"Hi! I'm Naruto Uzumaki, and I'm going to be the next hokage! Believe it!" The blonde boy was pushed aside by the girl.
"Stop bothering them, Naruto! Can't you be a little less annoying?" She asked angrily. She turned to the trio.
"Sorry about him, he can be a little…eccentric." Her works recalled Clockwork's warning about the help that he'd send over. "My name is Sakura, and this is Sasuke Uchiha," she gestured towards the still-silent third ninja. Sasuke bowed slightly and Danny, Sam, and Tucker hesitantly bowed back.
"Well," Danny began, "I said that I'm Danny, and these are my friends Sam and Tucker. You've been sent to help me fight the ghost of Zabuza." The three ninja recoiled at the sound of his name.
"Zabuza is scum," Sakura exclaimed. "We'd be happy to help you take him down."
"Aren't you guys a little young to be ninjas?" Tucker interjected. The three shinobi glanced at each other.
"We're genin, ninja trainees," Sakura explained.
"But even though we're not that high ranked, we've fought Zabuza before. And I'm strong enough to beat him again!" Naruto asserted.
"Oh, shut up Naruto. We just barely beat Zabuza last time, and that was with a lot of help."
"Wait a minute," Sasuke interrupted, and the other five turned to face him. "Did you say something about a ghost?"
"Yeah," Danny replied. "I fought Zabuza's ghost earlier today."
"Don't be silly, ghosts don't exist!" Naruto argued. Danny, Sam, and Tucker smirked.
"Welcome to Amity Park, most severely haunted city in the U.S.A." Sam told them. "We get ghost attacks almost every day. In fact, Danny's parents are the resident ghost hunters."
"That's good," Sasuke replied. "We'll need their help to design weapons that will affect ghosts." He pulled a kunie out of the pouch that was tied around his right leg. "These are effective against humans, but they won't do anything against ghosts. We'll need to get our kunie and shuriken upgraded so that they'll be worthwhile."
"Wait a minute, how do you know anything about ghosts?" Naruto asked. Sasuke's eyes glowed red as he activated his sharingan.
"I can sense the presence of psychic manifestations, remember? I've been feeling the presence of ghosts ever since we arrived. And I've been getting a very odd vibe from you," he said, pointing to Danny. Danny gulped.
"Well, you see, I'm kind of…half ghost. But don't tell anyone, especially my parents. It's kind of a secret among me, my friends, and my sister."
"Cool!" Naruto exclaimed in a loud voice. "How did you become like that?" Sakura punched him in the head.
"What part of 'don't tell anyone' don't you understand, Naruto?" Danny smiled softly and shook his head.
"It's okay, Sakura, there's nobody else around right now that heard. Also, since this street is deserted right now, I'm able to transform without anyone seeing, just to prove it to you." He morphed into Danny Phantom, and then immediately changed back. "See?"
"That's awesome! How are you able to do that?" Naruto asked again. Danny shrugged.
"I was in an accident about a year ago…one of my parents' inventions. But come on, it's getting dark and you three should probably stay at my place." The six of them kept walking in the direction of Danny, Sam, and Tucker's houses. Eventually, they reached Tucker's house and he said goodnight. Sam did the same a few minutes later.
Danny, Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke all approached FentonWorks. They all craned their necks to get a good view of the Op Center and neon FentonWorks sign.
"Whoa, this is your house?" Naruto asked in awe. Danny grinned.
"Yup. Welcome to FentonWorks. Remember, don't tell anyone about me being half ghost." The four of them went inside. As soon as the door closed behind them, Jack bounded up the stairs from the lab and approached them.
"Hey, Danny, guess what? Your mother and I made some modifications to the Booo-merang so that it gives a readout on whatever ghost it targets!" He threw the small silver device and it hit Danny squarely on the forehead.
"Level 7.0 ghost," it recited in a mechanical voice. The three genin sniggered. Danny scowled at them, rubbed his head, and handed the Booo-merang back to his dad.
"Sorry about that, Danny. I guess we need to work the bugs out, I don't know why it would target you. Who are your friends? Nice jumpsuit, by the way," he commented to Naruto.
"Thanks!"
"Uh…these are Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke. They're exchange students from Japan and Mr. Lancer asked if they could stay with us."
"Well, you do need to bring your English grade up…I guess its okay." Jack pulled a small aerosol can out of one of the pockets of his jumpsuit and coated the three genin with its contents-a cloud of green mist. The three of them rubbed their eyes and shot him angry glares. He chuckled nervously.
"Spectral Sterilizer. It's designed to get rid of any ectoplasmic particles on your skin or clothing so that you don't drag them into the house. Sorry about the itchy eyes, we still haven't worked out all the bugs yet…" They continued to glare daggers at him. "Uh…I'll be in the lab!" He ran downstairs as fast as his legs could carry him. Danny snickered.
"He does that whenever Jazz or I bring new people into the house. Don't worry, that stuff doesn't really do much of anything. C'mon, I'll show you to the rooms that you'll be staying in." He led the three of them upstairs. Once they got to the second story, he knocked on the second door on the left.
"Come in," Jazz called from in front of her computer. Danny opened the door and showed Sakura the room.
"Sakura, this is my sister, Jazz. Jazz, this is my friend, Sakura. She's a Japanese exchange student, and mom and dad will probably make her room with you."
"It's nice to meet you. I like your room!" Sakura exclaimed.
"Thanks! You're lucky, I'm the only normal one in this family so you won't have to suffer everyone else's weirdness while you're in here."
"Oh, don't worry about that. You get used to weirdness by being a teammate with Naruto," Sakura replied as she elbowed Naruto's arm. Danny led the two boys to his room.
"And this is my room. The two of you will probably be staying here."
"Nice digs," Naruto commented.
"There's just one problem," Sasuke said.
"What's that?"
"All of our clothes and things. The entity that brought us here never sent them over."
"Good point. I better call Sam, she might be able to procure some of the things we need."
"Whoa, check it out!" Naruto pointed to the center of the room, where a blue vortex had just appeared. Three backpacks fell out of the vortex, and then it disappeared. The three boys stood there, silently.
"That was oddly convenient," Danny finally commented. The other two nodded and grabbed their backpacks. Sasuke picked up Sakura's pack and brought it over to her in Jazz's room.
"The two of them are discussing the finer points of abstract impressionism," he reported when he re-entered the room.
"Whoa…Jazz is a genius but I never would've expected the same of Sakura. She sure doesn't give off an aura of know-it-allness."
"Yeah, she does really well on all of our written exams!" Naruto replied.
"Kids, dinner!" Maddie's voice drifted up from downstairs.
"C'mon, let's go." Danny said as he turned to face his two new friends, but they had already disappeared, leaving two clouds of smoke in their wakes. He shrugged and met up with Jazz and Sakura at the top of the stairwell. Jazz was giggling and Sakura had her head in her hands.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Naruto and Sasuke just ran by us faster than you're able to fly," Jazz replied.
"Every time we stay with someone, they do this. It's like they have a contest, who can eat more. They'll end up making themselves sick, trust me." Sakura explained.
"Why do they eat so much?"
"They think that it'll give them strength so they'll have more power and endurance when they fight."
"Wait, fight?" Jazz interrupted.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you…Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke are actually ninjas that Clockwork sent over to help me fight a really powerful ghost."
"More powerful than the ghost king?" Danny shrugged.
"Not powerful in the sense that he has a lot of raw power. Zabuza's ghost is going to be a formidable opponent because he has ninja abilities in addition to his ghost powers."
"Kids, come down here now or else there won't be any food left!" Maddie called.
"Coming!" Jazz shouted down. "Come on, we can talk about this after dinner." She led the way downstairs as the halfa and the ninja followed. When they got downstairs, Naruto, Sasuke, and Jack were scarfing down food as fast as Maddie could put it on the table. Jazz, Sakura, and Danny quickly took their seats and tried to get a morsel of food in in-between two orange sleeves and a white arm pad. Soon, the only thing left on the table was a rectangular metal box.
"What's in there?" Naruto asked as he pointed at the contraption.
"Well," Maddie explained. "We've had this in storage for a while and we weren't planning on bringing it out anytime soon, but you two seem to be able to eat anything, so it's a good opportunity to get rid of it. If you two think that you can handle it, that is." Sasuke and Naruto nodded eagerly as Jazz and Danny shot each other dark looks. Maddie opened the top part of the box with a flourish and a chain of ghostly frankfurters shot out. Naruto grabbed the chain by the end as Sasuke pulled out a kunie. Faster than the Fenton's could blink, he had cut the chain into individual frankfurters and piled an equal amount on his and Naruto's plates. The two genin eagerly began shoveling spectral hot dogs down their throats.
"Wow," Danny commented.
"Wow is right," Jazz added. Sakura just sighed. After the feeding frenzy was finished, Maddie held up her hand to keep the five teens at the table.
"Wait a minute, kids. What kind of knife was it that you used to cut the hot dogs?" Sasuke nervously handed her the kunie.
"This is…a kunie," Maddie said slowly. "A ninja weapon. Why do you have it?"
"Uh…Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura came from Japan because they were sent to help catch Inviso-Bill," Jazz told her.
"Yeah, but we need your help reformatting our weapons so that they'll be effective against the ghosts here," Sakura added.
"You three are ghost hunters?" Jack asked excitedly. The genin nodded. "Great! Then I can blather on to you about ghosts! Of course, I could have done that anyway, but that's not the point!"
"Wait, Jack, before you start blathering, what kinds of weapons are we talking about here?" Maddie asked.
"Well," Naruto began but then ran upstairs. He came back down a minute later holding a weapon that resembled a ring with four blades attached to it. "We have our kunie, like Sasuke showed you, and we also brought shuriken." He handed the shuriken over to Maddie.
"Okay, then. I'll start working on anti-ghost versions of these while Jack tells you what we've discovered about ghosts so far."
"And that's why we make a good team, Maddie. Say, can I have a cookie?" She withdrew one from her pouch and tossed it to him. He shoved it into his mouth eagerly.
"Hey, if he gets a cookie can I have a cookie?" Naruto asked.
"Naruto, don't be a burden on hour hosts," Sakura chastised him.
"Oh, it's alright, Sakura." Maddie tossed Naruto a cookie. He ate it and shot Sasuke a look that clearly said "Ha! I win!" Jack led the genin downstairs into the lab while Maddie followed, still holding the kunie and shuriken.
"Great, they're in for it now," Jazz said wryly.