Wakfu, Way of the Ninja
Chapter One
"Congratulations on achieving the rank of genin," Iruka said at the front of the classroom. "You will now be split into three-person teams under a jounin sensei. When you hear your name, stand up so your teammates can see you. Team One will be..."
Naruto leaned forward in his seat, not wanting to miss a thing, but Iruka didn't call out his name. Team Two came and went, then Team Three, Four, and Five. He started to feel nervous that maybe his whole, "Become promoted to genin," thing hadn't gone through. And technically he had failed the "official" genin exam, but he had made up for it by stealing the Scroll of Seals from the Hokage, learning a forbidden jutsu, and beating Mizuki up to a bloody pulp.
An unorthodox method of graduating, sure, but Iruka was impressed.
"Team Seven," Iruka said, "will be Uzumaki Naruto..."
Naruto jumped to his feet. "Finally!"
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Kakashi stepped through the door of Naruto's apartment. The place was a mess with dirty dishes on the table and dirty clothes on the floor and a moldy, musty smell throughout.
So basically, a regular bachelor hovel.
He opened the fridge to see what his prospective student's diet was like. Basic ramen, top ramen, instant ramen...and milk. Rancid milk. Or he's trying to make cheese. Lovely.
The kid apparently didn't invite many friends over. Or if he did, his friends had bad eyesight. And a weak sense of smell. And didn't mind the roaches. Or maybe his friends were the roaches.
That made Kakashi feel a bit bad about stepping on one of them. But not really.
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"Hyuuga Hinata..." Iruka continued.
Hinata gasped. Really? We're...we're on the same team? She didn't even know what to think. She had hoped that they would end up on a team together, but now that it was happening, the prospect terrified her. Iruka paused before announcing their third teammate, and she remembered that she was supposed to stand up.
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Kakashi knew that Naruto was going to be trouble. As the jounin instructor of a genin team, he'd make sure they didn't hurt themselves too badly while training and that they didn't get themselves killed on missions, but most of their growth would come from learning the secret techniques from their own families and clans.
And Naruto was an orphan. Fantastic.
If I had known that this job was going to require work, I never would have volunteered!
His next student, though was a Hyuuga, and if someone asked any of them, they'd reply with the most condescending tones they could muster that Hyuuga ninjas were the strongest ninjas, the Hyuuga clan was the strongest clan, and that the Hyuuga's techniques were the strongest techniques in all of Konoha, et cetera, et cetera. At least, they did ever since the Uchihas were wiped out.
He introduced himself at the gate as Hinata's jounin instructor, and asked to see her father. The next thing he knew, he was in front of the clan head himself.
I guess I should have looked into that beforehand. But this was even better. Hyuuga Hiashi was her father? She probably had three personal instructors already. The only hard part would be pulling her from her training long enough to go on missions.
"Do what you want with her," Hiashi said, not even looking at him. "I have lost interest in the child years ago."
The child? That seemed...awfully distant. "I just want to make sure that her time on team building exercises and low level missions won't interfere with her...personal training regimen." Please let her have a personal training regimen.
"The child is defectively weak. She will not be missed."
Kakashi breathed in sharply. He had known ninjas to abandon their friends before–they were a cold-blooded bunch at the best of times–but to abandon one's own daughter?
Kakashi barely had time to realize that he wanted to kill the man before the leading contestant for the World's Worst Dad Award turned his face towards him suddenly and activated his Byakugan.
Oh, right. Hyuugas always were sensitive about killer intent. Man, I'm good at making friends.
"You're dismissed, Hatake," Hiashi said.
The smart thing to do would be to leave politely. Antagonizing one of the physically and politically most powerful people in Konoha wouldn't help anyone.
"And you're a dick, Hiashi. Have a nice day."
Okay, not a smart move, but someone had to say it.
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"...and Yugo."
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Kakashi looked up at the sign of an inn.
Crunchy Gobball. What on earth is a Gobball? It sounds like something you cough up when you're sick. And there was a mutant sheep grinning cheerfully on the sign. Great.
But in any case, his last student, Yugo, lived here, and after this he'd be done with his background checks.
Inside, a broad shouldered, barrel chested innkeeper with a white chef's hat and a long, drooping mustache greeted him with open arms and a wide grin. "Welcome to the Crunchy Gobball! You've just missed the lunch rush, but just make yourself comfortable and I'll heat up the soup of the day."
"I'm not here for that," Kakashi said. "I'm looking for Yugo's father. Is that you?"
"I am. The name's Alibert. What can I do for you?"
"I'm Kakashi, and I've been assigned as your son's jounin instructor."
Alibert's face lit up. "You are? That's fantastic! Have you eaten lunch yet?"
"Uh..."
"Then I'll make you second lunch. On the house. I insist." He stepped into the kitchen before Kakashi could respond and came back with a plate.
Kakashi looked down at his plate. "This is the soup of the day?"
"Yes."
"This is a steak." There was rice and sauteed vegetables underneath, but he didn't see any soup in it.
"I like my soup meaty."
He shrugged inwardly. He never liked soup much anyway, and he had never turned down steak before. "Thank you very much."
"Wow," Alibert said after seeing him eat. "I didn't know you could eat without taking your mask off. How did you do that?"
"Clan secret," he said, pushing the empty plate away.
"I'll bet it is. So, what can I do for you?"
"I wanted to see what your kid's personal training schedule was like." The records had Alibert as a civilian, but anyone driven enough could be self trained.
"You know, I don't think he has one," Alibert said, clearing the table "As soon as he gets home from the academy, he always helps out with the inn until closing."
Kakashi raised an eyebrow, an expression that went entirely unnoticed. "You're aware that Yugo is graduating at the top of his class."
"He's always been a special child."
"And you never saw him studying or practicing or anything?"
"Like I said, he's a special child."
"I see. And I understand that he has a special bloodline? Some space-time jutsu?"
"Yes, he makes portals. He can serve every table without leaving the kitchen. It's been a huge help."
"And you taught it to him, right?" If Alibert was teaching his son ancient family techniques, then that would take some of the weight off of him.
"No, he came up with it himself."
"Really? How?"
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It was Yugo's first week at the academy. The lectures were boring, the running and the knife throwing was fun, but the chakra exercises were something else entirely.
Yugo had seen people meditating before. It had looked like a bunch of people sitting on the ground pretending to be awake. But then he tried it, and it was like opening a door to another world!
"If it feels like nothing is happening, that's okay," one of the instructors said when the exercise ended. "Chakra manipulation takes a lot of time and patience, and no one gets it on the first try. Stand up everyone, we're going to do something a bit more fun."
The instructors split the students up into groups of two for sparring. "Normally we'd divide you based off of your skill, but since you just got here and don't have any skills, we're doing this based off of size. No weapons or special techniques, but beyond that, there's no need to hold back."
Yugo realized that he was the smallest guy in the class and found himself paired with the second smallest, a kid with bright blond hair and whisker marks on his face.
His opponent grinned. "Defeating you is my next step in becoming the next Hokage!"
"You're going to be the next Hokage?" Yugo asked in surprise. "They already decided that?" He didn't even know that the Third was retiring.
"No, I decided that!" He launched himself into an attack, which Yugo sidestepped. His opponent didn't seem to know what he was doing, but Yugo didn't know what he was doing either. He figured that he was supposed to hit back at some point.
He reached out to...to what? Block? Counter? He wasn't sure, but with the chakra exercise fresh in his mind, he felt hyper aware of his own life energy flowing through his body, his heart–his hands–and he opened a door to another world.
And his opponent fell into it.
The door vanished, leaving Yugo without an opponent.
"Hey," a chunin instructor said as he was passing by. "What happened to the kid you were paired with?"
"Um, he kind of disappeared," Yugo said, hoping he wouldn't get in too much trouble.
"What?" The man swore. "This is bad. I'll need an ANBU squad looking for him, and at least three kill teams."
The ears of his hat drooped visibly. Yep, he was in trouble.
"What's going on?" a second instructor asked.
"Naruto's loose," the first one said grimly. "Disappeared into thin air."
"I didn't mean to, I swear!" Yugo said.
Both men turned to him. "You didn't mean to do what?"
"I was...I don't even know what I did! I just stretched out my hand and..." He focused chakra into his hand like he had learned how to do earlier that day, in a way that he felt was a part of him his whole life. His palm began to glow blue, and he drew a circle in the air.
A blue portal formed, and his opponent popped out of it. He fell to the ground and gasped for breath.
"Huh, he's back," the first instructor said. "Oh well."
"Are you okay, Naruto?" the second one said.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he said. "It will take more than that to...to..." His face turned green as he tried to stand, and he turned his head and vomited.
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"And Yugo has been making portals ever since," Alibert finished.
"Interesting," Kakashi said. A space-time jutsu that didn't require hand seals? It had to be a bloodline. "And his ability skipped your generation?"
Alibert laughed and shook his head. "He's adopted. Everything skipped my generation."
"Huh. Well, thank you again for lunch. I should get going."
"Don't be a stranger!" Alibert called after him as he left.
Kakashi needed to rethink his strategy he decided as he walked to the academy. Usually the genins would learn family techniques and fighting styles and the jounin sensei could just focus on teaching them teamwork. But from what he'd seen, Naruto had no family, Yugo's family was only good for emotional support, and Hinata's family wasn't even good for that. Kakashi sighed inwardly. This was going to take a lot of work.
In the back of his head, he heard Maito Gai laughing at him.
No, no, he wasn't that desperate. The day he resorted to hard work was the day he started wearing green spandex. And besides, the idea of being shadowed by a group of kids wearing lopsided forehead protectors and masks didn't appeal to him. People called him a genius, and if he was a genius of anything, it was of avoiding hard work, not the alternative. Heck, if it weren't for his "Eternal Rival," as Gai liked to call himself, he wouldn't have exerted himself at all in the past decade.
Eternal Rival...
An idea popped into his head. Experienced ninja trained and improved to beat their enemies, but genin lived such sheltered lives, enemies were an abstraction. Friends, though, were very, very real. If he could encourage a rivalry between his students, then they'd do most of the work for him.
In a worst case scenario, they'd take the rivalry too far and spend the rest of their lives trying to kill each other, but that hardly ever happened. Still, they'd need good teamwork to survive always being at each other's throats. No, they'd need great teamwork. If they didn't have that, then there was no point in taking them anyway.
He reached the academy and found the room where he was supposed to meet his team. As soon as he opened the door, a chalkboard eraser fell on his head and a blond kid in an orange jumpsuit started laughing hysterically.
Real mature, he thought, picking it up. If I do end up having to drop these kids, I think I could live with that.
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a/n This story is probably a bad idea that I will abandon in a few chapters, but you never get good ideas unless you're willing to risk bad ideas, so here it is. This is more of a prologue than anything else. I changed a few other things beside bringing Yugo and his dad to Konoha, which I will explain later when they become relevant, such as where Sasuke is in all this after Yugo took his spot on Team Seven.
If I focus more on the Wakfu aspect of this story than the Naruto part, it's because I'm assuming that more of my readers are familiar with Naruto but not Wakfu than the reverse, but I'll try to make this story readable for everyone. If any part if it doesn't make sense, let me know, and I'll do what I can to rebalance it.