Bam!
"Kso...," I mutter, as I stumble to pick up my groceries. How many times can
a guy trip in half a mile, anyway? It doesn't make sense, no, not at all.
This must be that little brat again, trying to get me. I'll show him, I'll
show him good!
I take another tentative step forward. Can't hear anything suspicious, no, not at all, but he's coming. No trip-wire, no oil slick, where is he?
Tap, tap- "Ha! Gotcha!" I scream, spinning around fully and catching the little punk in the act. Man, I rule! Okay, gotta sound cool, here goes: "How could a little loser like you try to beat an obviously superior full-fledged ninja like me!?" conking him on the head, I start to turn around, until I realize:
It's not the brat.
It's not even a little boy. It's an old lady. With a big stick.
Kso...
'Gawd, I'm sick of this,' I think to myself. 'Why does everyone hate me? If I just had one good friend, it would be worth it. If Sakura-chan liked me, It'd be worth it. If I had better skills, It'd be worth it. Now, no one wants to be my friend, and Sakura-chan is to stuck on that poof Sasuke, so I should develop my skills.'
"At least that's some time I can spend not being angsty, and maybe I'll learn a new Jutsu." I say, out loud. Heading over to the jutsu library at the Ninja office, I spend some quality time dodging potted plants and verbal abuse and tripping.
I'm getting hungry now. Maybe I should stop in at Ichiraku for a snack. Well, it's out of the way, and I could just go to the cafeteria at the ninja office, but... Wait, I owe Akane a ton 'cause of our tournament bets! Kso! I'll never forgive Shikamaru for forfeiting that match, he lost me twenty bills! So the cafeteria it is.
Upon sitting down to my bean cakes, I overhear a couple of chunins discussing jutsus.
"I don't care, Shindainishin is the best jutsu by far. I whooped some sand guy last year with it!"
"Yeah, but it was all you ever did! You didn't even make it though the Forest of Death, cause you didn't use Katon jutsus enough!"
"For cryin' out loud, you and your Katon jutsus! They always miss! Why, when you can just switch with your opponent, jump up really high, and fall headfirst? The look on there face when you switch back two centimeters from the ground is priceless!"
"... You're a sadist."
"Shut up"
But now, I've heard enough. I'll treasure the thought of Sasuke, that rat bastard, plummeting towards the ground, unable to move, unable to do anything about it, until he hit the ground with a satisfying thump and then all the girls will flock to me! 'Cause nobody ever beat Sasuke before. Wait, Lee did, and Sakura still doesn't like like him (thank gawd) but I'm not that ugly.
So I get up, and head over to the Jutsu scroll library down the hall.
The last time I was in here, I was a lot shorter, so it's smaller than I remember. But there's still more jutsu scrolls than I could ever possibly learn. I track down the shi spells, out of alphabetical order, and look down the row. Everything is in kanji, with the titles in hiragana and katakana under it. "Mind and Body Switch, Shindainishin no Jutsu" said the scroll I was looking for. It smelled like cheap perfume. Gawd, That girl Ino must have got to it first. Oh yeah, she tried to use it on my girl Sakura, but she's too awesome to be beaten by some wannabe pretty-in-purple poser. Though Ino is kinda hot...
Okay! Concentrate! I check the scroll out and try to ignore the glare from the librarian, as I walk out into the hall. No one's here, it's so late now. I head out into the crisp night to see who else but Sasuke! Gawd, this is the worst day ever! First I get chewed out by Sakura, then beaten by this punk, then told off by Kakashi-sensei, Then I have to put up with more pervy crap from Ero-sennin, and then I bet the crap beaten out of my by someone's grandma! Geez, life really isn't fair.
"What's your malfunction, dobe?"
"Shut the hell up, asswipe! You just watch! By tomorrow I'm gonna kick your sorry rear with this new Jutsu I'm learning! Better learn to hit something with those Katon's of yours! See ya, sucker!"
For about five seconds I feel tough.
"Whatever, dumbass."
Grrrr!! "Tomorrow! 3:00! Be there or I win by default!"
"Sure. How many times do I have to kick your sorry butt anyway?"
I walk off, steamed to hell. That baka, he'll get his.
I sit down on my bed.
Unrolling the scroll, I begin to read it. It ends up I need someone to try this on. Great, I'll need someone to be my partner, but who would practice with me? Hmmm... Kiba and his lil' doggie are my first choice, but Kiba is king of annoying. His teammate, Shino, is... not my type of guy at all. I don't want to be in that body with all those bugs, anyway! Shikamaru would fall asleep or ridicule me, and Chouji would run off and get my body fat. Lee wouldn't be that bad, but Neji hates me with a passion. So it's Lee or a girl... I wonder what being in a girl would be like. I bet it'd be kind of uncomfortable...
I decide the next day will be spent finding a person to practice with. Iruka-sensei could help me if no one else will, but I like the idea of practicing with Lee. Maybe I could with that foreign girl, whatshername, Tenten, but Hinata makes me edgy. She always turns away whenever I try to look at her, and I can hardly hear her when she talks. But, she does think I'm strong. That's a plus.
I wake up. Looking on my Kunoichi of the Month calendar, I see it's the thirteenth of the month, which is my lucky number. "Yes! I'm gonna kick ass today!" I say to myself, punching my palm.
Heading outside, I look around for anyone. The only person I see walking around is Asuma-san. "Sensei?" I ask. "Sensei, have you seen Rock Lee around anywhere?"
"I think he's at the training field. I saw a few guys out there."
"Thanks, Sensei!" I run off, only just hearing him say, "Yeah, no prob."
Down at the field, I arrive to quite a sight. Lee is there, as Asuma- san said, but he's not the only one. Shino and Lee are fighting, and oh my gawd, I've never seen anything like this before. Lee jumps into the air, trailed by a shock of bugs in a cloud. He reverses momentum and kicks through it, flipping and landing on his hands. Using his momentum, he handsprings and back-kicks directly turns toward Shino, who sidesteps it and as Lee goes by, he taps his midsection lightly. When Lee looks at where he was hit, he exclaims, "Wow, Shino-san, you are skilled. But you said if you could get five thousand bugs on me you win, and this is just one."
"Look at your feet."
Crawling up Lee's legs are the most bugs I'd ever seen in one place, ever. Soon, they are at his midsection, and after a moment, they arrange themselves so that the number "5000" shows though green on Lee's bodysuit. "Okay, I lose. But I least I didn't lose to a dishonorable foe. Now, I'm off."
I yell, "Hey, Lee! Can you train with me today? I have a new jutsu to learn, and it requires two people!"
"For two reasons, I cannot. First, I am unable to control enough chakra to train jutsus with you, and second, I must run 500 Laps of Defeat! But if you ever want to train your taijutsu, just ask."
Kso! He was my last chance. Now it'll have to be a girl. But he has a point, once my mind in his body I wouldn't be able to go back.
So a girl it is. I head over to the coffee shop where all the cool kids eat their cool breakfast. I figure that Hinata is at the Hyuuga Castle, eating her rich-person food, in a rich-person chair, with seventeen kinds of rich-person chopsticks. I'm looking for the foreign girl, now. I turn into the café, and there I see Kiba, a couple other kids I don't know, and Sakura-chan. I sit down at an empty table and ask Kiba if he knows where Tenten is. Sakura yells at me, "Naruto, You'd better not be bugging other people like you bug me all the time!"
"Aww, Sakura-chan, don't be like that..." I mumble, crushed. "I'm just trying to learn a new jutsu, and I need a partner. Um, do you want to train with me, by any chance?"
"Drop. Dead."
"Geez!" whistles Kiba. "That's harsh, even for a loser like you!" He then turns to me and says, "Tenten ought to be at the marketplace at this time of day. She has some weird habits."
"Thanks."
I leave, a little bit disappointed that Sakura-chan was so ride, but then again, she's always like that. She doesn't mean it, I tell myself.
So, I head over to the outdoor market, and I run into Hinata. Great, okay, play it cool, she's the only one who thinks I'm strong, especially since I beat Neji. Hey, I haven't talked to her since then, okay, "Hey, Hinata! How are you?"
Hinata looks at the floor and starts to play with her hands. "Well, I'm okay... How are you..."
"I'm doing okay, what's up?"
She blushes and is poking her fingertips together. Hey, she's acting a lot like I did that one time I was gonna hug Sakura-chan! Could it be that she likes me? Lets think about this:
Hinata= shy refrains from eye contact blushes whenever she sees me pokes fingertips together= shy, but likes me.
Naw, impossible!
"Oh, I'm, uh, getting the, uh, the..."
"The...?" I prompt.
"The grapes." She mutters, and blushes even darker red.
"Oh... well, good luck with that."
"Wait, Naruto-kun..."
"What?"
"Nothing... I'll see you later."
The word 'later' snaps me back to reality. "Hey, Hinata, I have a duel later! Wanna come and cheer me on? It's against Sasuke."
"Well, I would, but if I cheer against Sasuke, all the other girls will hate me. Sorry..."
"It's okay, I understand. See you later, Hinata!"
Damn Sasuke! Now my #1 fan won't come and cheer me on! Grrrr!
I walk around a bit more, and finally see Tenten. "Hey! Tenten!"
She looks at me and does a double-take. "Uh, um, Naruto? What is it?"
I rub the back of my head. "Hey, could you help me train with a new jutsu? I need a partner."
"Hmmm, I have a date later, but I can before three. Why me, though? I mean, wouldn't you pick a boy?
"Well, no one can. That's the problem. But maybe we could train together sometimes!" This might be my chance to make a good friend!
"Okay. Sure." We headed over to the training pitch, and I took out my scroll. The first step is to move your charka flow outside your person. I've never been good at charka control, but I gotta try...
I've always imagined my chakra as blue. When it's outside me, though, it's purple. I don't get it, but it makes a little sense it'd change color. I don't know if Tenten can see it, but after a few tries, I see a ghost of myself made of purple chakra walking towards her. "Whoa! I'm doing it! Check it out!"
Tenten is running a comb through her hair and looking in admiration at a photo.
"Hey, watch out! I'm about to do it!" I say, but the purple shadow of me dissipates. I check the scroll to see why, and now it says not to change your emotion before the change is complete. This time, I'm going to do it right! Okay, so the purple shadow of me is walking towards Tenten, and now it's touching her, and as I strain a little harder, it's lining up its limbs with Tenten's limbs, and now I feel relaxed. I'm not straining anymore. I blink. It didn't work...
After several more tries and a bunch of exasperation, I learned to control the purple avatar enough to perform the jutsu correctly. After about an hour, I complete the jutsu. I blink...
When I open my eyes, though, I see me! That can only mean I did it!
After only an hour! Special technique my butt, Ino must be pretty
stupid. Stupid and hot.
"What?!" yells me/Tenten. Ha! She didn't get ready in time! This could be a great practical joke. The first thing I notice is that being a girl is weird. I feel out-of-balance. The second thing-Oh my Gawd- is that the picture of Tenten's date-get this- is Lee. Whoa, I thought he liked Sakura. Oh well, now she's all mine!
The third thing I notice is that there's a comb sticking out of my/Tenten's hair.
Okay, It's go time!
I take another tentative step forward. Can't hear anything suspicious, no, not at all, but he's coming. No trip-wire, no oil slick, where is he?
Tap, tap- "Ha! Gotcha!" I scream, spinning around fully and catching the little punk in the act. Man, I rule! Okay, gotta sound cool, here goes: "How could a little loser like you try to beat an obviously superior full-fledged ninja like me!?" conking him on the head, I start to turn around, until I realize:
It's not the brat.
It's not even a little boy. It's an old lady. With a big stick.
Kso...
'Gawd, I'm sick of this,' I think to myself. 'Why does everyone hate me? If I just had one good friend, it would be worth it. If Sakura-chan liked me, It'd be worth it. If I had better skills, It'd be worth it. Now, no one wants to be my friend, and Sakura-chan is to stuck on that poof Sasuke, so I should develop my skills.'
"At least that's some time I can spend not being angsty, and maybe I'll learn a new Jutsu." I say, out loud. Heading over to the jutsu library at the Ninja office, I spend some quality time dodging potted plants and verbal abuse and tripping.
I'm getting hungry now. Maybe I should stop in at Ichiraku for a snack. Well, it's out of the way, and I could just go to the cafeteria at the ninja office, but... Wait, I owe Akane a ton 'cause of our tournament bets! Kso! I'll never forgive Shikamaru for forfeiting that match, he lost me twenty bills! So the cafeteria it is.
Upon sitting down to my bean cakes, I overhear a couple of chunins discussing jutsus.
"I don't care, Shindainishin is the best jutsu by far. I whooped some sand guy last year with it!"
"Yeah, but it was all you ever did! You didn't even make it though the Forest of Death, cause you didn't use Katon jutsus enough!"
"For cryin' out loud, you and your Katon jutsus! They always miss! Why, when you can just switch with your opponent, jump up really high, and fall headfirst? The look on there face when you switch back two centimeters from the ground is priceless!"
"... You're a sadist."
"Shut up"
But now, I've heard enough. I'll treasure the thought of Sasuke, that rat bastard, plummeting towards the ground, unable to move, unable to do anything about it, until he hit the ground with a satisfying thump and then all the girls will flock to me! 'Cause nobody ever beat Sasuke before. Wait, Lee did, and Sakura still doesn't like like him (thank gawd) but I'm not that ugly.
So I get up, and head over to the Jutsu scroll library down the hall.
The last time I was in here, I was a lot shorter, so it's smaller than I remember. But there's still more jutsu scrolls than I could ever possibly learn. I track down the shi spells, out of alphabetical order, and look down the row. Everything is in kanji, with the titles in hiragana and katakana under it. "Mind and Body Switch, Shindainishin no Jutsu" said the scroll I was looking for. It smelled like cheap perfume. Gawd, That girl Ino must have got to it first. Oh yeah, she tried to use it on my girl Sakura, but she's too awesome to be beaten by some wannabe pretty-in-purple poser. Though Ino is kinda hot...
Okay! Concentrate! I check the scroll out and try to ignore the glare from the librarian, as I walk out into the hall. No one's here, it's so late now. I head out into the crisp night to see who else but Sasuke! Gawd, this is the worst day ever! First I get chewed out by Sakura, then beaten by this punk, then told off by Kakashi-sensei, Then I have to put up with more pervy crap from Ero-sennin, and then I bet the crap beaten out of my by someone's grandma! Geez, life really isn't fair.
"What's your malfunction, dobe?"
"Shut the hell up, asswipe! You just watch! By tomorrow I'm gonna kick your sorry rear with this new Jutsu I'm learning! Better learn to hit something with those Katon's of yours! See ya, sucker!"
For about five seconds I feel tough.
"Whatever, dumbass."
Grrrr!! "Tomorrow! 3:00! Be there or I win by default!"
"Sure. How many times do I have to kick your sorry butt anyway?"
I walk off, steamed to hell. That baka, he'll get his.
I sit down on my bed.
Unrolling the scroll, I begin to read it. It ends up I need someone to try this on. Great, I'll need someone to be my partner, but who would practice with me? Hmmm... Kiba and his lil' doggie are my first choice, but Kiba is king of annoying. His teammate, Shino, is... not my type of guy at all. I don't want to be in that body with all those bugs, anyway! Shikamaru would fall asleep or ridicule me, and Chouji would run off and get my body fat. Lee wouldn't be that bad, but Neji hates me with a passion. So it's Lee or a girl... I wonder what being in a girl would be like. I bet it'd be kind of uncomfortable...
I decide the next day will be spent finding a person to practice with. Iruka-sensei could help me if no one else will, but I like the idea of practicing with Lee. Maybe I could with that foreign girl, whatshername, Tenten, but Hinata makes me edgy. She always turns away whenever I try to look at her, and I can hardly hear her when she talks. But, she does think I'm strong. That's a plus.
I wake up. Looking on my Kunoichi of the Month calendar, I see it's the thirteenth of the month, which is my lucky number. "Yes! I'm gonna kick ass today!" I say to myself, punching my palm.
Heading outside, I look around for anyone. The only person I see walking around is Asuma-san. "Sensei?" I ask. "Sensei, have you seen Rock Lee around anywhere?"
"I think he's at the training field. I saw a few guys out there."
"Thanks, Sensei!" I run off, only just hearing him say, "Yeah, no prob."
Down at the field, I arrive to quite a sight. Lee is there, as Asuma- san said, but he's not the only one. Shino and Lee are fighting, and oh my gawd, I've never seen anything like this before. Lee jumps into the air, trailed by a shock of bugs in a cloud. He reverses momentum and kicks through it, flipping and landing on his hands. Using his momentum, he handsprings and back-kicks directly turns toward Shino, who sidesteps it and as Lee goes by, he taps his midsection lightly. When Lee looks at where he was hit, he exclaims, "Wow, Shino-san, you are skilled. But you said if you could get five thousand bugs on me you win, and this is just one."
"Look at your feet."
Crawling up Lee's legs are the most bugs I'd ever seen in one place, ever. Soon, they are at his midsection, and after a moment, they arrange themselves so that the number "5000" shows though green on Lee's bodysuit. "Okay, I lose. But I least I didn't lose to a dishonorable foe. Now, I'm off."
I yell, "Hey, Lee! Can you train with me today? I have a new jutsu to learn, and it requires two people!"
"For two reasons, I cannot. First, I am unable to control enough chakra to train jutsus with you, and second, I must run 500 Laps of Defeat! But if you ever want to train your taijutsu, just ask."
Kso! He was my last chance. Now it'll have to be a girl. But he has a point, once my mind in his body I wouldn't be able to go back.
So a girl it is. I head over to the coffee shop where all the cool kids eat their cool breakfast. I figure that Hinata is at the Hyuuga Castle, eating her rich-person food, in a rich-person chair, with seventeen kinds of rich-person chopsticks. I'm looking for the foreign girl, now. I turn into the café, and there I see Kiba, a couple other kids I don't know, and Sakura-chan. I sit down at an empty table and ask Kiba if he knows where Tenten is. Sakura yells at me, "Naruto, You'd better not be bugging other people like you bug me all the time!"
"Aww, Sakura-chan, don't be like that..." I mumble, crushed. "I'm just trying to learn a new jutsu, and I need a partner. Um, do you want to train with me, by any chance?"
"Drop. Dead."
"Geez!" whistles Kiba. "That's harsh, even for a loser like you!" He then turns to me and says, "Tenten ought to be at the marketplace at this time of day. She has some weird habits."
"Thanks."
I leave, a little bit disappointed that Sakura-chan was so ride, but then again, she's always like that. She doesn't mean it, I tell myself.
So, I head over to the outdoor market, and I run into Hinata. Great, okay, play it cool, she's the only one who thinks I'm strong, especially since I beat Neji. Hey, I haven't talked to her since then, okay, "Hey, Hinata! How are you?"
Hinata looks at the floor and starts to play with her hands. "Well, I'm okay... How are you..."
"I'm doing okay, what's up?"
She blushes and is poking her fingertips together. Hey, she's acting a lot like I did that one time I was gonna hug Sakura-chan! Could it be that she likes me? Lets think about this:
Hinata= shy refrains from eye contact blushes whenever she sees me pokes fingertips together= shy, but likes me.
Naw, impossible!
"Oh, I'm, uh, getting the, uh, the..."
"The...?" I prompt.
"The grapes." She mutters, and blushes even darker red.
"Oh... well, good luck with that."
"Wait, Naruto-kun..."
"What?"
"Nothing... I'll see you later."
The word 'later' snaps me back to reality. "Hey, Hinata, I have a duel later! Wanna come and cheer me on? It's against Sasuke."
"Well, I would, but if I cheer against Sasuke, all the other girls will hate me. Sorry..."
"It's okay, I understand. See you later, Hinata!"
Damn Sasuke! Now my #1 fan won't come and cheer me on! Grrrr!
I walk around a bit more, and finally see Tenten. "Hey! Tenten!"
She looks at me and does a double-take. "Uh, um, Naruto? What is it?"
I rub the back of my head. "Hey, could you help me train with a new jutsu? I need a partner."
"Hmmm, I have a date later, but I can before three. Why me, though? I mean, wouldn't you pick a boy?
"Well, no one can. That's the problem. But maybe we could train together sometimes!" This might be my chance to make a good friend!
"Okay. Sure." We headed over to the training pitch, and I took out my scroll. The first step is to move your charka flow outside your person. I've never been good at charka control, but I gotta try...
I've always imagined my chakra as blue. When it's outside me, though, it's purple. I don't get it, but it makes a little sense it'd change color. I don't know if Tenten can see it, but after a few tries, I see a ghost of myself made of purple chakra walking towards her. "Whoa! I'm doing it! Check it out!"
Tenten is running a comb through her hair and looking in admiration at a photo.
"Hey, watch out! I'm about to do it!" I say, but the purple shadow of me dissipates. I check the scroll to see why, and now it says not to change your emotion before the change is complete. This time, I'm going to do it right! Okay, so the purple shadow of me is walking towards Tenten, and now it's touching her, and as I strain a little harder, it's lining up its limbs with Tenten's limbs, and now I feel relaxed. I'm not straining anymore. I blink. It didn't work...
After several more tries and a bunch of exasperation, I learned to control the purple avatar enough to perform the jutsu correctly. After about an hour, I complete the jutsu. I blink...
When I open my eyes, though, I see me! That can only mean I did it!
After only an hour! Special technique my butt, Ino must be pretty
stupid. Stupid and hot.
"What?!" yells me/Tenten. Ha! She didn't get ready in time! This could be a great practical joke. The first thing I notice is that being a girl is weird. I feel out-of-balance. The second thing-Oh my Gawd- is that the picture of Tenten's date-get this- is Lee. Whoa, I thought he liked Sakura. Oh well, now she's all mine!
The third thing I notice is that there's a comb sticking out of my/Tenten's hair.
Okay, It's go time!