Plop. Plop. Ploppity plop.
The sound of his bright orange galoshes dispersing the water in the muddy puddles that drowned the road, would never cease to entertain Naruto. But on that evening, he felt a sense of detachment from the ripples of murky water in the dirt road.
Naruto was confused. Scared even. And perhaps a little miffed.
He halted at the edge of one particular large pothole that had collected water from the spontaneous rain showers that had happened throughout the day.
Naruto bent his knees, and leaned forward. Gathering up his energy, he leaped off of the ground as if it were a springboard.
A tilde wave of water sharply rose into the air, accompanied by the crack of the surface of the water breaking.
Naruto needed a distraction. His thoughts had been a mess ever since he had left the hospital not an hour earlier. He had already walked two loops around the entire village of Konoha, and no matter how many times
He had woken up with a desperate gasp of air in a strange bed, in a strange room, in a strange place. For a few moments, Naruto had stared at the neatly polished space completely unable to comprehend the situation.
Then the realization had settled in, slowly and steady.
Naruto's eyes drunk in his surroundings. He stared at everything from the chestnut shelf that sat at the opposite side of the room without a single dust bunny dancing on it, to the pastel curtains that were bathed in a minty green colour. A milky white couch with dark grey metal legs stood underneath the tiny square window. Dark creases, and even the occasional rip in the leather fabric indicated it old age.
Baby blue eyes blinked, and Naruto screamed.
What else did anyone expect him to do when he had been kidnapped by bandits? Or maybe it was enemy ninjas. Who really knew?
Naruto had fell asleep under a large conifer tree in the middle of the biggest and baddest storm that had ever descended upon the village of Konohagakure.
And let it be known that Naruto was actually very proud of the fact that he was able to brave such a torrential down pour.
But when Naruto had woken up, he was in an actual bed. With clean sheets, and fluffy pillows stuffed to the brim with plumage, and everything. No one just goes to sleep in one place and then wakes up somewhere completely different.
No. Naruto must have been kidnapped. Why else would anyone move him from his hidey place?
The door swung open, letting in a sea of strange people with white capes draped across their bodies, and funny little white hats on their head that reminded Naruto of origami boats that the teachers would fold during arts and crafts times at the academy.
The mental image of someone working super hard, night and day, on folding tiny sheets of paper to look like little ships for the people in white, only for the creator to find out that all they wanted was to wear it on their heads. Like a little hat.
Naruto would have erupted into giggles in that moment, had he not been aware of the dire situation that he had somehow managed to land himself in.
And right now, Naruto needed to fight off all of the bad guys. Just until a real live shinobi came to save him.
But until that happened, he was on his own. So he battled his kidnappers with all of his might.
Whenever one of the people in white came too close to be safe, Naruto would scream louder and louder.
Whenever someone picked up a something odd like a needle or a metal stick, Naruto would instantly come to the conclusion that it was a torture device from one of those picture books that older academy students would leave open in the library. So Naruto would kick harder and harder.
Whenever a person with an origami boat hat tried to grab his flailing arms, Naruto would bend his fingers until they looked like a cat's claw and rip his hands across the flesh of his adversaries.
Whenever the evil people tried to do something to Naruto that he didn't like, he would pull his lips back in an attempt to look scary.
In all of the stories that the Sensei's at the academy told to the class, the bad guys were super afraid of the hero, so the meanies left the hero alone. If Naruto could be scary like the heroes, then the people with the white robes would leave him alone.
So Naruto snarled and bit down into a random arm so hard that droplets of scarlet red blood dripped onto his tongue, leaving a strong metallic taste for his taste buds to soak up.
And that's when it all stopped.
Naruto's movements began to slow until he felt as if he had been dumped into a pool of molasses. He willed his limbs to work, but they only twitched in a pitiful manner.
He heard the panicked voices of his kidnappers fading away as they yelled about a fox running away.
He saw a faint line of fuzz grow bigger and bigger until the world was just a big blob of greys and whites.
Naruto fought of the lulling call of sleep with sheer will power. They were drugging him, and Naruto didn't like being drugged. It was a very rude thing to do to people.
A wave of nausea hit him. Stars began dancing around in his vision, and before long, Naruto didn't have the strength to continue his crusade against the white coats.
He fell asleep with unidentifiable colours swirling around in his vision, and a soft humming noise whispering in his ears.
When he woke up again, it was to the sad smiling face of the Hokage.
Needless to say, Naruto was so ecstatic to see a familiar face that he nearly knocked down the lamp that sat on the bedside table to the right of him. The old man just chuckled and steadied the lamp with an old, wrinkly hand.
Naruto bounced in place, his happiness clear on his face as he recounted the harrowing tale of how he won the bet with the older kids and spent the night under the ghost tree, and then how he fell asleep under a big tree, and then how he was kidnapped by white ninjas, and then the horrible attack on him when he woke up.
The Hokage nodded along, his attention focused solely on Naruto.
Occasionally, the old man would stop Naruto to ask some questions like, "Did you see anyone else by the ghost tree?"
"No" Naruto had told him. Why on earth would there be anyone other than Naruto?
"Did you remember getting injured at any point?"
Naruto then scrunched his face up in both confusion and concentration. "No." he said as he folded his arms across his chest. "Why does it matter?"
The old man sighed deeply. "We took you to the hospital after... we defeated the kidnappers. The doctors here checked you over" the hokage shifted around in his seat, uneasy. "It turns out that you had a bit of an injury to your head."
"My head?" Naruto asked, tilting his head to the side like an adorable puppy. "What's wrong with it?"
"Well..." The old man started trailing off as he searched for the right words. "You're skull was completely shattered at some point in the night." He finally said.
"Shattered?" Naruto echoed, not really understanding what that meant for him. "You mean broken? Like like, someone smashed apart the puzzle pieces in my head?"
"Something like that." The old man agreed.
Naruto was silent for the most part. He cast his eyes down and stared at no particular part of the bed sheets that covered his leg.
"Weeeell," Naruto said as he brought his fingers up to his chin to scratch an imaginary beard. "I did hit my head a little when I was leaving the apartment building. But it wasn't thaaaaat bad."
"Oh?" The old man perked up "And when did that happen?" The seriousness in his voice made Naruto shiver a little. But it was just Ojiisan. It wasn't like he was going to attack Naruto or something.
Evil white coats, yes. Little blond haired boys, no.
"eh, sometime before sunset. I kinda got knocked out a bit though, and when I woke up the moon was up." Naruto said, trying to act like he didn't really care.
"Are you sure nothing else happened? It very important that you've told me everything."
"Ya ya ya. Nothing happened other than the super cool ghost tree. Oh, and whole kidnapping thing, but that's all over now."
The sandaime hokage gave Naruto a long hard look before turning away to the window, lost in the never ending pit of thoughts.
Naruto let out a little grumble at the shift in attention, but didn't say anything.
Naruto didn't feel like his head was a broken puzzle. He felt just fine. He didn't have a headache, he didn't have a stomach ache, and his neck didn't even hurt from sleeping on the hard ground.
Instantly Naruto's beaming smile returned to his face.
"The nice doctors fixed me up, didn't they?" He said, excitement blossoming in his eyes. "They put all of the puzzle pieces back together and now I'm all better!"
The Hokage stared at Naruto, with his jaws parted ever so slightly.
"So when can I leave?" The little boy asked. "Can I leave now? Huh? Huh? Huh?"
The old man paused for a moment before sagging back into his chair. "I think the medics want to take one last look at you." he said with a small chuckle.
As if by magic, the door opened as soon as the Hokage had finished his sentence. A rather plain looking Chunin stepped into the room. His mousy brown hair was pulled back by a blue bandanna, and his clothing was a muted blue colour underneath his Chunin vest. Under his arms were various scrolls and white boxes with a big red crosses on them.
Naruto tensed up at first, but then relaxed. This was a medic. A real one. He looked like he had come right out of one of Naruto's picture books about some war Konoha fought in a really long time ago.
The blond haired boy with whisker scars on his cheeks smiled, and chirped out a greeting to the approaching medic.
Naruto ended up staying in the hospital for the rest of the day. The medics did a lot of tests on him, and some of them made his stomach upset.
But jiji was there, so there was nothing to worry about. If a medic got too excited about something, or got too aggressive, the old man would stop them with a silent glare.
After what seemed like a bazillion years, the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with Naruto, and so they had no reason to keep him confined in the hospital any longer.
He was properly kicked out at exactly 5:42pm the very same day that he was admitted.
However, before Naruto was even able to leave the lobby, he was intercepted. He was just putting on his brand new orange rainboots that the old man had gifted him as a 'get well soon' present, Naruto felt a slight tap on his shoulder.
On instinct he turned his head around, ready to face the person who had vied for his attention.
"Yesss-~!" Naruto cut himself off with a startled yelp. He stumbled back and ended up landing on his rear end.
A women cladded in a white robe and a white little hat stood towering high above Naruto with an ominous look on her face.
She was one of the kidnappers!
"Hey," She said, her eyes shifting from left to right. "You're Naruto, right?"
"Nyak." Naruto let out a strange noise from the back of his throat. "Go away! You're one of the White-coats!"
The woman tilted her head to the side, clearly not understanding a word that Naruto said. It looked like it was up to Naruto to explain the horrible deeds that people in the white jackets did to him.
"You kidnapped me." He stated with an accusing finger pointing straight at her face.
The woman blinked, then her lips morphed into the shape of an 'O'. Then she lifted her hand up and began rubbing the back of her neck.
"Oh ya..." She muttered under her breath. "Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid..."
Now it was Naruto's turn to be confused. Wasn't she supposed to be the bad guy? Because at that moment, she was being a pretty lousy villain.
"Anyway. Just thought you would like this." She finally said as she handed Naruto a round orange ball. "And, ah..." She trailed off again. "I'm going to go now."
And with that, the strange woman shuffled off to wherever she was planning on going, leaving Naruto confused, and alone in the empty lobby of the hospital.
Well, not completely alone. There was that one receptionist who was sifting through magazines about gardening, but Naruto didn't really count him.
Naruto glanced down at the orange ball in his hand, and fixed it with a hard look.
It was orange, so it wasn't like the gift was all that bad.
But it could have been a trap.
But it was orange, round and squishy.
Naruto thought about just throwing the bouncy ball in the garbage, and heading off back to his apartment.
He disregarded that thought immediately. Why would he waste a perfectly good toy? Even if it was from an evil meanie who was more of an awkward minion.
So with a smile, he cocked his arm back and slammed the bouncy ball as hard as he could onto the ground.
It didn't bounce.
Instead it landed on the ground with a dull thump, and Naruto stared at it completely dumbfound.
What kind of bouncy ball didn't bounce?
"That's not a ball nimrod. That's an orange." A deep, muscular voice called out from behind him. Naruto turned to see the receptionist had put down his magazine and was now staring at Naruto with an unamused expression on his face.
Naruto's face shifted into that of an annoyed toddler. "I know it's orange, but it's still a crappy bouncy ball!"
The receptionist rolled his eyes in an over dramatic way. "I meant orange as in the fruit." He said as if talking to an actual toddler. "Meaning you peel the skin off, and then you eat it."
Naruto looked back down on the sad little orange that sat on the floor. "Oh..."
The receptionist picked his magazine back up and waved Naruto off. "Shoo. Go wreak havoc somewhere else." The man paused once more when he saw that Naruto hadn't moved. "Go!" he said more forcefully.
Naruto stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry in the general direction of the incredibly rude man, then swooped down to pick up his orange and raced out the door.
And that's how Naruto ended up jumping over puddles in the streets of Konoha, thinking about his hectic stay at the Konoha Hospital. He had already eaten his orange as if it were an apple, ages ago and had thrown out the peel into an ally way.
Naruto didn't like the crazy people in white hats, but he was grateful to that one weird kidnapper who had given him that orange. After living off of hospital for an entire four hours or so, it was nice to taste something wholesome and fresh. Even if it wasn't ramen.
Naruto halted in mid-step in the middle of the street.
Why was he kidnapped anyway?
"Huh." Naruto said as he glanced up at the sky. Orange and white clouds whisked together in a never ending melting pot called the sky. Blues and purples spiraled around the pink boundary of the glowing yellow sun.
A black horizon stood fuzzy in the background, just barely touching the bottom of the magnificent glowing orb in the vastness of the sky.
The sun was setting, and it was getting late.
Naruto had school tomorrow. He had almost forgotten about that, what with all of the chaos of the day.
He groaned, and let his head sink down.
Well, at least the second year students would let him into their exclusive club.
Naruto smiled at that thought.
Yeah. This wasn't so bad. He bet that the older kids were going to be so impressed with him that they would make him the leader of their group! Naruto had done exactly what they told him to. He went up to Dead Hen Hill, and then he conquered the giant chicken, gotten the branch from the ghost tree, and even got attacked by creepy white enemy nin!
They just had to accept Naruto after hearing his story. And of course, after Naruto presented the branch as proof...
...Oh no...
Naruto's eyes widened in horror.
The branch was still under that confer tree.
He let out a scream of frustration and then kicked the muddy ground as hard as he could.
Now he was never going to be accepted by the older kids if he didn't have any proof that he actually spent the night at the haunted hill.
Unless
Unless Naruto could wake up super early in the morning, go back to the hill and then get a new branch. And the big kids would never have to find out that Naruto had lost the original branch!
It was a perfect plan.
With a firm nod to no one in particular, and an excited yelp of joy, Naruto raced back to his home. He was determined not to screw up when morning comes.
"Hey!" Someone yelled out behind him.
Naruto froze, planted his feet and then twisted his torso around to see what was causing the sudden commotion.
That couldn't have been addressed to him could it?
It's been at least four days since he had last played a prank on the general populous. And what a glorious prank that was. Crudely drawn orange hamsters were painted by yours truly on the roofs of every shop in the shopping district.
Certain people may have been a bit sore over it though. Naruto wouldn't put it past the owner of the butcher shop to exact his revenge by hurling weenier dogs at Naruto.
Naruto's fears, however, were unfounded.
A shinobi with shaggy brown hair stood in the middle of the road with two muscular arms crossed in front of his chest. A jagged scar ran down from the tip of his nose and down to his chin, slicing his mouth in half.
Naruto stood oggling at the sight of the powerful ninja who was no doubt a Jonin at the very least.
This was so cool. This was beyond cool. This was awe-inspiring. This was awesome. This was awesomer than awesome.
But not so awesome for the civilian man that the shinobi was glaring at.
The civilian man started to sway a little, but held his ground and stared right back at the shinobi.
No one dared to move. Not the shopkeepers who were cleaning up their storefronts, not the small children who were playing with a deflated ball, and not the other pedestrians. Everyone was frozen in mid movement. Afraid to even breath.
Then the civilian man broke.
He whipped his arms out and yelled out "KAI!", and a cloud of smoke engulfed him.
The shinobi stood patiently waiting without so much as moving a muscle at the sudden movement. The crowded however, took a collective step back.
"Alright," A high pitched male voice rang out through the steadily disappearing smoke. "I'll admit, I need to work on that."
A young boy, no older than thirteen years old cladded in brown ninja gear stood where the old civilian man once stood. He let out a nervous giggle as he shrank back from the older shinobi.
"HEY! OW! Sensei!" The boy yelped as the scary looking shinobi grabbed hold of his ear and began dragging the younger boy down the street.
"It took me less than two minutes to find you, Takao." The shinobi said in a deep rumbly voice that Naruto thought belonged to a big mean thug, than a noble ninja. "You didn't even bother to hide your trail! And did you really think that I would have been distracted by that poorly placed trap?"
The Jonin-sensei continued to rant about every fault that the struggling Genin had made as they walked farther and farther from Naruto's location.
By that time, the rest of the villagers had returned to their previous occupation. While the incident would make for a great dinner time story, a Genin being chewed out by their sensei wasn't such an uncommon occurrence.
But Naruto was still frozen in place. His mind whirled in shock and confusion.
His first thought was: "I wanna do the smokey-thing that he did!"
The second was a bit more serious than that. Namely, Naruto was more focused on one particular word that the genin had said.
Kai.
Naruto thought he recognized that word from somewhere. And no, he wasn't talking about the lessons from the academy, or anything like that.
Naruto thought that he had heard that word last night, while he was asleep under the confer tree. He could have been wrong, but Naruto was almost certain that he had heard the word 'Kai' at some point in the last twenty-four hours.
Kai. Wasn't that Jutsu used to release Genjutsus?
And Naruto also remembered the word Tie for some reason. As in a bow tie that some adults wore to make them seem all fancy and stuff. But that didn't sound right at all. Why would the word 'Kai' be paired up with 'Tie'?
Kai.
Tie.
Kai Tie.
It made absolutely no sense whatsoever. But that memory sparked by the random exchange between the young boy and his sensei was real. Naruto was certain of it.
Naruto felt his feet start moving in the direction of his apartment building. In no time at all, he had arrived at the front steps of the lobby just as the last slivers of daylight faded away into night. Without a single word, he entered the building and made his way up the stairs.
He could have turned around and ran back to Dead Hen Hill. In fact, every part of Naruto's very being demanded that he go there and search for answers. And that missing branch.
But he didn't stray from his current path.
Besides, Naruto could always go back in the morning.
However when he showed up bright and early at Dead Hen Hill the next day. Naruto wasn't sure what he was doing.
Naruto stood awkwardly amongst the remains of his peace offering to the giant demon chicken. He was going to have to remember to clean up the debris.
Littering was bad according to everyone in the whole entire country.
But other than that, nothing had changed in the short time that Naruto had been away. The trees still stood, the grass still rustled, and the flowers and shrubs swayed towards the sun. The only difference was the fact that there was no constant downpour of heavenly water.
Naruto shook his head and scampered over to the confer tree.
He batted away stray branches as he kneeled down on the mushy earth. He scanned the area before moving on to a different position. On and on he kept looking for the branch that would ensure his acceptance by his peers.
The was no sign of the grey and white tree branch that Naruto had plucked off the ghost tree.
After a good half hour of searching around the base of the confer tree, and then moving on to the maple tree and other trees in the surrounding area, Naruto finally sat back on his heels and admitted defeat.
The branch must have washed away while he was asleep. Or some bird came around and picked it up for a nest.
Or the chicken demon ate it.
But in the end, Naruto was without a stick.
He let out a low huff, and out of the corner of his eyes he glanced up at the ghost tree in all of its albino glory.
Naruto could go up there and pluck off a brand new branch and his classmates would be none the wiser. There was nothing wrong with that plan.
For some reason though, Naruto felt guilty about that.
He has already pulled off one of the oak tree's limb once, and Naruto wasn't sure that he wanted to do it again.
But it wasn't like Naruto had any other choice.
Slowly and hesitantly, Naruto unfolded his legs from underneath him, stood up and walked over to the albino oak tree.
He reached his hand out to snap off the nearest twig when a shockwave suddenly course through him. Like a sharp and painless pin pick to the forehead. The sensation was over before Naruto could even blink.
He stumbled back anyway and positioned his hands to protect his stomach on instinct.
"What?" Naruto asked himself as he uncoiled himself.
He felt another shock wave pass through him, although this time it was a lot less powerful. More like a boop on the nose.
Naruto's head shot up and he swung his head around from side to side, trying to find the source of the short bursts of energy.
For a precious few moments, all was still.
Then it happened again, causing Naruto to jump.
"Alright you bastard!" He yelled as he threw his fists up into the air. "I know you're there!"
As if hearing Naruto, the shockwaves occurred again. But this time they didn't stop.
Naruto was suddenly bombarded by soft bursts of energy flying through his body. It was at that point that Naruto realized that the shockwaves were accompanied by a little humming noise.
No, it wasn't a humming noise. It was more of a beeping sound. Like a little buzzer being pressed at random intervals.
Naruto tried his best to concentrate on the strange noise as he turned in circles trying to pinpoint the source of the shockwaves.
Finally, after an embarrassingly long time, Naruto deduced that the shockwaves and the beeping sound originated from somewhere around the ghost tree. Or in it.
He placed his hands on his ears, and grimaced. "Hey, stop that!"
The shockwaves stopped as soon as the last word left Naruto's mouth.
The blonde boy squinted his eyes and lowered his hands.
"Hold on." He said "Can you hear me?"
A short beep and a small burst of energy greeted him.
"You understand me?"
Another beep.
"uhhh... Not really sure what that means, but I'm going to take that as a yes."
Beep.
"Are you the tree? I mean seriously?"
Beep.
"What does that mean?"
Beep.
"Ok. One beep for yes, two beeps for no."
Beep.
"...Am I a cantaloupe?"
Beep. Beep.
"Ok, so you're not totally hopeless. Anyway, back to the first question. Are you the oak tree that is standing right in front of me?"
Beep.
"Oh this is so awesome! I'm talking to a tree! I'm just like the first Hokage!" Naruto gave the tree a lopsided grin.
"I'm Uzumaki Naruto the future Hokage, and don't you forget it!"
Author's Note:
I survived mid-terms! YESH! I was going to post this earlier this week however because I already had a lot of it written before hand, but then I added a whole bunch of scenes to it. And pretty much I just gave you guys two chapters in one so you're welcome!
Story time! I was in the middle of my Bio midterm when suddenly my brain started singing this song from the 80s called 'Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi' by Celine Dion (don't ask me why), and I was just like 'Goddammit brain, save it for the French exam!'. And then I made a really weird face. :/
Right, back to the main story. My one concern with this chapter is that Naruto is a little too OOC. Thoughts anyone?
I also haven't really had time to proofread this or anything so if you guys see any grammar errors or spelling errors or just weird words that don't seem to fit in please please please tell me. I want to make sure that reading this story is readable for everyone.
I'm not sure if it's clear, but the people in white are actually the medics at the hospital and Naruto mistake them as kidnappers because this early in his life he hasn't gone to the hospital all too much and so he's not really familiar with the staff. So after calling in the Hokage, the medics devised a plan that the Hokage would be there when Naruto woke up and then send in a staff member who was dressed in a field medic outfit in order to treat Naruto.
(And yes. The medic who approached Naruto later on was Izumi! But that's the last that we are going to see of her for a while.)
Please review if you have the time. I love hearing everyone's reactions to the updates and it helps motivate me to get a chapter done quicker. It doesn't have to be too long (although I do like in depth reviews) but even a little smiley face will make my day!
Also, can anyone explain to me how to get a beta? Because I would really like one
Ok! I hope you all enjoyed reading this lengthy chapter cuz the next one is probably going to be a lot shorter than this.
And that concludes the first official story arch of Unorthodox: Tree-chan.
See you all in the next update!
