A/N

Guest: "Naruto did not cheat with shadow clones he was born with high kage lvl chakra reserves so stop bashing his faults because he is the strongest character"

Answer: Um… Sure… Ok. I'm pretty sure I said that he cheated with the Rasengan, not the Shadow Clone. Remember how he had to use a clone to compensate for some of the rotation of the Rasengan? That was the cheat. The 'real' Rasengan doesn't require a clone. So yeah… hope I cleared that up.

Also, I do not like loud people as a general rule. Naruto is the epitome of that group. Thereby; I do not like Naruto. At least, I don't like kid Naruto. He gets better in Shippuden. If you don't like it when I lightly harp on a character's flaws, feel free to stop reading. I will not target characters to bash. I will rant about specific things that pop into my head. Sometimes that includes character flaws.

MrBeaverButtington brought up a good point. I will probably not post any more warnings for any fucked up shit that happens in the story's future. It ruins the pacing, makes it predictable, and is really just a pain in the ass. I rated this shit 'M' for a reason.

I do not own Naruto.

I woke up staring at a clean, white ceiling.

The hospital room felt like it had been sanitized from the top down. There was a small picture of a boat hanging on the far wall, a large, open window facing the Hokage Monument, the sterile bed that I was laying on, and a machine beeping to my left. My mom was sleeping in a chair in the corner of the room.

I just layed there.

The bed was comfortable at least.

"You woke up." A familiar voice said from the open window.

I looked over to see Sensei eating an apple, squatting on the sill.

I just stared at her for a full minute, neither of us saying anything further.

"How's Mai?" I asked.

"Not good. She's in the psych ward." I guess I could understand that. She'd probably gone through more intensive torture than I had. She seemed conscious for most of it. The sadistic fuck-ette only ripped my arm off.

"Were the Mind-healers able to help?"

"They're working on it." She took a bite out of her apple. "Sometimes the trauma gets a bit too bad to fix. Even for them."

I nodded. It was starting to get easier to deal with bad news. I think it was just the way Sensei phrased all her answers; like "Huh, I forgot to get the milk… Oh well, I'll get it next time." Nothing phased her, so by extension, nothing phased me.

I guess it was just one of those things that only makes sense if you don't think about it.

But then all of that was a lie.

It was so obviously affecting me, that I couldn't even lie to myself and say that the experience made me numb.

I felt numb because I was in emotional shock. I didn't know how to handle what was going on in front of me.

"Malnutrition, loss of limb, laceration and puncture wounds on lower back and legs, slight concussion, and shattered kneecap." Sensei read off my medical chart. I didn't even notice her walking over to pick it up.

I looked down at my stump of a right arm and wiggled it around a bit. That was going to make it hard to do hand seals… and most other things too.

Fuck.

"Most of that was all fixed up when we got here last week." She said to nobody in particular, then mumbled, "Gotta give these docs credit; they work fast." So I'd been in bed for a week.

It seemed like she was ignoring my arm - or lack-thereof.

I wiggled it around some more.

She just stared at me with a 'what the fuck are you doing?' face.

I sighed, then looked to my mom, snoring away. How long had she been there?

"Shiro's dead." I said plainly, still looking at my mom.

Sensei looked up from the chart. "Yeah." She put the chart back. "We have a meeting with the Hokage when you get released. We need to debrief."

"Shiro's dead."

"I know."

Neither of us talked for a good minute. "I will murder every Iwa nin I ever see."

Silence.

"That's pretty much standard practice."

More silence.

She turned to leave. "Were you in ANBU?" I asked before she could take a step.

"What makes you say that?" She asked, looking me in the eyes.

"Nothing phases you. At all."

She paused. "I wouldn't say 'nothing.' Your kaa-san is downright terrifying, for one."

In What Used to be Training Ground 27 - One Week Prior

"What would you say," Tomo Yamanaka began, "was your biggest mistake during that last mission, Niashi-san?"

For some Kami-damned reason, the Hokage had let the Yamanaka into the initial mission debriefing.

"I…" Niashi Fukumi laid broken and bloody in one of the newly formed craters. "I believe it was when I let your son get injured?" Please don't hurt me.

"See now, that is why we're here, but that wasn't your over-arching failure."

Niashi gulped. "Please… enlighten me, Yamanaka-san."

"Now, now, Niashi-san. How will you ever learn if I just give you the answers?"

"Of course, Yamanaka-san."

Tomo just waved her to continue.

"Um, was it when I left them alone with a clone, and went off to scout the outpost?" Please don't blow me up again.

"We're getting closer." She sighed. "For someone of your experience, this mistake is elementary." Her eyes hardened and her foot rested on Niashi's chest.

Niashi tried to scream as she was crushed further into the ground, but the air was completely driven out of her lungs.

"Try again, Niashi-san, something more general this time."

Something clicked, "I-" She gasped for air. "I assumed too much?"

A light shined in Tomo's eyes, so she continued. "I assumed that our group hadn't been spotted before I left. I assumed that the enemy wasn't targeting us, but the outpost."

"You assumed that they wouldn't care about a few Genin if a nice, slightly famous jounin was making a target out of herself." Tomo finished, satisfied.

It turned out that the Iwa team had been trying to infiltrate the village by taking over the identities of the genin. Their mission scroll was on one of the dead bodies: a rookie mistake if Niashi had ever seen one. Always burn infiltration mission scrolls once committed to memory. It was a stupid plan to begin with, as it basically required that the Iwa nin hold a henge for weeks, if not months, or years. And they would have to get around the clans. Which you just straight wouldn't be able to do if you were living in the same house. Ninja are paranoid. If you act even a little weird, they'll want to know why. But hey; if Iwa wanted to be stupid, Niashi wasn't going to get in the way.

"Thank you for the spar, Niashi-san." Tomo said, releasing the crushing pressure of her foot, and Body-flickering away.

Niashi looked around from inside the crater and sighed. This was going to be a really long trip to the Hospital.

Taichi

"You're afraid of Kaa-san?"

"I wouldn't say 'afraid' as much as I would say 'Oh shit run.'"

I stared at her for a few seconds. "Was that a joke?"

She sighed.

"Did you just tell a joke?"

"Here, take this and stop making fun of me." She tossed me a book and a scroll, then flickered out of the room.

When I looked down at the book, I just stared at the title, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do with this:

Beginner's Guide: The Art of Puppetry

It took them another week to let me out of the hospital. I don't even know why; I had been fully healed - sans an arm - since I woke up. I think they were expecting me to break down or something.

I visited Mai once, while I was there. She flinched away from any physical contact, and kept flaring her chakra, trying to get rid of a genjutu that wasn't there. It seemed like the Iwa nin did a real number on her.

The one time I talked to her, she started screaming and bawling her eyes out, so the staff asked me to keep a distance for a bit. Apparently she hadn't done that before.

It hurt.

It hurt to see one of my best friends scream and cry just by seeing my face. Just by being in the same room. I hurt her, and I didn't know why.

Uncle Inoichi said that it's best to keep the triggers away during the mind healing process. I, of course, put up a fight. She was my friend, how could I not be there for her?

But in the end, I had to give in. I wasn't a mindwalker. I had no experience with these sorts of things.

So that's how I found myself outside of the hospital. I'd just been released, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Could I continue as a shinobi? My team was in shambles, I'd lost an arm, and Sensei hadn't stopped by to talk to me since I'd woken up.

So I just stood there, outside the hospital, for what seemed like hours.

"What are you doing?"

I turned my head to find Shikamaru coming towards me.

"Not much. Contemplating life." I answered.

He raised an eyebrow.

"What?" I asked.

"Are you alright?" Shika, Choji, and Ino had all come to visit me over the past week. We were all broken up about Shiro, so being in each other's company was a bit of a boon.

"Yeah. As good as I can be, I guess."

"Hn." He glanced at my arm.

"What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Coming to see you, actually. Didn't know they released you."

"Ahh. Wanna go to the Spot?" The Spot was on the roof of a building a few blocks away. It was our default hangout location. It had a few benches, a vending machine, and a weird patch of grass and a tree. On top of the building. It was kind of weird, but we liked it.

"You don't have any important genin things to do?" he smirked. I liked to pick on Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji for not graduating yet. Figures he'd turn it on me now.

I wiggled my stump around. "I have a debrief with Hokage-sama at some point, but I have no idea when, so I'm free for now."

He nodded. "The Spot it is, then."

For the next few hours, we could have been found lying in the grass on top of a building, staring up at the clouds passing by. Neither of us talked. We just enjoyed each other's company.

I didn't even try to stop the tears from falling.

It was the next day that I found myself in the Hokage's office. It was only him and me, for some reason. I'd thought tha Sensei would have been there, but she was probably on a mission or something.

"Taichi Yamanaka."

"Yes, Hogake-sama?" I stood straight, eyes forward.

The old man's eyes softened, "How are you doing?"

I relaxed a little. "As good as can be expected, sir."

He nodded. "Your sensei has taken me through the details of your last mission. From that information, we have tentatively concluded that those Iwa nin were attempting to infiltrate the village by taking your team's identities. However, Niashi-san wasn't there for most of it. We were wondering if you could fill in some of the blanks."

I frowned slightly, "I'm sorry sir, but I was unconscious for the vast majority of my captivity, so I'm not too sure how much more I could fill in. I'm not even sure how long I was in that cave, to be honest."

His eyes widened in surprise. "Well, Taichi-kun, I can tell you now that you were there for the better part of a week." Now it was my turn to be surprised. "Any information you have would be fine. All we know so far is that it was a horrible attempt at an infiltration."

I thought for a second or so before I remembered something that one of the Iwa jounin said. "They knew we were coming." I whispered.

The Third narrowed his eyes. "What was that?"

"Sir, they knew we were coming." I paused, then clarified. "They knew that we were coming. They mentioned that Sensei was stronger than their intel suggested. They had intel on us specifically."

"Are you absolutely sure about that?" The old man tapped his pipe on the side of his desk, contemplating the very bad implications of what I just said.

I stood there with my hand on my chin. "They'd had us surrounded from the beginning. Not even Sensei's clone could detect them, which was kind of surprising. I'd thought that they were just that good, but maybe it was targeted? Like they knew how to hide from her?" It was a long shot, but could happen. "Then they didn't kill us immediately. When I woke up, I heard them talking about how Sensei had just got away, so I figured it hadn't been too long since I was captured. Mai was out cold next to me, and didn't have a scratch on her, so they hadn't… yet..." He nodded, indicating that he knew what I was referring to. "Then after some banter, one of the jounin mentioned my age. He knew my age. They had intel on exactly who I was." I paused. "Then later they asked me about the Yamanaka - they were really shit interrogators, by the way." I wiggled my stump. "They went straight for dismemberment after I refused to talk." I shook my head. "Anyway, by that point, I'd thought they'd gotten my family name out of Mai, but maybe they'd known before that..." I didn't know why they would target our team. I was jumping to conclusions. Everybody knew it, but paranoia was strong in the shinobi world, and I'd just brought up a possible security issue. If there was one thing I could count on, it would be the paranoia of a seasoned shinobi to search and destroy any possible risk.

After a while of thinking, the Hokage looked back to me. "Thank you, Taichi-kun, and I'm sorry that you had to go through all of that."

"It's alright, sir. I'll live."

He nodded sadly. "One more thing before you go." He grabbed a folder from his desk drawer. "In her ramblings with the Mind-healers, Mai-chan has repeatedly expressed her intent to quit the shinobi forces. Granted, she's a bit hard to understand, but we can tell that she won't be ready for any type of field-work any time soon." He winced slightly. "That leaves us with only one genin in your three-man cell."

I nodded, carefully rearing in my emotions.

"In that, we have two options open for you. One option is to join the Genin Corps. The highest ranking mission you would be sent on is C-rank, and it would be very rare to find yourself in any life-threatening situations." He looked to me for a reaction.

I didn't give one. That was a shit option.

"Normally that would be the only option, but you've been given a second: Niashi-san offered to apprentice you, if you wanted it."

"Apprentice? We have a system like that?" I asked.

"It's rare, but it can happen. It basically only happens when someone wants to pass down all their skills to a specific individual, but situations like this have happened before." He shrugged.

I scrunched my eyebrows, "Wouldn't my arm get in the way?"

The Third raised an eyebrow, "You act like loss-of-limb is a rarity."

"It's not?"

"Kami, I wish, but sadly no. You can work around it if you have the skill and drive."

I really didn't even have to think about my options.

"Apprenticeship sounds fun."

The old man smiled. "Somehow I knew you'd pick that."

A/N

I don't know what it is, but I've read at least 100-150+ fics on this site, and not-a-one has given their main character puppetry, mythical animal summons (dragon, phoenix, etc), or something equally, expectantly cliche. Am I doing something wrong? Clicking the wrong buttons? I've seen plenty that give their main characters the Rinnegan and such, but no motherfucking Dragon Summons?! I almost feel like I have to give Taichi a pet rainbow dragon that spits glitter just to make it fantastical enough to cover the lack of use.

I won't, cuz that would be stupid. But still.

Is anyone good at art? I need something as a cover picture for this bitch.

Please let me know if there's something I can do to improve; which is also known as Constructive Criticism.
Please do not shove insults up my bum-hole.
Please review! Even if it's just a word or two, I'd like to know what you all think.