Disclaimer: i don't own naruto...anything remotely related to it...blah blah. and this goes for the whole friggin story. repeating is a bitch.
A/N: story takes place some generations after the real series so it's all original characters. a few of the characters are relatives of some of the real original ones though, and some aspects and stuff of the original characters are seen again in a few of my own characters so there'll be some familiarity, heh. umm...i suck with updates so some can be as late as.......several months. xx i'll try to stay commited to it cause i have a huge tendancy to abandon stories after just one or two chpaters. reviews from anyone are cool, but i hate it when they're stupid one liners like "update, kplzthnx" or if they're retard flames that don't say anything except "your story sucks". so i'd like constructive criticism instead. and if it's gonna be a flame, PLEASE explain why. it's stupid if someone flames and doesn't have a reason why they think it's bad. other than that, i hope you like the story. and also, since this is really just a whole new story that takes place in the Naruto world, it's not limited to just an adventure genre. there's romance and drama here and there and possibly humor if i can think of anything. yeah.......now read, you monkies.
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Racing the Winds
Chapter 1 – Leaf Village's Genin Team #3
It was a nice summer day in the village of Leaf. The weather matched perfectly with the special occasion of the day as well—it was the day when the graduates of the academy became genins. Everyone was excited during this kind of day, and it was natural for every graduate to be overwhelmed with rejoice for earning such a responsibility, that is, all but one young boy.
Nonaka Takuro, a regular boy slept lazily under a shady tree in the hills at the edge of town, not far from the academy. It was a usual spot for him to go to, especially when he was skipping class, mostly because no one was ever there. It was just him and the trees, grass, and winds. He was a kid whose laziness knew no bounds, and he was always reluctant to do anything but sleep or eat. Takuro was also quiet and a bit anti-social. He didn't care for close friends, but he didn't avoid making any; he just didn't have any.
He twitched his leg a bit, which happened often while he slept. Takuro was incapable of sleeping still. His loud snoring also made it impossible for others to bear, and most of the time annoyed the hell out of his classmates and teacher in class. Accompanying his snoring was his abundant drool that always ran down the side of his mouth when he slept with it wide open. In general, Takuro wasn't pleasant to be near while he was asleep.
Groggily, the boy scratched his back and turned over on his side. The itchy grass under his cheek somewhat woke him up. He yawned and sat up, shaking the sleep out of his head a little. His messy brown hair shook all around. After rubbing his eyes, they began to focus and he looked around. It really was a pretty summer day. The view was even better atop the hill he sat on. There were few clouds in the large vivid sky and a soft warm breeze blew. Takuro adjusted his red forehead protector. Instead of wearing it on his forehead like it was supposed to be worn, he tied it so the plate was on the left side of his head and the ends of the long red sash dangled from the right side, all caught up in his hair. After beginning to snap out of his dazed state, he sighed once and stood up, staggering two or so steps down the green hill. He took a good look at the position of the sun in sky.
"Dammit. I didn't think I'd sleep that long..." he cursed to himself. He rolled his eyes and walked a quickened pace away from the nice hills back into the urban town.
Takuro began with a sort of speed walk and eventually started to even run. After about ten seconds, he slowed down and stopped completely. The street was completely empty and the academy was already visible further down the street. He stared at his feet. Everything around him was in a towering shadow. Takuro slowly tilted his head to his left to look at the grey wall beside him, then back down to his feet. For some reason he felt so unwilling to go on. He didn't know why, but whatever the feeling really was, it stopped him dead. He began to look melancholy, then sat down on the edge of the sidewalk with his head hanging dispiritedly. Takuro frowned and rested his arms loosely on his thighs. The breeze picked up for a moment, then he began hearing footsteps that almost echoed in the silence.
Takuro ignored them at first. They stopped behind him and a gloved hand touched his right shoulder. Takuro looked over.
"Are you ok?" a young woman with dark, long hair bent over and looked at him. To get a better look at his face, she brushed her bangs out of her eyes.
Takuro's bright blue eyes watched as the woman's hazy stone-grey ones close as she smiled warmly.
She took a good look at him. "Judging by how young you look, you must be a genin...right?" she asked.
His face contorted in confusion. But before he could speak, she tapped the plate of his protector twice. "This should be worn here," she said and poked his forehead.
Takuro's eyes followed her hand, which looked heavily bandaged with white gauze or something. A small glint of shining metal by her neck caught his eye for a second, then he smiled. "Same goes for you," he spoke and pointed to the protector she had beneath her scarf.
Her smile turned into a smirk, then she moved her hand to the metal plate tied around her neck. She traced the Leaf symbol with her fingers briefly. "How old are you?" she asked.
"Twelve."
"Then you're probably a rookie this year."
Takuro nodded once. "I was just on my way..."
The young woman nodded. "You should go now then. You're a little late."
He grinned widely, showing his teeth. It was something he did often, sort of like a habit. Takuro stood up, and started on his way to the academy. The woman watched as he walked down the shady sidewalk. She touched her protector once more, brushed her bangs away from her eyes again, and smiled.
When Takuro returned to campus, all the students were scattered everywhere outside. "Must be lunch time," he said to himself. No one noticed his late return, but then of course, that was pretty typical. He was fairly unnoticeable unless he was sleeping loudly in class. Even to the teachers, he was always just the quiet loner in the corner of the room who always stared off into the distance and never listened.
After wandering aimlessly around campus for just barely two minutes, his stomach's sudden growl interrupted his quiet mind. It even almost made him jerk in surprise. "Dammit...I'm so hungry..." he whined, rubbing his tummy. Takuro was an eater. He ate a lot, so his angry stomach was really tormenting him for not having breakfast. The reason why he skipped it was actually because he was rather excited about the day, like every other graduate was. It wasn't until they began to lecture all the students for over an hour that Takuro realized it was just another boring day to listen to his teacher talk and talk. After reaching the pinnacle of his boredom, he asked to be excused for the bathroom and just left the campus to go to the hills and hang out by himself there. It wasn't uncommon for him to be doing something like that so the teacher really didn't care. He was just somewhat happy to get the boy out of his hair after a long school year of his sass.
Some long minutes that Takuro couldn't keep track of passed until the bell rang, signaling the break's end. He trudged his legs over to his classroom and entered, finding some seat in the back like he always did. The teacher noticed his absence from before, but didn't bother to comment on it. Takuro laid back in his chair and tried to pay attention to whatever they were going to do next. There was unbreakable silence among the students (who all had their newly issued protectors all worn in whatever fashion they wanted) as they listened to their respected sensei until Takuro's pleading stomach cried again. The entire room stopped and a few glances turned over to him. He sighed loudly.
"I'm hungry, ok?" he retorted in response to their stabbing glares. The teacher rolled his eyes and began his final lecture.
His last words to his students were mostly about taking more responsibility as a genin, training hard, and doing your best—mostly motivational speaking, but it did get interrupted a few times by Takuro's growling stomach. Although it was irritating for everyone at first, they all managed to ignore its persistence after the sixth time or so. Near the end of their teacher's lecture, Takuro began to make drawn-out yawns and his eyes fluttered. He was already too bored to stay awake and eventually, his head hung back while his mouth drooped open. He began to snore...loudly. Everyone around him started scooting away, knowing that he'd eventually begin to drool after several minutes. The teacher rolled his eyes again, but he tried to hold in his frustration, although it was clearly seen through his facial expression. He spoke for only several more minutes and the students' teams were announced. Their new jounin instructors arrived prior to the assignment and the teams left with them until there were only three students left—the sleeping Takuro being one of them.
"What is taking that jounin so long...?" a tall, dark-brown haired girl—Sakurai Enno complained. Their former teacher had also already left the room. She leaned on his desk at the front of the room, staring out the window at the other students who had already begun training.
Enno was a confident and tomboyish girl. She wasn't much of a socializing person, having only one other close friend. She tied her hair in a braid down the right side, and always wore a lot of layers of clothing on. Her blue-sashed protector was worn slanted over her long bangs. After crossing her arms, she fidgeted impatiently. Her sharp, dark-blue eyes continued to stare out the window in envy.
She briefly glanced at her other teammate sitting at a desk on the side of the room opposite of Takuro, also peering through the glass at the sunny outdoors. "Perhaps...we should wake him?" he suggested, turning away from the window to Enno.
"Do what you want. I'm not touching that mess..." she bluntly replied, eyeing the slobbering puddle Takuro made on his desk, almost twitching at the grossness of the scene.
He stood up, pushed his chair in and walked across the room to where Takuro sat, still drooling like a madman. The redhead, Akanai Seiji let out a long sigh. He had a dark and vivid red shade of hair that was just about his most notable trait. It hung at about as low as his chin and instead of tying his protector like a sash, he wore it like a bandana that covered his head. Like most other students' protectors, his was also blue. He wore a vest that resembled the ones that chuunin and jounin level shinobi were given, and under his vest was a regular shirt and with it he wore windbreaker pants. Seiji was an even less noticeable student than Takuro. He didn't seem like he had too much self-confidence, but no one really knew for sure since he rarely talked unless he was addressed to. All everyone knew was that he was always a very kind boy; no one even knew well what potential he had in the field, unlike his teammates, who were actually two of the most able fighters among the graduates.
Enno was starting to get pissed of waiting. Normally she could be a nice person, but she lost her patience very easily. Her face contorted more and more with each of Takuro's consecutive snores until she snapped and stomped up to his desk. She grabbed Takuro's shirt collar and shook him as violently as she could, screaming in his face.
"WAKE UP, YOU JACKASS!!!"
Takuro only giggled like an idiot as his spit ran further down his face. Enno gritted her teeth and released her grip on him before it dripped onto her hand. His head dropped onto the wooden desk, making a loud thud. With that, Takuro blinked several times and raised his heavy head. He looked around the empty classroom, then at his two teammates.
"Seiji...and Enno. Great...Enno. I get that crazy loudmouth on my team?" Takuro spoke in his mind.
His usual grin stretched across his face. "Hey guys," he greeted them casually. He wiped his spit off his face with his shirt and sat up in his chair.
Seiji had a blank and confused face. His kind black eyes blinked several times, but then he let a small smile out in amusement. Enno, on the other hand, burned up with violent annoyance. Takuro shifted his eyes, trying not to make eye contact with her, knowing what the girl was capable of doing when she was pissed.
Enno crossed her arms and gave a long and relieving sigh, letting off some steam. Takuro glanced about, trying to put together what had happened while he slept, then noticed the small spit pond he made on the desk. He laughed embarrassingly and wiped it away with his right arm warmer, which somewhat disgusted the other two.
"So...why exactly are we still here?" Takuro asked.
"Our instructor hasn't arrived yet," Seiji replied, shrugging.
"I bet that idiot's gonna be a complete dumbass..." Enno remarked.
Takuro's eyes narrowed. "As long as it's not gonna be some angry hothead like you..." he mentally remarked.
"This is pissing me off, I'm going."
"But wait. What about our—" Seiji began.
"Well if they're taking this long, then screw it," she retorted and walked out the door.
"Eh...might as well. I'm hungry anyway. You wait here for the jounin while I get us some lunch, k?" Takuro told him and left too.
"W-Wait! Hey!" Seiji called out and ran out after them.
Enno pushed the two exit doors open and stepped out, but quickly fell back a step, surprised by a shiny metallic blade that flew past her face. Her eyes widened as she eyed the object after it lodged itself into the ground.
Takuro and Seiji were showered with several more of the blades upon their exit as well.
"WHOA! What the hell?!" Takuro shouted, barely missing them. His impusive backward jump to avoid them knocked Seiji back with him.
"...kunai? Where'd they come from..?" Seiji spoke.
Enno was glaring at a shadowy figure sitting in the high leaves and branches of a nearby tree. The other two soon caught the figure as well.
"Hah...I wondered how long it'd take you kids to finally come out," the person spoke. She twirled another kunai by its ring, flicked it in the air, and caught it. She gave a sly smirk at the three genins. "So this is team number three.."
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First chapter...done! i'm so proud of myself...this this took me like three weeks to finally finish.......damn i'm lazy. review it, don't review, do whatever. just, I BEG YOU not to give me crappy reviews. they piss me off so much.
i also made a bunch of sketches of a few characters in some old notebook i had. some i'm proud of while others...well they were just shitty ten minute messy sketches on lined paper, lol. sometimes i got bored at night and drew some of their faces on my big mirror...i'd like to show some of them but then i don't know where i could post them online. my best idea right now is for you all to tell me if you'd like to see them (though i warn you, i do suck lots at drawing) but if you do wanna see them, give me your email address in your review and tell me that you do. i'll announce any new sketchies at the end of each chapter and send em through email. i don't expect any comments on them, but if you wanna, go ahead. just...don't........make fun of them all too much, lol. i know they already suck.