Summary: Seven vices, seven shinobis, seven short stories. There are seven deadly sins, and we all suffer from them. After all, nobody's perfect, not even the best of the shinobis.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Naruto is owned by the following people/companies: Kishimoto Masashi, Jump Magazine, Shueisha , TV Tokyo and Studio Pierrot, none of whom I am or which am a part of. This story is for non-commercial purposes, I make absolutely no money from writing this. This disclaimer applies to all chapters of this story.
Pre-story notes: This is the first of seven stories I plan to write, unless I get some bad case of writers block. While watching the anime, I noticed a few of the characters exhibits one or more of the seven deadly sins in their personalities, so I had an idea to write some stories about these.
We'll go by alphabetical order of them, so first is envy.
At first, I though about using either Ino or Naruto as the main character of this chapter. Ino envies Sakura's position of being on the same team as Sasuke, the boy they both love. While Naruto envies Sasuke, who he sees as having everything he wants and being the very thing he wants to be. But after thinking about it, I thought it would make a better story if it was Naruto as the focus of this chapter.
From dictionary (dot) com
en·vy: A feeling of discontent and resentment aroused by and in conjunction with desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
----------
Vices of the shinobi by TempestSky
01. Envy – Naruto
----------
It was a day like any other in Konoha. Summer had come, the sun was shining, birds were chirping, and the shinobi of the village were off to do whatever missions had been assigned. And as usual, team seven was waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.
"ARRRGH WHERE THE HELL IS HE!? HE'S LATE AGAIN!" I think we can guess who that is. However, the loudmouth demon-container of team seven was promptly silenced by a stone connecting with his head.
"We know, so shut up already Naruto!" The second member of team seven, Haruno Sakura was pissed. Not only is their ever-tardy sensei even more tardy than usual, but the boy of her dreams rejected her advances. Again!
"Ow, why'd you have to hit me Sakura-chan!?" Naruto whined.
"Because you're a whiny dobe, baka." The third member of the team, one self-proclaimed 'avenger' Uchiha Sasuke, was usually not easily agitated. However, the combination of the loudmouth's loud mouth, their ever-missing sensei and the advances of a certain annoying pink-haired girl were taking their tolls on his patience, as evidence by his impatient tone.
That said, he returned to his mantra while ignoring the girl. 'Kill Itachi. Kill Naruto. Kill Kakashi for always being late. Kill ..., err, shark-guy with Itachi, err what's his name? Bill?'
The team members were waiting at their usual spot, the bridge. Naruto leaning against the bridge railing, Sasuke leaning against one of the red poles that were situated at intervals along the bridge, and Sakura yapping away next to him. However, her continuing advances were left unacknowledged.
The blond shut himself up and stared at the two. 'GRRRR, stupid Sasuke. I'd kill to get Sakura to notice me without screaming about something I did, and he just stands there and ignores her!'
He contemplated for a while, his mind's gears slowing churning out more thoughts. Why does Sakura love him!? Just because he's the last of his clan, and he's smart and talented and smug he gets all the attention while everybody else is in his shadow. I'm the last of my family, Shikamaru's smarter than him, I'm a better fighter and there are plenty of people who are better than him.
He thought of the injustice of it all, Sasuke's clan got wiped out, and he's treated as some sort of hero or idol because he's the last one left. Kakashi-sensei spends all his efforts on him and even goes off and teaches him some cool jutsu.He gets noticed by everyone he did nothing for it.How come he gets to have everything!?
'GRRRR stupid Sasuke, someone ought to bring him down a few pegs.' Seeing nobody around except his teammates, 'I guess I'll have to do it. HE HE HE HE HE.'
"MUWHAHAHAHAHA. HAHAHAHAHA."
Surprised, Sasuke quickly snapped out of his mantra prepared for hostility and Sakura almost fell over. They turned to look at the source of the disturbance and sweat-dropped.
"He's finally gone crazy."
"..." 'He's finally snapped.'
There was POOF! And a "Yo" announcing the arrival of their sensei. He looked at the heap on the ground that was Naruto, still rolling on the ground laughing about something. "Did he eat some funny ramen that messed with his brain?"
"Err, I think so." 'Oh no, did I hit him too hard with the rock? I might have given him brain damage, if he even has a brain to get damaged.' Sakura sighed and looked at her sensei. "All right, let's hear the excuse this time."
"Oh, I went to get your assignment, but the Hokage made me go and pick up a copy of the new Icha Icha Paradise book for her." Kakashi smiled under his mask.
"I sincerely doubt the Hokage wants a dirty book like that sensei." 'His excuses are getting worse!'
"All right so it was for me, same difference." Kakashi gave a wink.
Naruto had finished laughing and jumped back up. "IT IS NOT THE SAME! YOU MAKE US WAIT SO YOU CAN GET YOUR STUPID BOOK!"
He ignored the blond loudmouth. "Well, here's the assignment. Go buy all the groceries on this list," he pulled a list out of his pocket and threw it to Sakura. "And bring it to the address at the bottom. Ja." and he POOF-ed away.
"WHAT! WE HAVE TO GO SHOPPING!? WHAT KIND OF STUPID MISSION IS THIS!? MY INCREDABLE COMBAT SKILLS ARE WASTED ON THIS POINTLESS WASTE OF TIME!" Birds were startled out of trees and small animals ran for cover.
Sakura covered her ears and sighed. He gets louder everyday, I swear. But for once, Naruto was right; this was a stupid time-wasting mission. They could have spent the time training. "Yeah but we still have to do it."
Sasuke said nothing, but silently agreed with the other two.
Kakashi was out of hearing range by that time.
---
The three set off to get the items on the list. First stop was the market.
The first items were fruit. "Let's see apples, oranges, bananas. Easy enough." Sakura ran off towards the fruit produce shop. The old lady who ran the shop knew Sakura well; after all she was a regular of the marketplace. After having a nice conversation with the old lady, she got the goods, at a small discount no less.
Since Sakura seemed to be handling the assignment well, the two boys just waited outside. Naruto took time to plot his schemes. Sasuke just stood there. People walking past shot spiteful glares at Naruto and friendly smiles at Sasuke. Naruto fumed. Sasuke just didn't care.
Sakura returned with a bag full of fruit. "All right let's go. We need some bread."
Eager to show off Sasuke, Naruto declared "I'll handle this." and ran off to the bakery.
When he came back out, he slammed the door. "FINE THEN, I'M GETTING OUT!" People turned to look and scoffed at the boy.
"What did you do now Naruto!?" Sakura shrieked.
"Those idiots said they didn't have any bread for me."
"Are you stupid Naruto!? How can a BAKERY not have bread!?"
"Humph. Only this baka could get it wrong." Sasuke declared as he stalked off to the store.
Sighing at her love's eagerness to help, Sakura was overcome with delight. Naruto sneered loudly. Sakura whacked him over the head.
Sasuke returned with a two bags of bread and shoved one into her arms. "They gave me free samples, here." Sakura swooned. Naruto head was blowing steam.
Spotting Shikamaru walking down another street, Naurto took off after him, plotting revenge against Sasuke.
---
"So that's the plan. Let's go Shikamaru."
Shikamaru yawned and started to walk off. "And why should I help you anyway, I'm going home to take a nap."
"Oy, wait up Shikamaru."
It took the promise of five favors to Shikamaru to get him to agree to help. After all 'I do one annoying thing for him and he does five favors for me. Fair trade.'
---
Seeing as Naruto had run off somewhere 'the idiot probably got himself lost', Sasuke and Sakura had to do the rest of the shopping by themselves.
Sakura had busied herself looking at some fresh fish to buy, and since Sasuke knew nothing about picking out fish, he waited outside.
Looking around, there were mostly housewives out shopping for groceries, this was a market after all, and it was still only around noon. Some of the women had children tagging along with them, asking to buy sweets, toys and all the stuff children liked. They had nothing to worry about, no revenge to prepare for, no need to train, no need to worry about anything except what was for dinner tonight. Sasuke gave himself a minute to reminisce; that was him ten years ago, before that happened. He found himself envious of the children.
He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't notice a person bumping into him. "…" was all he could get out before his whole body froze. What!?
But that was before his body started moving as if controlled like a puppet. He ran around flapping his arms like a chicken, running into walls and rolling around on the floor.
A person in the crowd with long green hair wearing a tank top and a skirt pointed at Sasuke and laughed.
The crowd didn't laugh though.
"Poor dear. The stress got to him"
"Someone get a doctor."
"He's possessed. It's that damn demon."
After he stopped twitching, a doctor came and examined him.
Sasuke looked around. The green-haired person had vanished.
---
The aforementioned person jumped up to the rooftop where Shikamaru was standing. "HAHAHA that was hilarious!" There was a cloud of smoke and Naruto appeared where the person was standing.
"Tsh, what a senseless and stupid plan." The tactical genius declared before dropping the Kagemane no jutsu. "At least nobody saw me do those embarrassing things. I'm outta here. Just remember you owe me Naruto." He walked past Sasuke who had also jumped up onto the roof, and left.
"Na…ru…to…!" Sasuke could barely contain his fury. Naruto stopped laughing and stared for a moment, before trying to escape. Unfortunately for him, Sasuke was always faster and caught him. "Just what do you think you're doing?" He almost screamed.
"Just a little joke that's all, Sasuke." Naruto tried to squirm away, but a kunai hit the floor next to his hand. He got the idea to stop moving.
"Do tell why you decided you had to try and embarrass me in the middle of the street." Even though it was a little embarrassing, he didn't care about what others thought of him anyway. But there was no way this dobe could one up him like this!
"It's all your fault anyway bastard." Naruto shouted.
"I don't see how it was my fault that you had to pull such a stupid prank on me."
"Of course it's your fault. Mr. I'm the best at everything. Do you know how hard I worked to get where I am now? And nobody notices me, not even Kakashi-sensei, they're all to busy looking at you. You don't do anything for anyone but yourself and you're still treated like an idol. You get praised just because your whole family got killed. They treat you as some sort of deity because of it! No matter what anybody does, nobody in the entire village could be better than you."
"Are you some sort of idiot? Do you think I actually want any of this? DO you think I WANT to be the last of my clan? Do you think I like having some evil brother who I must kill? I didn't ask for any of this nor do I want it. If you have a problem with that, then don't be such an annoying idiot and go earn their attention."
Not a sound was heard from either of them for a few minutes.
"I'm sorry Sasuke. I kinda got jealous of you for a while."
"Hmmph. Maybe you should stop wasting time pulling stupid pranks and actually use this time to do something useful, like training, dobe." Sasuke said as he walked off.
"Useful huh? To Ichiraku!"
Both of them forgetting their original mission, one went off to train, the other ran off to find some ramen.
---
Poor Sakura was left to do the rest of the work herself.
'I'LL GET THOSE SLACKERS BACK TOMORROW!'Inner Sakura screamed.
Sakura agreed with her inner-self for once.
Author's notes:
This is my first story, feel free to tell me what I'm doing good/bad etc. You can drop a review or email me.
Sorry if the shopping plot seemed a little mundane.
In case it's not clear, the Bakery store owners hated Naruto and threw him out.
The disguise Naruto adopts is based on the character Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist.
Kagemane no jutsu: Allows the user (Nara clan members) to take control of an opponent's body by latching their shadow onto theirs.