A Ninja's Guide to Surviving High School
By: JAJapster
Copyright Stuff: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. For kicks, I looked up my family lineage to see if it connects somewhere with this in the hope that I might have some claim to the series if he were to have an unfortunate accident and die. Turns out I don't, which means he's safe. For now. In other news, A Ninja's Guide was written by me and shouldn't be reproduced without permission. Shiggidy.
Summary:
AU- High school is tough, but it gets a lot tougher when a demonic fox lives inside you and all your friends are ninjas. It's a world of angst, rivalries, friendships and romance inside the halls of Konoha High, but outside, trouble is brewing. A dangerous world waits a new generation of ninjas after graduation…assuming they all don't kill each other first.
Chapter Twelve: It's a Trap!
Kiba was not a happy teenager. Maybe it was the fact that he had spent the better part of the last two days living nomadically inside bushes, gutters, and briefly even a festering sewer as the search for the crime lord, Gato, took him, Akamaru, and his partner from one side of the city to the other. Or maybe it was being cramped for far too long alongside his team mate, Asuka, who as well as being ridiculously beautiful, also just so happened to be the most sarcastic and cynical person he had ever met. Or it could have been that Akamaru, his faithful dog, had gone pee too close to him one time too many. But most likely it was a combination of all of these that contributed to his foul disposition.
"Do you think you could move any slower, Kiba?" Asuka asked. Kiba bit his tongue, resisting the urge to throw some scathing retort back, and instead slogged forward, shimmying on his belly through the thick undergrowth. He knew it would do no good to start bickering. Besides, even if he did, Asuka undoubtedly had some clever comeback prepared that he would have no hope of topping. Forty-eight hours of exchanging insults had proven that already.
"Women…" he growled softly, poking his head through the bushes. Beside him, Akamaru whined sympathetically.
"You better not have lost them." Asuka glowered at her teammate.
Again, Kiba had to fight the temptation to say something nasty, or even better, flick her in the back of the head while her she was facing away from him. It would have been juvenile and immature, but oh what vindictive satisfaction it would bring him! There was really no denying it. Asuka was a real bitch. Unfortunately, for Kiba, the red-haired archer just so happened to be very pretty, a terrible combination in the young Inuzuka's book of ideal girls. Ugly nice girls were neutral, nice pretty girls were the best, ugly mean girls were also not bad because you could make fun of them without feeling guilty, but mean pretty girls were by far the worst. You couldn't hate them because they were hot, but you couldn't like them either because they were liable to bite your balls off with, or without a reason.
Still, Kiba had decided a while ago that while Asuka's constant, insulting commentary did little for his aural welfare; his eyes would not suffer in the slightest during the mission. The tight, black outfit she wore did amazing things to her slim, athletic body, and on more than one occasion did Asuka catch him staring.
"I see them," Kiba snarled.
They'd been tracking Gato for the last six hours, no small task given the tedious nature of the assignment. In the morning, Gato left his hotel, which they had identified the day before, and led the two ninjas all over the city as he went about his business, none of which was important. He ate breakfast, met with clients, visited his three mistresses, ate lunch etc. –a monotonous routine that threatened to lull Kiba to sleep. Finally, after yet another pointless meeting, Gato had gotten into a limousine with some man. They had driven deep into the countryside, finally stopping in a remote, grassy field far removed from the city.
"I also see the fifty mercenaries he has with him," Kiba added. Sure enough, waiting for the crime lord was a giant entourage of heavily armed men. None of them looked like ninjas, though. They were probably just hired muscle that Gato's servants had recruited in town. "Something important has to be happening if there's this many."
The two men walked toward the mercenaries. The first man was their target, Gato, a short 'businessman' with frizzy white hair and bulging belly that his expensive designer suit did little too disguise.
The second man Kiba did not know. He was tall with long black hair that extended halfway down the side of his face –a face that was gorgeous according to Asuka's opinion. Kiba thought it was feminine looking; the kind of soft featured handsome that automatically made the owner look like a pretty boy if not downright queer. Of course, Asuka ignored his derogatory comments about the man. Never mind that he might be a terrorist or a criminal, he was gorgeous, and thus automatically elevated to a plain impervious to criticism.
Their mystery man wore a long black cloak that was decorated with a pattern of swirling red clouds. It seemed to be a uniform of sorts. It certainly did not appear to be the kind of attire one normally walked around in without cause anyway. People would laugh. Well, Kiba would anyway.
"He's wearing a forehead protector," Asuka whispered.
Kiba had noticed that as well and that was what had him concerned. The emblem of the Hidden Leaf Village was emblazoned on the man's protector, and a deep scratch ran through the metal plating, a testament perhaps to some battle he had survived where others had not. Kiba knew most of the ninjas in the village, and the fact that he did not recognize this one bothered him. What worried him even more than that was that Konoha had another ninja operating in Kakami, a ninja Tsunade had not bothered to tell their team about. Either this man was black-ops and running his own mission, or he wasn't working for Konoha at all.
He made a mental note to tell Instructor Kakashi about that as soon as they reported back in, but for now he returned his attention to the meeting. Gato seemed livid, jumping up and down and screaming curses at the mercenaries.
"Where are those two?" he yelled. "I told them to be here!"
"Maybe they got lost," one of the mercenaries suggested.
"Lost? Lost, captain?" Gato shouted in the face of the unfortunate man. "They're Jounin! Two very expensive Jounin! Jounin do not get lost!"
Asuka stirred beside Kiba.
"Jounin?" She whispered, the apprehension evident in her voice. "Tsunade said Chunin at most."
"Quiet down," Kiba replied. He was impressed that he managed to sound so calm. In fact, his stomach was doing cartwheels right about now, making him feel more than a little nauseated. Against Chunin, Kiba was confident he and Asuka could hold their own. But against Jounin? Jounin were the elite, the best of the best. Genin would not stand an ice cub's chance in hell against a single Jounin, never mind two.
"Why do you need Jounin bodyguards?" The man asked. His voice was calm, monotonous even. "Are you afraid of something?"
"N-no. Of course not," Gato stammered quickly. "I'm just angry that my money is being wasted on incompetent employees."
The man nodded as if in understanding, but then he said, "I'm beginning to feel my time is being wasted on incompetence. Should I grow angry?"
The fat crime lord paled visibly. "I apologize for the delay. I promise I'll make the delivery soon."
"You're running out of time, Gato." The man said quietly. "Deliver me the Kyubi alive and unharmed and you shall be paid. I do not enjoy waiting."
"And you're sure the Kyubi is inside this boy? This Naruto?" Gato asked nervously.
Kiba and Asuka inhaled sharply and exchanged alarmed glances.
These guys weren't dealing in illegal contraband the report had said. They were here after the Kyubi! And that meant they were after its container too: Uzumaki Naruto. This could not be a coincidence. They were counting on Naruto and the Kyubi inside him to be assigned to Kakami, but why? What in the world would they want to do with a dormant demonic fox and a perverted, loudmouthed, trouble making ninja?
"This is a god damn trap," Kiba whispered. "Someone wanted us to come here."
"You think this is all a set up?" Asuka wondered. "But the only people who knew about this mission was-"
Kiba shook his head. "Konoha must have a spy then. Someone either leaked the mission personnel to Gato in advance or made sure Naruto was put here."
"But who?"
That was the magic question, a question that was without an answer at the moment. There could be a hundred different people inside the Hidden Leaf Village who would abet their enemies or there might be none at all. Kiba was not knowledgeable enough about the inner workings of the village to even begin suspecting whose loyalties were suspect.
"Meet me at the bridge tomorrow morning," the man told Gato. "And make sure you have the Kyubi."
Gato bowed deeply, the top of his frizzy hair almost touching the ground. "It will be as you say."
The robed ninja turned and his gaze swept over the green countryside. Kiba stiffened as he felt the man's eyes pass over the bushes they were hiding in. "But first," the stranger said, "I believe we have some uninvited visitors ease dropping on our conversation."
Asuka and Kiba froze. They were spotted. How they had been found they had absolutely no idea, but that was unimportant right now. It was time to bail and fast. Simultaneously they exploded from their hiding place, weapons drawn and ready for battle. Asuka was armed with her bow, Kiba with his kunai, and Akamaru with his fangs.
Gato appeared absolutely dumbstruck by the sudden appearance of two Konoha ninjas and one very large wolf, a look of utter shock plastered on his fat face. He stammered for something to say, finally settling with, "Kill them!"
The mercenaries responded eagerly to their employer's command, raising their weapons with a hearty cheer and then running toward the two ninjas.
Even when faced with imminent death at the hands of a hundred angry mercenaries, Kiba somehow found the time to appreciate Asuka's talent with the bow. Her hands moved faster than his eyes could follow, stringing an arrow and releasing it with unbelievable speed. And what more her accuracy was incredible –five arrows were released in the space of a few heartbeats and five more corpses were added to the battlefield.
Another mercenary went down as an arrow took him through the heart, but it seemed for every enemy that Asuka felled from her bow's deadly precision, another two stepped forward to take their place. Kiba and Akamaru were faring little better. The duo cut a deadly swathe through Gato's forces, Kiba wielding his kunai and Akamaru his razor sharp teeth, but their best efforts still did little to stem the endless deluge of mercenaries.
Akamaru lunged forward, his fangs ripping through the throat of a mercenary who had strayed too close to the wolf, and Kiba finished the job by hurling one of his shruikens in between the man's eyes. Another of the sellswords, braver than the rest, rushed at Kiba, sword held high ready to strike. Before he could make it to the young ninja he suddenly pitched forward into the mud, one of Asuka's arrows lodged in his back.
"There's too many!" Kiba yelled as he dispatched another mercenary with a kunai across the man's throat. Akamaru growled in agreement. The wolf's sleek white fur was covered in blood and gore, and Kiba was afraid that not all of it belonged to the mercenaries. "We need to retreat!"
Asuka was too busy to even acknowledge Kiba. She ducked under a knife that would have plunged in her head, and stabbed the mercenary with the tip of an arrow. Standing back up, she then notched the same arrow and released the shaft into the face of another enemy.
"It'll be tough," she pointed out in a momentary lull in the carnage. It did not last long. In seconds, more mercenaries were pouring towards them, and Asuka returned to thinning their ranks with her rapid barrage of arrows. She fired off another shot, hitting a man in the side of the head, and reached for another arrow. Only, this time, her hand closed around air.
"I'm out!" yelled the archer. She slung her bow over her shoulder and drew a curved knife from her belt.
Kiba swore. He had to think fast. Without Asuka's bow they would not be able to hold back the mercenaries for too much longer. He hated the idea of running, but if they didn't do something fast, they would be over run. Gritting his teeth in determination, he plunged his kunai in the chest of one of Gato's thugs and leaped to where Asuka was.
"Get out of here!" he yelled to his teammate. "Me and Akamaru will hold them off!"
"What? And leave you here? Forget it!"
"One of us has to get this information back," He yelled.
"We'll do it together then! I'm not leaving you here by yourself!"
Kiba hesitated. As touching as it was that Asuka was determined to stay by his side, he did not have time to argue with her. He normally respected stubbornness because his mother claimed he was one of the most stubborn people she had the misfortune of knowing, but right now it was the last thing he needed. "Asuka, move your ass now! That's an order!"
The red haired archer glared at the wolf-trainer. Tsunade had put Kiba in charge of their two man team for the mission, and according to Konoha law she was obliged to follow his orders. She had thought Kiba was a gutless coward, the kind of guy who would never dare to exert his position in fear of what a beautiful girl like her might think of him afterwards. He was in command, true, but Asuka had never really expected him to use it.
"You better be right behind me," she snapped irritably. She loathed the prospect of leaving Kiba by himself, especially now that her respect for him had just leapt a notch. But orders were orders.
Kiba kept a careful on eye on the mercenaries. Some were pulling back, dragging their dead and wounded with them. He estimated that together the two ninjas had wiped out almost half of Gato's forces during the fierce skirmish. The odds of facing the survivors alone were still not good, but he and Akamaru would manage. They would have to.
"I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Get going." He told her.
Asuka nodded and then vanished in a cloud of smoke. Kiba quickly reached into his pouch and unleashed a hailstorm of shruikens to cover his partner's retreat. The mercenaries scattered, too occupied with their own safety to even think of pursuing the fleeing ninja. A few were too slow in evading, and they cried out as one of his projectiles found their mark. Nervously, the young Inuzuka looked for Asuka. She was out of sight already, but he needed to buy her a little bit more time if she was to make good on her escape.
"C'mon you bastards!" Kiba yelled. "What are you waiting for?"
But none of the mercenaries responded to his boisterous challenge. They were falling back, many of them wounded from the brief but deadly battle, but stepping forward to take their place on the blood stained battlefield was none other than the man, the feminine looking stranger. He walked amongst the corpses, unfazed by the carnage, and stopped in the middle of the grassy plain.
"Only one of you?" The young Inuzuka laughed. "Don't waste our time! Right Akamaru?"
Akamaru did not seem to share his master's confidence or enthusiasm. He whined softly, his ears twitching erratically as he stared at their new opponent. This instantly put Kiba on guard. Akamaru was scared, and Kiba thought he knew why.
"His power is that high, huh?" Kiba asked quietly. The white wolf had the unique ability to detect a ninja's power levels through smell, but never had they encountered an air of strength great enough to cower Akamaru. A few of the instructors made Akamaru nervous with the intensity of the power they radiated, but none had had this kind of effect on him before.
Akamaru barked a confirmation.
"Why didn't you tell me that before?" Kiba complained.
An annoyed growl was his only answer.
"Yeah, I guess it wouldn't have made a difference." The dog's master consented.
The man walked closer, his robes billowing as a cool breeze whipped through the clearing. Kiba could feel the powerful aura manifesting in the man, a presence so pronounced it might as well have been real. It was like an invisible wall surrounded the unknown ninja, a barrier of potent energy that sent an electrifying sensation through Kiba's body merely by standing within its radius. The man moved slowly towards Kiba, lethargically as if he did not have a care in the world.
"An Inuzuka clan ninja?" the man said. "Interesting."
Kiba nodded. "You're from Konoha." he stated. "What are you doing working with Gato?"
The man did not answer. He looked at Gato, a lethal gaze in his eyes, and said, "I'll deal with this Gato, but be warned. Any more interruptions and…" he left the threat incomplete; allowing Gato imagination to decide what deadly consequences may await him.
Gato nodded in hasty consent. "N-no, I mean, y-yes! Thank you!"
A small grin stretched across Kiba's mouth, his fang like teeth barred in a feral smile. So the man was not open to listening. Big surprise there. That was probably the reason why ninjas were generally poor negotiators. Most of them just wanted to kill things. War was a ninja's occupation, not peace. "We're some of the best ninjas in Konoha," he told the stranger. "You'd better not underestimate us!"
"Razor Claw technique!" Kiba yelled. On command, chakra poured into his hands and his nails began to grow at an incredible rate. Within seconds they were as long as his arm; each talon thin and as hard as metal, transforming his hands into a bristling arsenal of razor sharp knives. Grinning, he flexed his fingers, letting each of his claws resound noisily against one another in an intimidating chorus of bone clashing against bone. Beside him, Akamaru, encouraged by his master's courage, leaped back to his feet and growled menacingly at the stranger, his pointy fangs barred savagely.
"Let's go, Akamaru!" He yelled. Together they charged ahead. Akamaru attacked first, throwing his formidable bulk at the man, but the stranger quickly stepped aside and Akamaru flew by harmlessly. Kiba was right after his hound, unleashing a brutal array of lightening fast strikes with his claws. He struck again and again with a berserker's ferocity, his hands an untraceable blur of motion. Akamaru leaped forward again, his teeth targeting the man's legs. However, none of their blows connected. The robe-clad ninja moved out of harm's way, easily swaying in and out of the duo's onslaught.
With a snarled curse, Kiba ordered Akamaru to break off the attack. He was breathing heavily, the fatigue from the fighting settling into his weary body. The white wolf peered up at Kiba inquisitively, confusion evident in his hazel eyes. Countless hours of training had honed their fighting so that they moved in synch with each other, enabling them to fight as a pair in perfect harmony. In theory, the combination of Akamaru's size and Kiba's speed should have been enough to defeat most normal ninjas. This man, however, apparently was anything but normal.
"The standard has sure fallen for a Konoha ninja if this is the best it has to offer," the man remarked scornfully.
Kiba could not think of anything to say. For the first time he felt genuinely afraid. Even though he and Akamaru had been fighting for the last ten minutes, never had Kiba actually felt like their lives were in any real danger. The mercenaries, while many in number, were nothing compared to the skill of a ninja. But this man, this stranger, was completely different. He outclassed them so greatly Kiba could seldom comprehend it. The two had just thrown some of their best techniques at the ninja and had absolutely nothing to show for it.
He's not a Jounin, Kiba realized fearfully, cold sweat pouring down his brow. Jounin aren't even this good…
"Why do you want Naruto?" he asked. "What are you going to do with him?" Again, he was surprised by how steady his voice sounded, devoid of the icy fear that coursed through his veins. He was terrified of the man's power, but he would not show it. He was Inuzuka Kiba, a Konoha ninja, and if he was going to die here he would do so in a manner that would make his friends proud.
The man paused. When he spoke, his cold, emotionless voice managed to sound pleasantly surprised. "You're a friend of the Kyubi? Good, that will make this easier."
"You want me to use him as bait?" Gato asked, realizing his client's idea. "Are you sure that's a-"
"Proceed as planned, Gato." The ninja interrupted. "Keep this one alive. The Kyubi will no doubt try to rescue him. I'll be waiting when he does."
Kiba glared at the two men. "Now wait a second, what makes you think I'm going-"
But he never finished his sentence. One second the robe-clad ninja was speaking with Gato, and the next he was gone. Something hard hit Kiba in the back of the head, and before he even realized it, he felt himself falling. He tried to stop himself, but his hands and legs would not respond. The ground rushed up to meet him, and a jarring sensation rocked his body as his head hit the floor.
And then everything went dark.
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Author's Notes:
Wow. This chapter really didn't turn out the way I wanted. I planned on elaborating on some sequences, drawing out some of the action and such, but my writer's block was so bad everything I typed just sounded stupid. Ultimately, I decided to cut my losses and just post it. Sorry. I'm in a bit of a slump right now. Hopefully I'll get back in the groove of things by next chapter.
Kiba's partner, Asuka's, personality and appearance mirrors the Asuka from Evangelion –another one of my favorite anime. She's won't be a big character in A Ninja's Guide, but the guy-girl ratio in Naruto is too heavily in favor of the guys and I needed to balance it some. Reviews are always appreciated! With your help, this story has hit a super sweet ten reviews per chapter –my goal since I started writing this. You guys are awesome!
Oh, and feedback time. Which do you prefer? More light hearted humorous storyline, or serious, action driven plot?
With Kiba captured, Asuka injured, and Sasuke and Sakura undercover with Haku, things definitely do not look good for Konoha's away team. To make matters worst, what happens when it turns out there are even more renegade ninjas running around Kakami, including one that seems to have some really big grudge against Kakashi? Will the other ninjas rush to the rescue? Will I ever remain true to my teasers and actually write what I put in them? Find out in Chapter Thirteen: More Ninja Masks than a Masquerade!
