Part 1.2: Of Ramen, Meetings, and Perverts
The one good thing about Gai's insane training was that it always left him with quite an appetite, and this was no exception. He had staked out his favorite spot on a stool at his favorite restaurant, eating his favorite food, Ramen. He slurped up mouthfuls of the stuff at a time, and quickly finished of five bowls in about ten minutes. He usually savored his Ramen, eating it slow enough to allow it to melt in his mouth and achieve the desired flavorful effects. He stared into his bowl of ramen dreamily...
'Look at it, quite possibly the most beautiful sight known to man,' he thought, 'Ramen. The perfect food, quite possible the ninja's greatest invention.' He began to swirl it almost in a surreal state as the noodles wrapped around his chopsticks. He sighed deeply, 'Surely this is what Hokages must pass their time with, thoughts of Ramen and other delicious foods.' He sighed deeply. This was his vacation from the worries of the world, from Gai-sensei's constant, stupid, training regimes. This was amazi-
"Hey, I'd prefer if my customers didn't have intimate moments with their meals," came a very gruff voice from in front of him.
Naruto's eyes shot forward, meeting the glaring stare of the man in front of him. The owner of this particular ramen cart was somewhat of a grouch, but he always seemed to perk up whenever Naruto was eating (probably because Naruto was his best customer). He heard some stifled giggling and turned his head to see that the girl who worked here as well was laughing at him.
"You're lucky your ramen's good old man, or I may take my business elsewhere. I don't like to be insulted when I'm eating." This threat seemed to work, as the owner quickly backed off.
Finally, after Naruto had finished about seven bowls of ramen, he got up to leave and was about out of earshot of the cart when the owner called back to him. "Oy, wait a second Naruto, I almost forgot," yelled the owner after him.
"What do you want old man, I've got a very important task to do, and I can't be bothered," said Naruto in a very brattish tone.
"Well fine," said the owner, "Maybe you're not interested in any free ramen."
The owner swore he'd never seen anyone move that fast. In the blink of an eye, Naruto was back in his usual spot, having knocked down ten or eleven people in the process. He could still see track he'd left in the ground, ending in the ramen stand, which rattled as if hit by the fury of a tornado. The owner had raised his arms to defend himself from such a deadly force. However, it was only Naruto, sitting in his spot with large bright eyes and a really huge grin plastered on his face, waiting in excitement.
"Free ramen, for me, REALLY," Naruto said in such excitement, people could have sworn that this 'free ramen' granted wishes.
"Well, I don't know," said the owner. He gave Naruto and indignant stare and then turned his back to him. "I'm not really fond of giving free ramen to ungrateful little brats like you."
'Ungrateful little BRAT!' thought Naruto. That would have elicited a sizeable beating if anyone else called him that. However, the man was holding his free ramen hostage, so he would control himself this time.
Naruto sighed, and then bowed his head and moved his hands into a mock prayer. "Oh please honorable god of the ramen stand," he said, "Your servant humbly begs you for your amazing ramen. Please, have mercy." He swore, if his ramen wasn't so good he would have beaten this jerk to a pulp.
"Well that's more like it," said the owner, "Just let me get it."
Naruto's mouth salivated; he simply could not believe he was getting FREE ramen. He'd never gotten anything free in his life except for slaps in the face from Sakura-chan and insults from about everyone else in the village. He couldn't wait for it. The owner was now bringing his ramen to him, he could see the steam slowly wafting towards him. He could have sworn that he was taking an eternity to get back to him. Finally, he set the bowl down in front of him. Naruto's eyes brightened and his mouth opened prepared to consume the feast before him. However, as soon as he got sight of the concoction the owner had placed before him, his face changed from amazingly cheerful, to just confused.
He wasn't exactly sure what it was that was before him. It had noodles in it, but they looked hard, and had a greenish tint to them. The broth was a very dark grey, almost opaque look to it. He wasn't even sure what the bits of brown matter were that was in it.
Naruto looked up confused at the owner, who seemed eager for him to try it. "Hey, old man, I'm not sure what this is but I don't think its dead yet."
"You idiot, that's a new type of ramen I'm testing for commercial wholesale across Konoha," said the owner.
"Well it looks like crap," said Naruto, "Do you really expect me to eat this?"
"Oh course," said the owner, "You see, this isn't just any Ramen; it's a special type of ramen. If you eat the whole thing you'll...uh...gain the strength of a hundred Hokages!"
"Really," said Naruto excitedly, "Well alright then."
'Boy this kid is dense,' thought the owner. 'Oh well, at least I have a new guinea pig for these new test ramens.
Naruto placed some of the noodles between his chopsticks and proceeded to hastily slurp them up. However, they never made it down his throat; his mouth simply refused to accept that such a bad taste was even possible. 'My body must think its poison,' thought Naruto, 'But whatever the case, it is ramen, and to leave any ramen unfinished would be sacrilege. I have a reputation to keep after all.'
He finally swallowed what was left of the noodles, as they slowly made his way down his stomach, leaving a harsh, burning sensation across his throat and mouth as it made its slow descent into his stomach. It was quite possibly the most heinous torture he ever had to endure, including anything Gai-Sensei had thought up.
"Like it don't ya," said the owner, "I knew you would. You see, it's actually a ramen substitute that tastes exactly like the real thing. I call it Spamen. You see, instead of using any grain for the noodles, I found this amazing plant growing under a rock behind the cart that can be ground up and used instead...
Naruto's stomach began to churn.
"...and you won't believe the amount of money I can save using the runoff water from the drainage ditch instead of just the normal tap.
The ramen substitute was beginning to rebel against his insides now. His body wanted so desperately to reject it, but Naruto simply had to keep it down. For all that was good in the ramen world he had to maintain his composure and...
"...but you won't believe how cheap the meat was. You see, I got this tip from the pet store owner down the street..."
That was enough. He didn't care if the concoction granted him the strength of a hundred hokages, he couldn't use that strength if he died of food poisoning. Naruto quickly rushed away from the stand into a nearby alley and proceeded to return the Spamen from whence it came.
"Hmm," the owner pulled out a notepad and began to take down observations, "still has some issues with vomiting."
Naruto came back from the alley slowly, clutching his stomach as the pain seemed to have intensified as soon as the Spamen had left his stomach. "What are you trying to do old man, kill me!?" he asked angrily. The taste of the Spamen still lingered in his mouth, and he feared that it would linger on for a week or so.
"Well, no," replied the owner, "just trying the stuff out on some of the more base life before I find it fit for human consumption."
"WHAT DID YOU SAY!?" Naruto was near his breaking point with this old fart. He was shaking angrily now, and his whole body felt like it was on fire and that he might explode any minute.
"Oh come on, just try one more bite, and I'll take 25 off of your tab," the owner replied as if he didn't even notice that Naruto was the slightest bit peeved.
Naruto calmed down a bit and contemplated this. His tab for the ramen stand was already exceedingly high, and he'd probably still be paying it off well into his fifties.
Naruto gave a low growl out of aggravation, but finally succumbed. "Fine."
Naruto twirled his chopsticks back into the bowl of Spamen. He could have sworn he'd seen it move a couple of times. At this close, the stench was overwhelming; now he knew how Kiba must have felt during the preliminary matches.
He clasped a few of the noodles and slowly drug them out of the depths of the viscous stew. He actually had to use quite a bit of effort to do so. He braced himself for the taste abomination that would soon follow and quickly scooped it into his mouth. Surely this was well worth it. He only had to quickly swallow and keep it down...
"Hey, long time no see brat," came a gruff voice behind him followed by a hard slap to the back.
It happened just as Naruto was in mid-swallow, and the Spamen became lodged in his throat. The intense burning sensation reappeared, but rather than cover the length of his throat, it remained in one spot. Naruto furiously began struggling to remove it from his throat. Finally, he expelled the vile substance from his body; unfortunately, it landed right on top of the stand owner.
"FINE, See if you ever get anything free from me again brat," and the store owner than hastily closed his stand.
"No, wait wait, what about my tab?" yelled Naruto frantically, but no answer came.
"Dammit, who the hell do you think you are?" Got off his stool and turned around to find his answer.
A rather tall man stood before him. His hair was very wild, grey, spiky and seemed absorb most of his head. A long spiky ponytail covered his back as well. He wore what appeared to be the garb of a master sensei. However, Naruto knew better than that.
"Damn you perverted hermit, you just cost me a lot of money. How's about for once you take responsibility for your actions and pay up!"
Jiraiya gave an indignant snort. He hated when the kid called him 'perverted hermit'. Although he was perverted and a hermit, it just wasn't prudent to go around calling him that.
"You know, I take time out of my already busy schedule to visit a brat like you and what do you do? Do you appreciate my company? Or my thoughtfulness? No, you just sit there and blame me for problems you created yourself," lectured Jiraiya, "Didn't anyone ever teach you that a true ninja respects his elders?"
"Whatever perverted hermit," said Naruto.
This time, it was Jiraiya's turn to explode. "Frog Hermit, Frog Hermit, FROG HERMIT!!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, eliciting many stares from passers-by, "How many times do I have to tell you not to call me PERVERTED HERMIT!!"
This last comment caused many people to stop and stare and Jiraiya. He could feel their piercing gaze in his back, and went into a fit of rather nervous laughter, followed by a deep sigh. 'This kid always gets me riled up,' he thought. "Well," he said as he regained his composure, "I guess I'll be heading off then."
"Wait a second perverted hermit, I've got some questions for you that I've been meaning to ask," said Naruto with a rather annoyed tone. "First off, where have you been for the last four months? When Kakashi broke up team 7, I figured you'd train me personally like you did before. Instead I got stuck with thickbrows' sensei."
Jiraiya looked confused for a moment and then replied, "You mean Gai? Well, I've heard he's an excellent teacher, probably one of the more reliable ones I think."
"Reliability nothing," replied Naruto, "I'm being taught by a man who's biggest ambition is to beat Kakashi-sensei in a game of Janken (paper-rock-scissors)."
"Well, sometimes we don't always get what we want. After all, you think I've got nothing better to do that to train some noisy brat like you for the rest of my days," said Jiraiya, talking as if his time were more precious than gold. "After all, I've got a lot of research to attend to. I'm almost done with my second novel."
"Yeah, I'm sure peaking into the women's bath takes a lot out of your busy schedule," said Naruto, eliciting a rather dirty look from Jiraiya. "And another thing, what's up with this meeting Tsunade-sama. You have heard about it right."
Jiraiya looked at Naruto, matter-of-factly, and said, "Of course I know, a hermit knows all that is going on around him. Speaking of which," he quickly pulled out a pocket watch and looked at the time, "I'd better go. See ya later brat."
"Not yet, I'm not through scolding you for all of your misdeeds. First of all..." began Naruto, as he had been preparing this speech for some time whenever he'd finally meet up with Jiraiya again.
"Uhh Naruto."
"...and then there's your constant peeking. I really don't understand your fascination with the woman's bath, and furthermore..."
"Naruto, what time does this meeting start exactly?"
"Around seven, why?"
Jiraiya pushed his pocket watch into Naruto's face. '6:55 the thought'...6:55!'. "Oh no, I'm going to be late for the meeting," and with that Naruto flew off in the opposite direction, desperate to make it to Tsunade's meeting on time.
Jiraiya put his watch away and smiled to himself as Naruto bounded off for the Hokage's office. 'Ha, that brat is going to be the death of me yet.'