A/N: The story is moving a little slow, isn't it… oh well, I'll try my best. Enjoy!
Professional Ninja Skills for Idiots
Chapter 11
Uzumaki Naruto's head cocked up, alarm shooting across his face as he heard a yelp off to his right.
Immediately, he looked around the clearing, fingers twitching slightly as he tried (in vain) to get the scroll to make itself small again. Almost instantaneously, Mizuki's words floated back to him…
"Don't let the scroll be stolen back, whatever you do. That will cause you to fail instantly, and you don't get second chances." Mizuki said sternly.
"But… don't I get to retry, next year, if I fail?" he said wonderingly.
The Chuunin snorted derisively. "Like real. You think anyone will let you? You're just a snot-nosed little brat who-" He suddenly cut off, apparently thinking he had said too much.
Detecting Naruto's hurt expression, he quickly added, "But that's not what I think, of course. I personally think you should have passed today, here and now. But, what can we do?" he shrugged in commiseration.
Snapping back to reality, Naruto scrambled to his feet, the blackness around him suddenly seeming threatening. 'Crap it, I won't be able to see anyone!' he thought, with a tinge of panic. 'If anyone surrounds me, I'm trapped! What should I- Oh. Damn, I'm stupid,' he thought ruefully as he remembered the Jutsu Mizuki had taught him.
"Akarui Me no Jutsu!" he muttered below his breath, backing up till his back was against the rough bark of an oak tree. At least like this, Naruto only needed to defend 180 degrees in front of him. He readied his weapons, and looked into the darkness, feeling slightly better about having vision into the blanket of black.
What he saw made his jaw drop. Mizuki-sensei was beating Kiba and Shino up! 'What the hell?' he wondered. Naruto didn't particularly like Kiba or Shino, but he could understand the dog-boy and kinda admired the bug-user just a teensy little bit for his coolness.
And wasn't beating up students against the rules, or something? Kami knew some teachers had wanted to thrash Naruto, but had backed down at the last minute…
Naruto gulped, as his mind ran quickly like clockwork wound up tight. Besides which, Mizuki was nice, but really had no reason to help him, especially since he might lose his job. Naruto acted silly, but he wasn't that stupid; he knew a lot of people got pissed every time he went near, and since they weren't that way to other people it was probably just him.
Inside the muddle of his thoughts, he barely noticed the sound of a body falling to the ground. 'Shino,' his dazed mind registered. 'I saw Kiba on the grass already just now.'
Besides which, sneaking into the Hokage's office wasn't the kind of thing a Genin test normally included… right? And the seals…
Naruto started to feel a cold, unsettling sensation in the pit of his stomach.
Could Mizuki have gotten him to steal a forbidden scroll?
Mizuki smirked. The bodies of the Genin brats and the other Chuunin on the ground, he crept towards Naruto, a knife in his hand and murderous intents in his head.
The entire operation had gone too, too well. Naruto had successfully obtained the scroll; the village was in an uproar; and no one so much as suspected that he was the one who had put the fox demon up to the stunt.
His mouth twisted unpleasantly as he thought of the fox demon. The Kyuubi had been the one who made Mizuki's mother a single parent; the one who had taken away his father, a courageous Jounin who had fought against the Nine-Tails, only to fall against its unnatural powers.
And now, the opportunity was ripe for him to take revenge, and he would revel in it. He would bring the forbidden scroll to Orochimaru-sama, and in the mean time, rip the Kyuubi brat's life from him.
Naruto instinctively backed away, fear grasping him in its bony claws as the Chuunin turned towards him with a maniacal look in his eyes and a crazed grin on his face, advancing a step at a time with a kunai in one hand and the other poised to beckon towards Naruto.
"Give the scroll to me, Naruto-kun," he heard as Mizuki opened his mouth. The words came slowly, distant, like a not-quite-real faraway voice.
"I… I pass, then?" The blond boy said hopefully, suppressing the irrational fear inside him. There was no need to be scared, right? It might not even be a forbidden scroll… just his imagination…
"Yes, Naruto, please give the scroll to me." Mizuki whispered, suddenly barely meters away. The hyperactive ninja could see the whites of his bloodshot eyes. Somehow, he instinctively knew that what Mizuku was proposing was wrong, wrong like the innocent murder of children. The Chuunin did not harbour pure intentions towards him.
"I… No. Give me a forehead protector first," the boy stubbornly demanded, clasping the scroll to him and taking a few long leaps back, reinstating the distance between them.
"GIVE THE SCROLL TO ME!" the Chuunin suddenly screamed, his eyes bulging as he raised his hand with the kunai, his other hand grabbing a handful of shuriken from his weapons pouch.
"No!" Naruto yelled back, honestly terrified now. He knew he should move, he knew he should seek cover. But he had never been in this type of situation before – had never been in a place where he might actually die, might actually lose his life in a meaningless scrabble for a scroll he wished he had never stole. The senseless fear held him in place, cold sweat sliding down his skin, his heart beating quickly.
"Then die! Die, and let me take the scroll from your bleeding body!" Mizuki shrieked, hurling the entire handful of razor-sharp weaponry at Naruto. The blond froze, nerveless.
Then he saw a silhouette in the trees – a spiky hairstyle he recognized intimately sitting on top of a familiar head. "NARUTO! NO!" he heard the figure scream faintly, throwing his own shuriken at the barrage. Naruto pried open his eyes to watch as metal clashed against metal, and deadly weapons were sent hurling off to sink into the damp mud… but there was still four kunai and two shuriken flying towards him, and he still couldn't move, goddammit…
Bracing himself, he heard himself whimper and was disgusted with the pitiful sound. 'You moron! Iruka-sensei tried to rescue you and all you can do is whine!' he thought furiously. 'Get out of there!'
But all he could do was stand there as the sharp blades, glinting in the moonlight, inexorably approached, sure to hit a vital spot. The sound of ripping flesh tore through Naruto's world, and he waited for the inevitable pain to come flooding through him.
It didn't.
"I-Iruka-sensei…?" he whispered, senseless.
A man stood in front of him, not much taller than the boy. Tanned skin seemed warped in the forest's shadows, faint moonlight giving him an ethereal look.
"I… I knew you… didn't d-do it…" the Chuunin turned around and said softly, a grin on his face. Then he fell to the ground.
For a while, all was silence. Then he screamed, a cry of pain and loss then seemed to be ripped from his throat. The sound reverberated again and again, until it stopped and Naruto realized that his throat was raw and painful.
"You… you bastard," he choked out, voice raspy.
"'You bastard'? Is that the worse you can do?" Mizuki grinned, seemingly fully abandoning the pretense of helping Naruto achieve his goals. "I would think you'd come up with worse, after all, I just murdered the only person in this village who gives a damn about you. And do you know why? It's not because you're a distasteful person, even though you are that. It's because you're the Fox Demon."
"What?" Naruto gasped, wide-eyed.
"That's right, Naruto. You, my dear boy, are the sole reason for the death of over a 100 trained Shinobi, the greatest depletion of Konoha's forces notwithstanding the war with the Hidden Stone. It was because of you, Naruto, that Iruka's parents died." Mizuki proclaimed gleefully, taking sadistic pleasure in breaking Naruto down piece by piece.
"You made Iruka an orphan."
"You… you liar! How in the world could I be the Fox Demon? Don't think I'll believe your lies!"
"It's simple. The Fourth Hokage, the noblest man in the village, died to seal the Kyuubi no Kitsune into you, Naruto. If there was anything pure in you, it was eradicated by that one fact."
"Lies! All lies!" Naruto clenched his fists. It couldn't be. It couldn't!
But it made so much sense, his brain told him. All the glares of hate from the villagers. All the comments in the markets. The refusal of service from restaurants, shops, schools.
Because he was the Fox Demon.
"That doesn't change a damn thing," he growled, shoving everything to the side in a manner that was unique to Naruto alone. If he couldn't deal with it, he would deal with it later. "What matters, is that you killed Iruka-sensei. And I will never forgive you for that."
"Do you think you can beat me, a Chuunin-level Ninja, with your base skills? You couldn't even pass the Genin test, you loser!" Mizuki taunted.
"SHUT UP! That was only because you failed me!" Naruto screamed. "I didn't get a fair chance! I never get a fair chance at anything!
"And what makes you think you deserve one?" came the reply.
The sentence shocked Naruto to the bone.
Seeing that his words had hit a nerve, Mizuki quickly plunged on. "Animals deserve chances, Naruto. So do people. But you're neither! You're a demon, and you deserve nothing!"
"N-no…" Naruto denied.
"But words mean nothing. And time wears on – I must take the scroll to Orochimaru-sama. If you stand in my way, I will simply kill you. Enjoy the trip to hell," Mizuki's lips curled in a savage grin, "demon."
With that, the Chuunin flew at him with a speed that Naruto could barely see. He ducked out of the way of a kunai slash, and then was forced to backpedal in the wake of several kicks and punches. "Fast, aren't you?" Mizuki commented, smiling deviously. "How long can you keep this up?"
Sure enough, Naruto's muscles were beginning to tire, and all he had done so far was dodge Mizuki's attacks. At this rate, he would just be forced to jump around until he slowed, and then get pummeled to bits.
'I've got to stop running… what Jutsus do I know that can help?' Naruto thought, slightly panicky. He crouched down, and let a arm chop sweep harmlessly over his head, then tried sinking a punch into Mizuki's gut. The Chuunin merely caught the fist with his other hand, then grabbed his wrist and hurled Naruto over his head into a tree.
'Ouch… well, Kawarimi no Jutsu is pretty useless, since even if I get back to the village everyone will think I'm a criminal- and everyone thinks I'm the Demon Fox-' he added mentally with a surge of depression, leaping to his feet and running away.
'Then I've got Bunshin no Jutsu, Sexy no Jutsu, and Henge no Jutsu…plus Harakudashi no Jutsu, and the forbidden Jutsus…that's it! The forbidden Jutsus!' he realized happily, grinning all the while.
"Mizuki-sensei… You didn't think that I wouldn't use a Forbidden scroll to my advantage, did you?" he suddenly stopped and turned around, narrowing his eyes menacingly.
The Chuunin was taken aback by the sudden change in roles, and hastily leapt back to avoid running into a tree. "What are you talking about?" Oddly, he suddenly felt scared, as a glint of red erupted in Naruto's eyes.
"The Forbidden Jutsus… are forbidden for a reason…" Naruto continued ominously, a chill wind blowing through the forest. "You murdered Iruka-sensei, the man who was like my father."
Mizuki started sweating, horrified at the change in atmosphere – the aura around Naruto had suddenly turned threatening. The Chuunin was impressed despite himself – it wasn't often an Academy student could manifest this sort of intimidation ability.
"Now, I'll show you what they really mean." His hands came up slowly, then rested into a seal that was formed by the index and middle fingers of each hand raised up and pressed against each other.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
-TO BE CONTINUED-
A/N: Don't you hate me for that? Express your hate loudly in reviews, but not too loud – you wouldn't want me to stop writing, would you?