways, no matter how troublesome figuring out the new seal would be, he was much better off safe than sorry.
It probably would help his nerves if he was fluent in the language the seal insturctions had been written in instead of having learned it passingly from Stella…
Japanese Translations:
SenninGoroshi-thousand years of death
Kage Koumoku no Jutsu-shadow item technique
Baka- stupid
Teme- rude form of you.Also can be used as a suffix. Commonly translated as bastard, jerk, you bastard, or you jerk
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Last Updated: 4/7/08
Ja ne!