Naruto was not a happy individual.
He was not a leader, preferring to follow instead of having to be the one to call the shots. He more than pulled his weight on the team – he had to, of course.
In his time on Team 7, he had come to see that Sasuke was able to pull his weight. The problem lied with his other teammate, Sakura. She was loud, overall. Not to mention somewhat useless in combat. In an attempt to fix this, he had tried teaching Sakura more advanced taijutsu.
While that lasted a good little while, it stopped after a couple months when Sakura thought she was good enough to stand on Naruto or Sasuke's level.
Naruto couldn't see how she possibly thought this.
During the first trial in the Chuunin exams, as he had called it, it was fairly challenging. He realized that the point was to gather information, but his skillset wasn't in that area. He was the heavy hitter of the team, the tank, the wall. Not a scout, not a spy, and not… whatever that was.
Nevertheless, during the second part of the exams he could more properly pull his weight.
As a team, it had been decided that the scroll should be kept with Sasuke due to him being the most evasive of the team. From there, Naruto broke off from the team to go and retrieve another scroll, only to come back to a severely wounded Sasuke and an exhausted Sakura.
Looking down at the fallen Uchiha, Naruto remained indifferent. Glancing over to Sakura, he tossed the scroll he had collected to her.
Her eyes widened a little.
"Why is there blood on the scroll?"
That was a stupid question. "The other team didn't want to give me their scroll for free, so I relieved them of their duty to participate in this exam."
Needless to say, Sakura did not seem pleased with his answer.
He still couldn't understand why she seemed so disturbed. Taking out the enemy team, the weakest one within a reasonable distance of the rendezvous point, was the most efficient option. It wasn't exactly his fault if they made it more difficult to be captured or subdued rather than being killed.
Every participant did sign a waiver, after all.
Fast forward to the third exam, he could start doing what he was best at.
Working alone.
Granted, teamwork was a great and powerful tool. He just didn't know how to fight with other people at his side… considering how when he entered the battlefield it turned into a wasteland. There would usually be collateral damage that he couldn't control so well.
He knew that if he could find somebody to work well with – Sasuke didn't count, since the Uchiha seemed more against teamwork than Naruto did – he could become much more powerful.
Konoha didn't get as many things right as they preached, but they did get some things right. Teamwork, for one. A well-oiled team that could take down S-rank threats even if each member was only a meager ninja was the ideal result of teamwork. It had been done before, too, further validating this mindset.
It's just that nobody wanted to work with Naruto and so he grew to like working that way.
Thankfully, before the prelims started, he had gotten a chance to take a shower, which helped to wash most of the blood out of his hair. It was white, but not quite that bright – more of an off-white. He had been questioned if he dyed his hair that way by Sakura – he didn't.
Feeling clean helped him feel a bit better, helping to relieve some of the stress from the previous exam.
When he had been called down to fight, finally, he ignored Kiba's taunts. Taunting was useless if your opponent didn't show reactions, supposedly.
Or so he had read in a book once.
Kiba charged at him, only to have his punch be deflected by a quick flash of a dark, yet glowing, red that appeared before Naruto. Kiba tried a few more punches, only for each one to be blocked by that quick red flash.
Naruto's eyes began to glow, their usual red starting to stand out more.
"Is that all?"
A glowing dark red tail burst from the ground, stabbing right through where Kiba's torso had been just moments ago. The boy had enough common sense to quickly jump away when Naruto spoke. He watched as the tail vanished in a small and quickly disappearing cloud of red mist.
Quickly, he pulled a pill out of a pouch, and tossed it to his dog.
The pill never made it to the dog, having been knocked out of the air by a glowing tail. Another tail quickly swept the dog away, throwing it towards one of the far walls.
Naruto raised his right hand, the sleeve of his hoodie showing that it was a bit big on him. Several of the tails burst from the sleeve, trying to impale Kiba from a distance.
Feinting in one direction and then quickly leaping over a tail, Kiba dashed towards Akamaru.
The small dog, having recovered, tried to do the same thing, only to be slammed into the ground from above by one of Naruto's powerful tails.
"Kiba."
Naruto's voice cut through the air, grabbing Kiba's attention.
Glaring, Kiba put as much spite as he could into his reply, "What?"
Tilting his head to the side, Naruto spoke.
"Do you know how humans used to hunt? Before taijutsu, before ninjutsu, before genjutsu, before many things. The prey would always run as fast as it could, quickly and swiftly, but this only tired it out all the more, while humans followed behind slowly but steadily, slowly catching up. Slowly, they'd overtake their prey. Did you know that, Kiba?"
Before Kiba could respond, a tail stabbed through him from behind, piercing the right side of his chest – clear through his lungs. Craning his neck to see what happened, he could see the tail came from the ground.
Naruto had drawn away Kiba's attention long enough to sneak a tail underground and use it against him.
"You could have surrendered, Kiba."
Kiba spat at him as the tail in his torso dispelled into thin red mist.
Walking away, Naruto ignored the cries of one of the Jounin – Kurenai Yuuhi, if he remembered correctly.
He felt bad about having to kill Kiba, he really did, but he didn't have time to dwell on such subjects. He chose to most efficient path and stuck with it. At least, that's what he liked to tell himself. A small voice in the back of his head told him Kiba might not be dead, since it had not been confirmed yet, but he didn't want to check. He didn't want to get his hopes up only for them to be destroyed. It was safer to assume Kiba was in a better place.
Leaving the building, having done his match, Naruto decided a break was required.
Red mist swirled next to him, becoming thicker and thicker until it solidified into the one person… or, rather, creature, that understood him. It understood him whether he liked it or not.
It turned into a rather tall woman, one who would be considered beautiful in an exotic way.
"You did well."
She had an alluring voice, but Naruto's mood was a bit too sour to fall prey to it just yet.
Turning to it, Naruto spoke. "I'm already stuck with you for life, must you try and intrude on my quiet time too?"
She gave him a small smile, "Why, I wanted to congratulate you. Do you not like that? I could try and degrade you instead, if you'd prefer."
He felt his right eye twitching.
"I appreciate the thought. It's just… right now, I want peace and quiet. Please leave me be for now."
The woman sighed a little before vanishing into that same red mist from before.
Not like anybody would see her either way. Only Naruto could see her, so it could look like he had somehow gone crazy if he was caught talking to her. It'd look like he was talking to himself, which would be… concerning.
The attempt at peace and quiet ruined, Naruto went back inside.
Naruto Uzumaki -
Ninjutsu: 3.5
Taijutsu: 2.5
Genjutsu: 0.5
Intelligence: 3
Strength: 2.5
Speed: 2.5
Stamina: 4.5
Hand Seals: 4
Total: 23
Hello fair people – I have been gone for… a certain amount of time I'm way too lazy to check in on.
"You've not completed literally any other story you've ever started, even though you said you would!"
Yeah, well, I don't know how to continue them. My motivation and my idea for how to continue a story depends on… random thoughts.
Yep. I know, it's stupid, but it is what it is and I can't really change that. I actually have a general idea for where I want to take this one… just don't expect consistent uploads from me. Ever. I will upload when I have the time and motivation to do so.