Story Summary: This story starts a month after the failed Sasuke Retrieval mission and follows the life of the Leaf the loss of Sasuke the Konoha 12 needs a replacement. Luckily a young boy named Zishi Shiranui comes along. How will he change the world or Naruto?
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto in any extent and am not taking credit for any of Kishimoto's hard work. This is just a story by my own creation involving his characters.
A Naruto Tale: The New Kid in Town
Chapter 9: Finding Jugo
A crowd of young shinobi stand in front of a small green building. It shows light tan roof tiles, a ten foot tall engraved wooden door with the symbol "Akimichi" on it, and the smell of cooking meat flowing through the air. A puff of steam rises through a small chimney as one blonde kunoichi taps her foot on the ground with enough force to kill a small puppy, fidgeting every ten seconds.
"Where is he? We should have left half an hour ago. Does he not care about Shino or what?"
Chouji shovels a few potato chips in his mouth and explains, "Calm down Ino-chan. He's probably still nervous about the mission,"
"UGH. Do you ever stop eating?" Ino yells while snatching the chips away from Chouji mid bite.
Chouji's bottom lip quivers slightly as his arms drop limply to his sides. "But...Ino-chan. I'm still hungry," the clan heir whines.
Ino shoves her finger in Chouji's face and motherly states, "No. If you keep eating you'll cramp up on the run."
Chouji slumps over in and mumbles a noise of recognition and looks away. He squints slightly and puts his hand up to shade his face as he sees a figure in the distance.
"Hey, I think Shikamaru is here," Chouji declares while pointing and waving.
"It's about time," Ino declares while putting her hands on her hips, sufficiently crushing Chouji's chips against her stomach.
Chouji hears the sound of chips crumbling before throwing his hands in the air and shaking before sobbing slightly and mumbling, "Not my chips."
Shikamaru walks up to the gang and says, "Naruto go get Jiraiya and meet us in here," before walking into the restaurant, without stopping or looking at anybody.
Ino turns towards him and lectures "What's wrong with you? You show up half an hour late and then don't even tell us why or..." she stops as Tenten elbows her in the ribs.
Tenten tilts her head towards Ino before whispering, "He's not in the best mood, so just let it go for now."
Ino slowly nods her head as she glances towards Shikamaru and following the rest of her teammates into the establishment and watching as Naruto races off in the direction of the hot springs.
The Jounin have a meeting of their own when they decide to visit Shino, Zishi, and Lee. Tsunade, Shizune, and Kurenai all make small talk about recent gossip. Kurenai standing abnormally far away from Asuma as she listens to Shizune talk about some perv that has been lurking around the hot springs.
Gai and Asuma stand to the side discussing their students, all waiting for Kakashi to show up. Late as always.
The doors open as a silver haired, tired looking man walks in, book in hand as he walks straight past the group of Jounin and into the hospital, without a word. Guess the bad mood is in the air today.
Kurenai speed walks to catch up to Kakashi and asks, "Hey, Kakashi. We are all going to lunch after we visit. Do you want to join us?"
Kakashi, still reading, side-steps a nurse, with Kurenai struggling to keep up behind him, and answers a stern, "No."
No reason. No explanation. Just one word to sum up everything he is thinking.
Kurenai stops walking and mutters an, "Oh...Ok...," as she falls back to Tsunade and Shizune.
They systematically visit each room the Genin being hospitalized. Asuma is the first to leave mumbling about how it was creeping to sit in a room watching an unconscious kid. Shibi stays in Shino's room the longest and suddenly leaves without saying a word to anyone.
On the walk to Zishi's room, Tsunade asks, "Did anyone else see Shibi wipe a tear out of his eye? Cuz I'm pretty sure I did."
Gai responds, "I do not think that is something Shibi-san would do. Even though crying is a very youthful activity, I doubt it is one that he would take part in."
Kurenai opens tho door for the other Jounin before entering Zishi's room. She turns towards Tsunade and says,"Well he might have. I can only imagine that it's hard to see your kid in a coma like that."
"Ya I guess so," Tsunade says while checking all of Zishi's vitals to make sure he is alright. She is not going to let another kid slip into a coma on her watch. She might lose the one reputation she actually wants to keep.
A nurse walks in the room and hands Tsunade a chart while she says, "Here's the DNA test you ordered for Zishi Shiranui."
Tsunade snatches it out of her hand and says,"Well what took you people so long."
The nurse, obviously terrified, stammers, "W-w-well we ran into some...complications."
Tsunade looks down at the chart before asking, "What kind of complications? A simple DNA scan shouldn't be too hard for you."
"See for yourself," the nurse says while pointing at the chart.
Tsunade looks down and her face hardens before she shoos the nurse out of the door and addresses the Kakashi. Her eyebrows crunched together as she looks towards Kakashi, who finally takes his face out of his book.
"Well according to this, you were half right about him."
"What do you mean,?" Kakashi asks with a puzzled looks on his face as he puts the book in the back pocket.
"Well...I'm not sure how this is possible, but he has the DNA of both Minato Namikaze and Mikoto Uchiha...," Tsunade explains.
Kakashi smirks under his mask and declares, "Well my instincts never fail me."
Gai, not wanting his eternal rival to have this victory, says, "But Tsunade-Sama, you said he was half right."
Kakashi's smirk fades as he looks towards Tsunade for an answer. Tsunade is intensely staring at the chart, trying to understand it.
"Well he also has the DNA of Gomo Shiranui and Zoumi Shiranui."
"How is that possible? The Shiranui's aren't related to the 4th or the Uchihas," Kurenai asks.
"I'm not exactly sure, but I plan on asking him when he wakes up. The other strange thing is he only has the DNA of Minato and Mikoto, not any other Namikaze or Uchiha."
Gai scratches his chin and replies, "This is most interesting."
Inside the Akimichi's establishment, multiple young shinobi pile into a booth and order their food. The kunoichi all ordering a salad or some soup, as Kiba and Chouji orders piles of meat. Neji and Shino ordering a small plate of food and Shikamaru sitting with his back turned to his friends.
They feel a cool reeze flow under their legs as the front door opens and an old man struts in with his arms outstretched, dragging along a droopy looking Naruto behind him.
"Where are these hot kunoichi waiting to meet the magnnificent Sannin, Jiraiya? Naruto. Naruto! Get up here and help me find your friends."
Jiraiya slaps the back of Naruto's head and forces him in front of him, to lead the way. Naruto drops his head to the ground and trudging over to his friends. He turns towards the kunoichi side of the booth and mouths the words, "I'm sorry."
Jiraiya hops into the booth and wiggles himself between Hinata and Tenten. He wraps his arms around all four of the girls in the booth.
"So I hear you beautiful young ladies need my assistance."
Hinata blushes and slumps down as Tenten wiggles slightly, surprised at how strong his grip was. Ino and Sakura both giving identical glares to Naruto and Jiraiya. Causing Naruto to slump down further and Jiraiya to smile back.
Shikamaru uncurls himself from the outside and addresses the Toad Sannin, "Yes, Jiraiya-Sama. We need to know if you have information on the location of One of Orochimaru's bases containing a boy named Jugo."
Jiraiya's previous smiling face turns dark and emotionless as he addresses the Nara heir, "We need to talk in private."
Shikamaru nods and follows the Sannin to another booth. The rest of the team sits uncomfortably at the table.
"Are you two alright. That can't be healthy having him so close to you like that. You might have caught something," Ino spits out.
They all giggle and eat their food in silence for another twenty minutes before Shikamaru returns. Jiraiya apparently left after talking to him.
The boy picks up his pack and says, "We have to go now."
Back at the hospital the Jounin wait for one ANBU captain to show up and help them try to decipher the inner puzzle that is Zishi Shiranui.
Tsunade sits in a lounge chair, fidgeting every five seconds or so. The rest of them all sit patiently and slowly inch away from their Hokage.
"Where is he. An ANBU should not be this late."
Shizune turns to her life-long friend and readjusts Tonton in her lap as she explains, "He was just on a mission and it has only been five minutes."
"Five minutes is way to long."
Gai gives a smile and pokes Kakashi and says, "Hear that Kakashi? You were once ANBU, you should try to be on time more often."
Kakashi turns a page in his book and gives a "Mmph." Which satisfies Gai as he turns away smiling more than ever. That is the most anyone has gotten out of him all day.
Tsunade suddenly stands up and walks to the door, just in time to see an ANBU walk through it. The man bows and kneels before muttering.
"I'm sorry for my tardiness, Hokage-Sama. I hear you need my assistance with a patient."
"Yes. Now stand up and take you mask off, Tenzou. This isn't an ANBU mission and the kid will like you a lot better if he can see your face."
The ANBU follows his orders and says, "Please, call me Captain Yamato."
The Hokage gives a quick nod before grabbing the man's arm and dragging him through to the hospital. She shoves him through Zishi's door and says, "Look at him."
Yamato looks at the boy and turns to his Hokage only to see her staring back. He looks back to the boy and sweat drops. The boy looks perfectly fine to him. He is relieved when the other Jounin pile through the door behind him.
"He...looks fine to me."
Tsunade sighs and says, "He is fine, but do you know him?"
"No I'm afraid not. Why do you ask."
"Well we were discussing him and have come to the conclusion that he is one of Orochimaru's experiments. He was apparently injected with the DNA of the 4th and Mikoto Uchiha. We were hoping you would recognize him since he was likely created the same way you were."
Yamato scratches his chin and says, "Yes, I did overhear some discussion of implanting two donors into a person, but they always talked about all the failures, so I assumed it was a bust."
Kakashi closes his book and says, "Apparently not."
The Genin team eventually makes it to the halfway point between three possible bases that Jugo maybe held up in. Chouji and rest of the Destruction team heads to the Northern base, Shikamaru and the rest of the Protection team head over to the Eastern base, and Naruto and the Retrieval team go to the Western base.
They will all head out and search their respective targets before meeting back at their campsite at noon tomorrow. Shikamaru also made to put at least one tracking ninja on each team, Kiba on Destruction, Neji on Protection, and Hinata on Retrieval, just in case one of them got captured.
The three teams split off and stood one last time at their campsite.
"Remember to meet back here at noon tomorrow and if you find Jugo, do not engage," Shikamaru orders, making sure each member of the squad understood his commands.
"Gotcha, Shikamaru," Kiba barks out as he jumps off in the direction of the Northern base.
Naruto gives a thumbs up and Sakura smiles and says, "We understand, Shikamaru," as they too run off to find their base.
Shikamaru turns to his team, consisting of Neji and Ino and gives a hand signal for them to run off to the East.
Shikamaru hanging his head slightly as he jumps from branch to branch in the trees, becoming ever more weary of the mission at hand.
"I hope this isn't going to be like the last time I separated my team."
After about two hours of running and jumping through the forest, Chouji, Kiba, and Tenten arrive at Orochimaru's Northern base. The give the structure a look and only see one entrance, enclosed in the ground. Tenten is the first to point out various traps around the entrance and a blood security system on the door.
"This is truly amazing. The whole area is covered in pressure pads and if you take one wrong step, the whole mountainside falls down on you. Not to mention the door. If you don't give a sample of your blood within a minute of stepping on the front pressure pad, then you get shot with kunai and blowoff the mountain," the weapons mistress marvels.
"Dang. That sounds pretty tough. Orochimaru is a pretty sick bastard," Kiba replies as he slumps back behind a rock.
Chouji follows closely behind and says, "What's with his guy and blowing up the mountain. Step on the wrong thing it blows up. Don't bleed right it blows up."
Tenten takes one last look before turning towards her comrades and saying, "It's very effective though. The mountain will leave rubble for almost a mile around in all directions."
"Then how he Hell are we supposed to get in?"
Tenten smirks and grabs the two boys, "C'mon, I have an idea."
The three Genin run off about a hundred feet away from the entrance. Kiba and Akamaru sprinting the way and Chouji happily galloping while eating his chips.
Tenten stops and says, "This is good. I figured if we couldn't go through the door, we would make an entrance of our own. I'll place a few exploding tags and your guys can dig."
Tenten places the tags around in a circle about 10 feet in diameter. She makes a few hand signals and turns away. A soft crumbling is heard as the tags explode.
"Wow. How did you make it so quiet,?" Chouji asks.
"I just placed a sound barrier around it to muffle the noise," the weapons mistress replies matter of factually.
Akamaru poofs into a replica of Kiba and they create a fang over fang to dig on one side. Chouji proceeds to expand his right arm tenfold and scoop out dirt.
Author's Notes: I'm sorry to say that this story is about to end one way or the other. I have another, much better story and I am going to make it my main focus, unless you absolutely hate it.
The story will be called Before They Were Legends and it follows the lives of the Jounin of Konoha when they were teenagers. The chapter with Kurenai and Kakashi talking inspired it and I think it is a much better idea than this story. Please check it out because it will probably be up around the same time as this one.
To be completely honest, this story was mainly just sort of a test to see what readers like and what they don't. I learned a lot from writing this short story and I thank you for all of your support. Please review what you like the most about my story and what you don't.
I plan on giving this story and ending soon and it will probably be pretty half-assed, but that's life. Sorry.
I would hate to just end it, but I don't really have much inspiration for it anymore. I am just so excited for my new story and I have planned it out well, which I didn't really do much with this one. I plan to put a lot of action in the beginning, which I failed to do with this one.
I apologize if you like this story and want it to continue forever and ever, but I'm sure you will absolutely love my new one. If you even like this one a little bit, then you will love my new one.
Review as always. Bye.
