Nariko

Chapter 7: Meeting the Naras

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Disclaimer: Blah, blah, blah, you know this already… blah, blah, blah…


"Troublesome!..." Shikamaru yelled as they fell down the mountain.

"What do I do?! What do I do?!" Nariko repeatedly said at the same time.

Stupid kit! You were supposed to dodge to your RIGHT, not off the cliff! Now focus your chakra to your legs NOW.

Nariko had no clue on what to do, but she figured that if she didn't try, they would die for sure. Quickly, she moved Shikamaru so she was holding him bridal style (And it was quite awkward too, especailly since he was taller). In only moments, they had crashed through the canopies of trees. She was afraid that the cracking noises she heard weren't the breaking tree branches but bones.

"You are so troublesome, know that?" Shikamaru yelled as splintered wood whizzed by, cutting both of them all over.

"Shut up pineapple head!" Nariko yelled back, "You better be praying that I can land on my feet!"

Since the layers of tree branches had slowed the two down quite a bit, Nariko was able to turn enough so her feet were facing down. The blonde landed on her feet, red chakra stopping the shockwave from the ungraceful impact, though not stopping the pain completely. As soon as the red glow disappeared, Nariko's legs shook and she toppled over.

'Oh Kami! We need to keep moving!' Nariko thought.

Who needs a God when an all powerful demon is inside you?

'That hurt… but it's better than dying.'

It sure as Hell is! Now get up kit, and run.

'I don't think I can.'

Do it now! If we die, I shall personally eat your soul.

She didn't really have a choice anyway. Nariko was sure that Makoto would come after them anyway.

"Shikamaru-kun, are you ok?" she asked.

"Troublesome girl, since when were we friends?"

Nariko so wanted to hit him right then.

"Let's see… We just jumped off the Hokage Mountain and are alive. Also, a trained shinobi is after us so yeah, I think that qualifies."

"We have to get moving Nariko-chan," he replied.

She nodded, and tried to stand. Of course, after falling what seemed like at least 1,000 feet and landing made it difficult.

"I can stand but, I'm not sure if I can carry you this time."

"Whatever, I should be fine. It's not like I fell off a cliff, wait, I did."

"Fine lazy, let the psycopath with an impacted jaw attack you."

Nariko started to slowly walk away when he called out to her.

"You seriously wouldn't leave me here, would you?" Shikamaru asked.

Her normally foxy grin assured him that the answer was 'no'. Turning back, Nariko went to pick up her friend.

"Is it just me, or are you heavier?"

His arm was slung over her shoulder again and the two began to walk away.

"We should just hide," Shikamaru suggested.

The blonde shook her head.

"No; we have too much blood on us so he'll find us maybe…"

"A maybe's better than the fact that he'll catch us no problem at this pace."

Stupid human; mere children cannot hide from a trained tracker Chunnin.

"Yeah but, he's a tracker Chunnin and will find us so we better keep moving."

Nariko kept going at her slow, painful pace, foot by foot.

"How'd you know he's a tracker?" Shikamaru asked.

"Uh… his skill level?" Nariko guessed.

He just sighed, knowing that she didn't actually know.

"Fine, then let's get out of here."

"Right! We'll get out of this, believe it!"

They had been going forward for a while now, and the crowds of the festival weren't far. If they could just get there…

'We're going too slow! How do I go fast?'

You're asking me?

The blonde mentally growled at the female demon's sarcasm.

'Tell me or he'll catch up and then we're going to say hi to Shinigami.'

Nariko shuddered at the menecing growl that came from the pit of her stomach. In other words; the fox was angry.

You've got guts kid.

'Well, I DO have a dark heart after all now, don't I?'

She had figured that using sarcasm was fine since not only was she right, but the demon couldn't do anything to her body.

Fine. Just focus your chakra to your legs and run. Don't they teach you these things at the academy? Pitiful humans can't teach their own kind anything…

Nariko focused what chakra she could (using the limited control she had period) to her legs. Praying that it would work, she began to run. But she had no clue what would happen, and that one step sprang her and Shikamaru into a tree.

"What the heck happened?"

"I tried to go faster…"

"Well, it would help if you didn't slam into trees."

Looking at the tree, she noticed that there was a large dent into where they had impacted, including some blood. She just whispered a 'heh' as she tried to take off again.

"Here goes nothing!"

And off they went. This time, they barely missed another tree. Although both of them kept getting hit by various branches because of Nariko's lack of control on where they were going (Which did NOT make a very pleasant Shikamaru), they were making excellent distance.

"See? I'm getting better," Nariko stated as they went through a spiderweb.

"Barely," Shikamaru mumbled.

"Well, we're going faster than if we were walking, even running."

"Aren't you getting tired from chakra exaustion?" he asked, "Like I did?"

After a moment of silence, she replied, "Yeah… now that you mention it, you ran out of this chakra stuff pretty fast…"

"Well, kagemane no jutsu takes a lot more energy than-"

"Saving us from going splat off a cliff?"

He didn't reply.

'Haha! I totally out-worded him!' she thought triumphantly.

Stupid human…

The blonde pouted, not liking her 'victory' destroyed. Finally the two made it to the crowd from the festival. Unfortunately, they couldn't stop.

"Hey, how do I stop?" Nariko asked out loud.

"You don't know how to stop?!"

"Nope."

But she had used up most of her chakra and they had slowed down to a regular jog. Nariko knew that stopping immediately would cramp up her legs and they couldn't move again (from experience) so she did just what she did on the mountain.

Coming to an open space where there were almost no people, she jumped to the side and rolled in the dirt to a stop.

"Great plan," Shikamaru mumbled.

"Believe it!" she yelled, ignoring his sarcasm, "But… what do we do now genius?"

"We should find someone we can trust. I never thought I'd say this but, I need to find my parents."

"Ok, but first, I need to spit out all of this dirt and blood in my mouth."

She slowly got up and spit out a mouthful of blood and dirt.

"That's just disgusting you troublesome girl."

Nariko pulled out her foxy grin again.

"Could you refer to me as Naruto please? I'm still trying to keep my cover as a boy."

"After all of that, you're still going to disguise yourself?"

"Yup. This birthday is just more life threatening than the others because an actual ninja has tried to kill me. Oh, and don't forget that my home blew up."

"You're taking this well…"

"I hate my life," she said matter-o-factly, "Except for being a ninja. And if I lose that, then there's really no point in living."

You wouldn't have the guts to kill yourself; not that I'd let you.

"Stop interrupting!" she harshly whispered.

"What?" Shikamaru asked.

"Nothing that concerns you pineapple-head."

"Pineapple-head? How troublesome…"

She made a face at him.

"It's not MY fault your hair looks like a fruit, er, did…"

"Troublesome… let's just go look for my parents."


The two dishevled, bloody, dirt-covered six-year-olds walked through the streets of Konoha. Their quest to find the rest of the Nara family was a failure.

"This isn't working," Nariko stated.

"That was obvious…"

They looked all over the festival grounds, or as far as six-year-olds can look.

"We should split up."

"And what if that crazy shinobi attacks us?" Shikamaru asked.

After a period of silence, she asked, "Why haven't we just gone to your house already? Or the Hokage?"

"…"


Nara Shikaku and Yoshino were just waiting around the house for their son to finally come home when there came a knock at the door.

"That's probably him," Yoshino stated.

"Don't answer it; it'll teach him to stop being so troublesome during the Kyuubi Festival."

She ignored her husband and answered the door. She had expected her son but instead found two grimy boys who were a bit bloodied up.

"Hi Mom," one of them said.

"Shikamaru? Is that you?"

"Yeah, and this is my trou- I mean friend Naruto."

"Shikaku…" she called, "Could you come here?"


Nariko and Shikamaru were both getting a talking to by Yoshino. She was saying that children shouldn't wander far and blah, blah, blah… It seemed that as soon as they had knocked on the door, she had decided that it was important for them to go to the hospital immediately. Nariko didn't even get a chance to mention that the hospital never let her in…

"Excuse me Nara-sama," Nariko began, "Shouldn't we tell you what happened?"

But the woman didn't even seem to hear her and kept on ranting. This caused both males and Nariko to sweatdrop.

"Uh…" Nariko tried to interject again, "I'm not allowed at the hospital so-"

But once again, she wouldn't listen.

"Getting her attention on one of her rants is almost impossible," Shikamaru whispered, "How troublesome…"

"Shikamaru!" Yoshino yelled, "You listen to me when I'm talking to you!"

"I think they were trying to tell you something," Shikaku said, trying not to get into the mess.

"Like what?!" she yelled.

"Well, you said we were going to the hospital and Naruto isn't allowed."

"Oh yeah? We'll see about that…"

They were at the hospital and Yoshino went up to the lady at the counter.

"You're mom is scary," Nariko whispered to Shikamaru.

He shrugged.

"You get used to it."

They looked over to see an arguing receptionist and Nara Yoshino. Shikaku was making sure that he was well out of his wife's fury… The angered woman came back to her family and Nariko.

"They said they'll take care of Shikamaru, but not you Naruto. No matter what happened, they should still take care of anyone, especially children."

She looked them over.

"And you look the most beaten up too."

"Me?" Nariko asked, "But I didn't do that much."

Shikamaru scoffed at her.

"What?" Nariko asked, "You were the one were the one who did that super cool jut- ow! What was that for?"

He had stepped on her foot to make her stop talking.

"And THAT'S the thanks I get for saving you?"

She stuck her tongue out at him and turned away.

"Fine."

She then saw something in the corner of her eye. It was a dark haired shinobi with bloodied bandages all over the lower half of his face who seemed to be coming in to have it checked. He stopped and looked at her. The blonde nudge Shikamaru with her elbow. He turned and saw Makoto, their previous attacker too.

"Don't move," he whispered, "My dad's a jonnin and will stop him, and he knows it."

But instead, he changed directions towards the two children.

"We should run," Nariko whispered back, "I think he REALLY wants to kill me. Especially since I shattered his jaw…"

"Just keep your cool like nothing happened."

"How can I if he's going to attack?"

Makoto approached them, but didn't show any signs of aggression. He now had paper and pen in his hand. As he came forward, he wrote something on it. Politely, he tapped on Shikaku's shoulder.

"Hello Yurashi-dono."

He slightly bowed, motioning that he couldn't speak. He then held out the paper on which he had written. It said:

"Excuse me, but the child Uzumaki Naruto is to be taken to the Hokage by me. He and your son fought me, not knowing that I was a friend, and thus I must write on this paper. I am sorry for any inconvenience."

Shikaku nodded.

"Ok, Naruto, according to this message, you are to go with Yurashi-dono to the Hokage."

"No freaking way!" she yelled, "That guy wants to murder me!"

Her exclamation earned many comments like: 'It's about time,' or 'It's not dead yet?'

"Leave me alone. Or at least leave my friend alone!"

She went to leave until a hand stopped her. Nariko turned to see Shikamaru there.

"Running will only make this worse; just wait," he told her.

The people in the hospital were now angry; they didn't like a person who liked to kill children (Seeing as how Nariko didn't count as a child, this was actually could make sense in their simple minds).

Makoto tried to explain that it was a lie, but a comment from Shikamaru turned that garbage into nul.

"It's true," he said, "That man tried to kill me after I saved her from a giant mob and explsives."

With one punch, Shikaku knocked out the shinobi.

"Let's get out of here," he said, "It's really starting to get troublesome."


After leaving the hospital, both Nariko and Shikamaru told what had happened.

"How troublesome," Shikaku stated, "That's what you are."

'At least I know where he gets it from…' Nariko thought.

"Well, I have to go see the Hokage now," Nariko said.

After looking her up and down, Yoshino said, "You're still covered in blood and dirt. I think this can wait. Those wounds will get infected if you don't do anything."

"Thanks but since my home blew up, I need to get some new arrangements. And besides, I'm a fast healer, to the mob of villager's dismay."

A firm grab on the wrist told Nariko that she wasn't going anywhere.


After washing up, Nariko was surprised that her clothing had a giant bloody gash going up the side.

"No wound or scar?"

Haven't you ever wondered why you heal so fast?

'Oh, it's you.'

I saved your life along with your new 'friend's'! Be grateful kit!

'You mean YOUR life,' she mentally retorted, 'Besides, why did you say friend so sarcastically?'

The people you call friends, once they find out about me, they'll hate you just as much as the villagers.

'I doubt it.'

Just you wait kit… just you wait…

When the fox didn't say anything for a while, Nariko decided that she wasn't going to do the 'talk' she had wanted to have. Not that Nariko minded; talking to an inner demon was a bit creepy…

"Hey, Nariko," Shikamaru said through the door, "Are you done yet?"

"Yup! And I don't have a single wound. How about you?"

He just moaned a reply that meant, 'a lot'.

Nariko came out of the bathroom wearing her tattered and blood-stained clothes.

"So, did your mom make that big a deal out of it."

He just nodded.

Nariko laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

"You'll be ok; be strong, be strong…" she joked, "It can't be worse than jumping off a cliff, right?"

He just shrugged.

"Won't it be exciting to tell everyone about this at the academy? I bet we'll be even more popular than Uchiha!"

He just moaned again.

"Just don't wear those clothes tomorrow," he stated, "Then you'll be a drama queen and win the love of some girls for being so 'courageous'."

Nariko shuddered; she DID NOT want other girls to have a crush on her.

"But it's the only clothing I own…"

"Are you kidding?"

"Remember, explosion?"

Shikamaru sighed. Tomorrow was going to be one hell of a day…


A/N: Hey everyone! Sorry it took over a week ot write this one. Yeah, I know it's not a long time, but still… This is a long chapter and it didn't really come out as well as I thought, or as short… Yeha, I know there was a lot of dialogue and this chapter was a bit pointless except for the beginning; forgive me? If you have any comments, feel free to voice them. Oh, and please review non-reviewing readers. I know it's hard, but please? Please? Please? Heh, I don't think begging works, does it? If it does, I should try it on my other fanfic then…

'Til next time!

Amei