Omake - The Nothing Years: Filling the Void with Stupidity and Pointless Plotholes
"And now, moving on the subject, I'll teach you something that every man needs to master in order to live a full, satisfying life. And that is...THE ART OF GROPING."
Naruto thought for a moment that he had heard wrong, but apparently those were Jiraiya's exact words: and any doubts the fox-boy might have had in that fleeting moment almost instantly subsided as the old man started 'demonstrating' on the tree trunk just beside him.
"Now observe very carefully as I make a subtle grabbing motion at a supposedly well-endowed female: the secret to this move's smoothness purely resides in the wrist. Also notice how I must make good use of my fingers in order to well feel and prod every inch of said woman's soft and beautiful bottom. Just like this...Oh yeah...Oh-oh-ooh yeah...That's the stuff..."
It was just a bit weird, watching the Legendary Senin lustfully rub a tree trunk with gentle upward and downward strokes. But just a tiny bit. Probably.
All right, you got me: I lied. Although I COULD say right here that Naruto was totally unfazed by Jiraiya' behavior, then again, who would I be kidding, right? If not gross, then the sight was simply one of the strangest, oddest things the fox-boy had ever laid his eyes on! Urgh! No words could even BEGIN to describe to us our friend's state of mind in his current predicament: after all, we're all here, safely sitting in front of our computers, while the poor guy was practically riding shotgun with the Perverted Senin with all doors locked shut. Notice that while we're finally getting a glimpse of what Naruto had to live through for 8 years, it wasn't pretty.
"..."
"Ya like it, huh, biatch! Biatch! Who's yer daddy!" Jiraiya continued.
Up to this point, Naruto had tried dismissing and blocking all the visual information his eyes caught from registering on into his brain. This was something mostly done out of respect for his traveling companion since, after all, Jiraiya was both his teacher and senior: so even though Naruto STRONGLY suspected that over these past few years Jiraiya had turned senile, he tried not to voice his opinion about it. Oh God, he TRIED. But during the most unbearable moments, the fox-boy truly regretted that he hadn't been conditioned to torture during his time back at the Academy. Because THIS, unfortunately, was one such moment.
Where am I going with all this? Well, the moment Jiraiya started SPANKING the tree trunk, Naruto just knew that he either had to say something or find salvation by poking his own eyes out. It was THAT bad. And you know what? That's not even the scary part in all this: at the rate the old man was 'deluding' himself, he was INDEED going to make that tree his bitch if he wasn't stopped beforehand. Let us not even develop on that eventuality.
"Please stop, old man. That is really, REALLY disturbing."
"Quiet, kid. We've been living in this forest like animals for the last few months, without a single woman in sight. I have to do this to keep myself sane."
And although Naruto didn't like to admit it, Jiraiya did have a point: after all, they hadn't stopped by a village in a while, and right now gender diversity wasn't exactly the most accessible thing either. Not that they could REALLY go to a village, by the way: since they were now both wanted for shoplifting and innumerable eat-and-runs, you could probably imagine just how the Akatsuki wasn't the only group hunting after their collective asses anymore. And the fact that Jiraiya WAS a perverted Senin didn't help much, either: considering just how many seeds the old man had planted during his lifetime, the child support he had to pay in each town would simply KILL Naruto's already light wallet if they didn't lay low everywhere they went. Being poor sucked, but it sucked really bad when your own village doesn't even know the meaning of the word 'welfare'.
Sigh…Oh well. You could say that those years on the road were harsh for the two of them, but it's not like it was a time completely devoid of good things, too: there was a whole other side to the story. You see, while the fox-boy did put up with a lot of Jiraiya's dysfunctions, it was also because he fully realized that the old guy somewhat did the same in return: for instance, why was Jiraiya even sticking around with him? Think about it: the Akatsuki wasn't directly chasing after the old man, and certainly did NOT desire an open confrontation with a Legendary Nin if they could help it. So basically, if the perverted Senin wasn't so inclined at protecting the Kyubi's medium, he could probably be resting in a red lantern district right now and knocking himself out without a care in the world. The fact that he had even given up all those things to live and die as Naruto's guardian and mentor was proof enough of his self-sacrifice: it's not something that would leave a fellow Konoha ninja indifferent, and certainly not Naruto.
Although his pride would never let him utter out the words, even at the very end, the boy admired Jiraiya more than anyone in the world. Over the years, the Senin had become both his role model and the parent figure he never had: being given the chance of becoming one of the Legendary Nin's apprentice would forever be rated of one of the highest points in Naruto's life.
But that's for later, though. Right now, Naruto was still a teenager and Jiraiya was still very alive. Maybe TOO alive.
"Aw, for the love of...What's all this about anyway? You told me you would teach me a cool jutsu!" Naruto started whining.
"I WILL teach you all right, but only once YOU finish this training exercise! Now get your spunky little ass to that tree and do just like I showed you."
Naruto shuddered in disgust at the thought, but nevertheless placed his hand on the tree trunk's rugged surface: right now, he had to get stronger and learn new jutsus, by ANY MEANS possible. Even if it implied...ugh...going through this. So, taking a deep breath, Naruto did what he had to: he built up all of his courage and began to delicately feel up the tree. First, upward. Then downward. Up. Down. Up. Down...
"Put more feeling into it, dammit! More rhythm! Make LOVE to the tree!" Jiraiya hysterically yelled in Naruto's back as he rhythmically pumped his own pelvis back and forth.
"Someone shoot me…"
At that exact moment, the young ninja honestly wanted to die.
Finally, after 30 minutes of non-stop groping, Jiraiya found himself satisfied with his pupil's performance and stopped him: by then, Naruto's urge to throw up had already been long replaced with an incredible feeling of stupidity. He had never come across such a shameful training in his entire life, and he STILL didn't understand just how it could be useful to him someday. Jiraiya, on the other hand, had never looked so proud. Even more than after Naruto had masterized the Rasengan, actually: the Senin was practically moved to tears.
"Naruto my boy, you have the talent." the old man said, beaming with pride. "I have long hesitated to do this, but it seems you are truly fit for me to pass on my knowledge to you: I shall now bestow upon you the most secret of the secret jutsus I have ever created."
Naruto listened intently, with a look a anticipation in his eyes.
"The Touton no Jutsu."
"YES, SENSEI!" Naruto bowed enthusiastically.
And so it was all worth it, in the end: they then walked together toward the sunset, basking in their now unspoken but commonly set goal of turning the world into a Come Come Paradise. From that moment on, Naruto would slowly be seduced unto walking down Jiraiya's dangerous legacy of debauchery and shameless perversion: this fated day would mark the birth of a new legend.
Even after all these years, Sasuke still didn't know how to handle this: there were definitely moments when he couldn't understand this woman at all. One moment, she was just very happy, and the next she was throwing a mood tantrum and breaking stuff. HIS stuff, to be precise. The death count was starting to get pretty impressive, actually: by now she had already broken three of his Uchiha lamps, torn his favorite sofa into pieces, shot his 2 pet elephants, planted an axe into his favorite poster of Konohagure's pop idol Anko and ripped into pieces all his jutsu scrolls. Not to mention the extremely rare Ninjas Illustrated: Tsunade Swimsuit Edition he was hiding in there, too. What? C'mon, let's face it: although Tsunade was old, a picture of her in a tight bikini was still PRICELESS by standards. And if he didn't have such a reputation to protect, watching his precious magazine being torn into tiny little pieces would have seriously made Sasuke want to fall to his knees and start crying: but instead, he just added the newly found despair to his ever-growing list of pent up feelings.
Besides, considering that Ino had the bad habit of completing her destructive pattern by attacking HIM to finish venting her anger, he had a lot more to worry about right now. And it was in moments like these that having a nindo simply sucked, because not fighting back at a woman like Ino could simply spell your doom. Seriously, we're talking about someone here who has absolutely no problems whatsoever at hitting innocent people with a big, metallic and shiny baseball bat. Ouch.
So you're probably wondering by now just HOW Sasuke managed to survive the Ino onslaught for all these years. Sure, he was a great ninja, but that's not the entire reason: as a matter of fact, it had little to do with anything. No, actually what really happened was that after a while, Sasuke realized that all he had to do on Ino's bad days was to simply wear 7 sets of clothes on himself and then go sit on the sofa, waiting for the storm to pass. As you can probably imagine, with that much protection, even if Ino WAS to repeatedly slap him with a hockey stick the extra padding would radically soften every single one of the blows. And although up to this day it's still a real wonder how that maneuver managed to fool her at ALL, the Uchiha just figured she thought that he was getting fat. With his sexy metabolism, she should have known better.
By the way, since we're speaking of fat...
"Hey, how's everyone going!" the cheerful Chouji said, as he opened the door without knocking and waited for the warm welcome that would never come.
"Duck." Sasuke simply said.
And duck Chouji did, just in time to dodge the table sent flying in his direction: the piece of furniture then crashed just in front of Shikamaru's feet, whom had wisely kept his distance from the doorway.
The two friends immediately looked at Sasuke with a "WTF!" expression on their face, but the latter subtly pointed towards the calendar with his eyes. Following the Uchiha's hint, Shikamaru nodded in agreement, dragged Chouji outside and gently closed the door. They then started to run like HELL as gunfire began to erupt in the Uchiha household.
"Well, someone's surely in a bad mood," Chouji noted as the two of them finally reached the other end of the village and stopped running.
"I told you so," said Shikamaru, shaking his head. "We simply do NOT visit Ino at this time of the month."
"He's already been here a week. I did try kicking him out at first, but apparently he was completely stuck in that position. So, well...as long as he paid for his drinks, I just maintained him alive by feeding him with a straw." the bartender said.
"Thank you. We'll take over now." the Hyuuga answered to the elder man, bowing slightly.
The old guy bowed back: he was glad that two Anbus had finally come to take care of that troublesome customer. Well seriously, it's not that he caused all that much trouble, but being constantly faced with such a repulsive-looking man for the whole last week had almost been nightmarish. Ugh. But luckily it was over now: the old man could now finally go into the back and re-focus on sharpening those 2 feet long metal claws of his. After all, the Ramen Shop owner wanted a word with him tonight and he had better be prepared.
"...Well, let's get to it, Tenten." Neiji said as he cracked his fingers.
"He's disappeared for a week but...now that we found him, why am I not surprised?" Tenten sighed as the both of them proceeded at pulling Rock Lee's face off the bar.
"Since he got that Drunken Taijutsu as an excuse, I guess he just wanted to make up for lost time." the Hyuuga reasoned. "Thinking back about those prohibition days, it's actually kinda ironic."
"Yeap." the young woman nodded, nostagically. "Sigh...yeap."
A quick analysis of the problem at hand revealed that apparently, Rock Lee's thick eyebrows had gotten glued shut to the wooden surface by dried alcohol: moving him now had become fairly difficult, if not impossible. And even so, he was himself drunk enough to just keep on snoring and drooling away, even with all his teammates' joint efforts at pulling him free.
Finally, Tenten gave up and threw her hands in the air.
"Argh, it's hopeless! There's no moving him. What should we do?"
Neiji pondered on the question for a while.
"...I just thought of something. Let me ask you a question, Tenten: did you ever like Rock Lee's eyebrows?"
"No." Tenten instantly answered.
"...Oh. Well then, where's the problem?"
And at that, Neiji grabbed the back of Rock Lee's head and gave it a hard tug.
Never in the history of Konohagure would such a scream be heard: resonating throughout a 5 miles radius, it would be at the same time both so loud and high-pitched that every single glass window in the Village would crack. Chronicled on paper for the eons to come, it would be forever remembered as the Cry of the Browless Chinese Dude.
"How's your rehabilitation going, Kiba-kun?"
"..."
"I don't think Kiba feels like talking about it right now, Hinata." Shino noted.
"Oh...Gomen!"
They resumed eating, but Kiba kept on looking furtively back towards the cupboard, where he just KNEW Hinata kept a small reserve of Soldier Pills. The withdrawal effects were on to him and he had to get one. NOW.
"...Say, you've become a pretty good cook, Hinata." said Shino, just to change the subject.
But both him and Hinata were still looking at their friend, whom was currently staring obsessively at the cupboard: they had been specifically warned by the SPA (Soldier Pills Anonymous) society not to let him out of sight for even a second. Apparently, Kiba had developed a very serious drug problem, and the symptoms were even worse because he happened to be an Inuzuka. You see, the aftereffects of Soldier pill overdoses were particularly severe when dealing with these dog-lovers, since it removed all their inhibitions: so when Kiba entered hyper mode for instance, he also became incredibly prone at chasing after cars while barking or even at taking a leak on random pieces of furniture. Understandably, both Shino and Hinata were very worried right now. Especially Hinata, since it was her house.
"Arigatou, Shino-kun. Well, since Nara-san keeps on forcing his house chores on us, I've gotten a chance at trying my hand at cooking."
"I see. You'll make a great wife to someone, someday."
Hinata furiously blushed at the comment, maybe not so much because it was a compliment but of what it implied. She didn't even want to think about getting married yet…Well, neither did Shino, but their situations were slightly different: in the afro-haired Anbu's case, it was mostly because he was simply having too much fun as Konoha's most prominent bachelor ever since Sasuke was taken off the auctions. Really. Hinata's problem, on the other hand, was more delicate. How could we put this…? It was more because a part of her had seemingly died ever since…well, ever since HE left the village. Things just weren't the same anymore, and mostly, she didn't really want to think about it.
"It was just a compliment, Hinata." Shino added, noticing the crimson shade on his friend's face.
"A…Arigatou, Shino-kun."
She managed to smile, and he did the same. Or at least she thought he did: with the way Shino dressed, it was actually kinda hard to tell. But just before Hinata could start pondering on the existence of her teammate's fashion sense, Akamaru suddenly started barking: realizing they had been inattentive for a whole 5 seconds, the two friends both quickly looked back at where Kiba was SUPPOSED to be, only to realize that the dog-boy had already vanished.
"JUST ONE! JUST OOOOOOOONE!" Kiba desperately yelled as Shino sprung from his chair and swiftly tackled him while he was reaching for the cupboard.
"Get a hold of yourself, man!" Shino said, while trying to immobilize him.
"NOOOO! LET GO OF ME!"
"Fight it, Inuzuka! Fight the urge!"
Hinata delicately covered her mouth and giggled happily: with friends like these, maybe she could wait for a little while.
She could probably wait for as long as it took Naruto to come back to her.
There was a great debate going on right now in the Jounin lounge: sitting in front of the TV, Kakashi, Gai, Asuma and Kurenai were arguing on which movie to watch. And it was taking them FOREVER.
"So tell me again," asked Kakashi, "why do you two absolutely refuse to watch 'The Santa Clause'?"
"Let's put it this way: I NEVER want to see another red Santa outfit for the rest of my life," answered Gai, with Asuma nodding approvingly.
"Guys, it's a family movie. Even little kids could watch this," the Sharingan-wielder insisted.
But he shouldn't have tested his friends' patience.
"YOU weren't even there when it happened! I was surrounded by Santa Clauses with sugar nunchuckus!"
"As for me, some glasses-wearing reindeer went rabid and bit my foot!"
Remembering the attack where both Gai and Asuma had to be hospitalized afterwards, for once Kakashi felt kinda bad about his own tardiness. And his speechlessness could also be explained by the fact that the name 'Kabuto' suddenly came to his mind for no apparent reason: let's just say that Orochimaru had a lot of Xmas disguises.
"Aren't you guys exaggerating a little bit? I don't remember any of that happening," Kurenai finally said.
The room fell dead quiet as everyone simply LOOKED at Kurenai.
"Fine," Kakashi finally sighed. "We'll find another movie. What do you guys wanna watch?"
"How about 'Rambo'?" suggested Asuma. "That was a great movie."
"Yeah! I loved that movie! It was so darn hilarious!" Gai approved excitingly.
"The guy was just stupidly running around with machine guns and grenades! Such an amateur, that's not how you're gonna kill a whole lot of people!"
"It's so funny how they comically transposed warfare into something dramatic and unpleasant!"
"You're right! If it was us, we could have probably skipped all the useless talking and caused like 5 times more destruction!" chuckled Kakashi.
"Wait a minute, guys. Wasn't 'Rambo' supposed to be a SATIRE about war?" Kurenai noted.
Once again, the room fell dead quiet as everyone simply LOOKED at Kurenai.
Kisame grumbled. Okay, so FINE: his Samahada was unsharpenable. And considering just how rough the thing was, he didn't know why he even tried in the first place.
"Oh well," he thought. "I guess I can still bludgeon people to death with this baby. And besides, it probably matches my looks better."
That's right: just like his sword, Kisame had a very unique look, both scaly and as vicious-looking as a shark. Which is a strange thing, considering there was no one ELSE in the Hoshigaki lineage that looked like a shark. And since his father looked perfectly human, then just why was he himself so different? That was indeed food for though: I mean, the Hoshigaki patriarch was just a regular ninja himself, and lived a pretty normal life too. There was nothing really worth mentioning about him, except maybe the fact that he did have this odd habit of going to the water park a lot...Kisame suddenly paused as an horrific idea passed through his mind. Water park? Fish tanks? SHARK tanks? It suddenly dawned upon Kisame that he never even knew his mother. GASP! What if...?
"Hey, Kisame. Wanna go bowling?"
The shark-man was pulled out from his thoughts as his Akatsuki partner, Uchiha Itachi, came into the room. And for some reason, bowling didn't sound half bad to Kisame, but then again maybe he was just bored. Or maybe he had felt a bit grateful to the other man for stopping his mind right in its tracks: many things, after all, were better left unknown.
"Sure. I'm in," he answered to the Uchiha.
"Great. So, are you going to play with the SMALL balls, or the BIG balls?"
Upon hearing this, Kisame could only stare open-mouthed at Itachi, his own expression suddenly turned into a mask of shock and horror. As for Itachi himself, he missed why his partner reacted this way and so he just smiled evilly as per habit, making matters even worse because it looked suggestive. Maybe only a minute passed in silence, but it definitely felt more like ten.
"Forget it." Kisame finally said, and went back to futilely sharpening his sword.
"Huh? Why is that Kisame? You don't feel like it anymore?"
"No. And I just remembered why I SWORE I would never play anything with you ever again."
Author's note: It's sad that not many people will read this fic anymore, considering the length it reached without going into a specific direction yet…but still, I don't mind. I do write this for my own enjoyment, after all, but reviews are still appreciated, since it keeps me aware of if there's actually someone out there who's even reading this. At least I can get a lesson out of this, though: make shorter chapters, since no one bothers reading long stories unless they have a significant number of reviews. It's like a quality TAG, I tell ya! A TAAAAAG!
Other than that, now that the Naruto manga is in the Uchiha Ark, I feel like a real ass for making fun of the whole Itachi killing thing. I'll have to re-see some things about Sasuke, but most of the quirks have already been made. We'll have to live with that.
Some of you have mentionned that my writing style is tiring, confusing, etc. But that's pretty normal, since it's an experimental hybrid thingie between humor and drama: it's not a very orthodox style. Since ideas keep jumping from one pole to another, of course that it gets tiring after a while. But I'll keep that in mind and try to watch it from now on.
Till next time! Whenever the heck that is.
Hmm...I didn't really write this chapter listening to anything, so here's a nice little piece of Jrock from 'Otogizoushi', for those of you who've never seen the anime:
Gomes the Hitman - Ashita wa Kyou To Onaji Mirai (trans: Today's just like Yesterday)