This is the first author note I started writing in the middle of the story lol. So far, I think I have two game references here. Maybe a few movie references as well… Maybe. I'll tell about the game references at the end of the chapter.
To Reedz22 and MoonLightSkies16 both of whom I forgot to reply to in chapter 4. Definitely wasn't my fault, though. Let's blame it on… my cousin in the other room that doesn't have anything to do with this but I don't wanna blame myself. Pretty happy to know you two are enjoying it so far. Like, VERY happy. Not sure how long I can keep you two happy, considering this is my first fic, after all, but I'll be trying hard to keep it good, random, and, most importantly, full of Family references because I love those Fast and Furious Family memes on Facebook.
I realized that I wrote, like, 19k words this week. I won't ever match this speed again, but I just wanna point out that I think that is, like, 1/4th or 1/5th the size of a novel? I mean, it doesn't matter when it is as low quality as this, but it still means something to me.
"Now, Sasuke, I am going to be teaching you the only jutsu that I have ever created."
He went through a few handsigns and, then:
Lightning started forming around his fist.
Yeah—no, I definitely wasn't going to learn this.
I didn't like lightning, short story, here's why:
(Flashback: Many, Many Years Ago)
There were corpses… oh so many corpses...
"Why did you do this, Brother!?" I cried out.
"What are you talking about, Bro, I was doing tasks in electrical."
(End Flashback)
And that's why I don't like electricity.
That's also why I have already decided to never go to Kumo and to never meet the Raikage.
"Hnn."
If Kakashi was even half the man worthy of that Sharingan then he would know that that was Uchiha for no.
"Wonderful, let's begin."
My hatred for this man grows daily.
I would leave right now if it wasn't for the fact that that path led me closer to Sakura.
(POV: Naruto)
Well, isn't this just great?
I am falling down a cavern and I see absolutely no way out of this.
I failed Geography—or was it Geology?—a bunch of times so I am not sure about this, but maybe I'll reach the center of the planet or something if I keep this up.
Hmmm, journey to the center of the… what was this planet called again? Elum? Earth? Elemental Nations? Man, this is embarrassing. I don't remember the planet's name. No wonder Sakura never wants to go on a date with me. She is, like, all knowledge, and I am, like, zero-knowledge.
Well, time, to figure out a way out of this.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
Oh, I am sorry, did I say "figure out a way out of this"? I am meant, time to use clones first and if that fails, then I guess I'll just die, then.
That's fine, though, I can just become Hokage as a ghost by haunting the village, so it won't be much of a loss.
If only I had explosive tags. Could probably blast myself up.
Maybe.
I think.
Maybe not.
Alright, so I was definitely not gonna actually succeed with doing that, but I could have at least tried, right?
Also, what happened to the clones?
"Over here!"
Looking up, I saw where all the clones went. They all spawned ABOVE me.
That… that made them very useless to me.
I needed them UNDER or around me, not above!
As for how this all happened?
Well, some awesome dude offered to teach me how to summon toads.
Yes, he offered to teach me, I definitely didn't annoy him for a long time until he gave up on ignoring me and decided to teach me.
When I managed to summon one toad that the guy called the Great Toad Sage on my first try, I guess he got jealous that I got more awesome than him that fast as he threw me down some cliff.
I totally didn't blame him, though. I would do the same to him if he somehow became cooler than me again.
Death honestly didn't sound that bad, either.
I could both haunt people and fight other ghosts! Unlike my current limitations of not being able to touch ghosts but them being able to touch me. Honestly, that's, like, my worst fear.
(Elsewhere)
"Achoo!"
People have got to stop thinking about ghosts, thought the 'mystery' person that could turn intangible.
(Back to Falling)
What if there is no center of the planet? If the outside of the planet was a sewer then who knows what's going on down there.
There's also the disturbing thought about who or what uses that sewer…
Also, the disturbing thought that if our planet was in that sewer, then does that mean we are poop?
Before I could ponder—hah! Ponder. I was using big words now. Take that, Sasuke—more on the subject, I blinked and found myself in a sewer.
Whelp, that explained it.
The center of the world was a sewer as well.
It all began with the sewer and it ended with the sewer.
I was making absolutely groundbreaking discoveries here. Man, if only Iruka-sensei could see me now.
So… I managed to leave the heaven's sewer—I couldn't come up with a better name, alright—because of gravity pulling me down, maybe I could leave the hellish sewer by climbing upwards?
"No, human, don't do that."
I ignored the imaginary voice as usual.
"Come to me, don't go up, come to me!"
Man, was it me or was it sounding flustered?
"I don't want to die!"
Well, that's rude. I was the one dying in this situation, not the mystery voice.
(Hokage Office)
"And that's how the brat died."
"So, your amazing and totally honest story is that Naruto hounded you for training, managed to succeed in annoying you into agreeing—which shouldn't have been needed to be done in the first place considering your position as his godfather—and then when you taught him how to summon toads, he overexerted himself and died from chakra exhaustion?"
"Ahuh," a VERY nervous-looking Jiraiya confirmed.
"A Jinchūriki diedfrom chakra exhaustion?"
"First time for everything."
"Riiiight," he drawled. "And where's the body at?"
"Um, about that, so, when he died, the Kyūbi's chakra just burst out of him violently, causing him to explode into chunks everywhere, so there's no corpse."
"I have so many things that I can say to that, that can both disprove that and make you sound dumb...
I think I'll just continue with the simplest of things to say; The Kyūbi just blew out of Naruto without every sensor, non-sensor, and even civilian not sensing it?"
Jiraiya, cringing even more, continued on with his clearly bullshit, made-up story.
"I, uh, I was training him in a fuinjutsu sealed area that didn't allow chakra to escape…?"
"That seems more like you are trying to convince yourself than me, Jiraiya."
Deciding to finally go for the checkmate in this long game that he was playing, Hiruzen got serious.
"Well, we could still get those body parts that survived him blowing up."
"Uh, I was training him near a cliff and it all went down it."
"All of it? Every drop of blood? Let me guess, you don't even have explosion debris as evidence if I go to this so-called cliff. You just expected me to believe you."
"There's totally evidence there!" Jiraiya angrily retorted.
"Then you wouldn't mind taking me there?"
"..."
"That's what I thought."
"Also, explosions don't work like that, Jiraiya. He'd be blown everywhere in a circle considering how you make it sound like it happened from the seal, not blown in a singular direction like as if an explosion happened next to him.
The fact that there's no evidence point to some very bad things.
If Danzo found out what you did to the village's only Jinchūriki… Well, I have always suspected he has Shisui Uchiha's Mangekyō Sharingan eye. I wouldn't be surprised if he uses it to force you to only be able to peek, leer, and write about males."
Jiraiya's face had paled so much that it was contesting his hair in whiteness.
"Sensei, you seem awfully calm about this."
"Well, you see Jiraiya, while I am angry at you for lying, there's just one fact you don't know.
'Naruto's'"—making sure to use his fingers to exaggeratedly, sarcastically say Naruto's name—body wouldn't have exploded, it would have popped like a clone's body."
Jiraiya started getting a bad feeling about this.
"What do you mean?"
"It was a clone."
"Impossible!"
"Do tell, what's so impossible about it?
"I had him sign the toad contract. That requires him to bite into his thumb hard enough to bleed and then sign his name with that blood. Kage Bunshin don't bleed, they pop long before they get to that point!
"That may be because there has never been a Jinchūriki, Uzumaki or someone that is both, that has ever used the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu to the point where it is being close to mastered."
"So, you are telling me that all of Naruto's clones are incredibly hard to pop?"
"No, just the ones that think they are him."
The blood seemingly left Jiraiya's face, making him look the palest he had all conversation.
"You mean—"
"Yes, we have a classic, civilian movie scene where clones are becoming dangerously self-aware."
"We should end it while it's still contained!"
"It's not contained, it can't be contained! They are self-replicating. Some have even managed to learn how to use biomass to sustain themselves longer and to self-replicate more. Clones can't eat, or at least they weren't able to before now."
"What about taking down the original?"
The Sandaime gave his student an annoyed look. "Is this actually because of you caring about the world or the fact that you'll eventually have to pay for the child support that you skipped out on with him?"
The silence received was all too telling.
(POV: 'Naruto')
The voice was still moaning on about not wanting to die. Wimp.
On another note, I was having absolutely zero success with climbing out the sewer.
"Aaaaaaaagghhhh!" A banging sound followed that… scream? Roar?
None of that bothered me with my expert ignoring skills.
I hadn't practiced the skill of ignoring red pipes glowing and blue pipes slowing turning red, though. "You will TAKE my chakra and survive! Or I Will Force It Into You!"
Silly voice, didn't it know that only living and real things had chakra? Imaginary voices didn't hav—a pipe burst. Suddenly the area started filling up with the red stuff.
"Please don't let this be demon poop or piss." That was the only thing that could explain it being red.
That or the only people whose houses this sewer was connected to had hurt their PPs.
"This better not be—!" was the last thing I could say before my mouth was submerged.
And, all of a sudden, I was not in a sewer anymore.
Everything was still red, though.
"Yuck! Demon poop or piss got into my eyes!"
Also, I was flying up, not down.
Unless I got it wrong and I was still going down… Wait, no, I could feel gravity pulling me in the opposite direction of where I was going. I am definitely going up.
Or I was in some sort of negative world that one gets to after going deep down the sewers… but that required waaaaay too much brainpower. I'd pop if I thought that hard.
Wait, why would I pop if I thought too hard? I am not a clone.
I must have meant my head would pop. Yes, that must be it.
Looking down, I saw that the red stuff from the sewers was bursting out of me so much and so hard, that it was propelling me up!
Now, I could think about the various things this could imply. However, I will only focus on the most important thing and think about it maturely.
"Wheeee! I can fly!"
Very maturely.
(Sakura)
Oh wait, she failed to get to the third stage of the Chūnin Exams, so she didn't really need her own portion.
"Where is Sasuke!"
Or maybe she would get her own portion.
'Calm down, Inner, we'll find him.'
"I CAN'T LIVE UNLESS I HAVE SEEN SASUKE ONCE EVERY 5 HOURS!"
'You live when we sleep and don't see him for more than 5 hours, don't you?'
She got worried by the silence. 'Am I right, Inner?
Inner?'
"I may use our body to spy on Sasuke at night."
'Inner!' she gasped in mortification. 'What if Sasuke had seen you?'
Say what you will, the girl had her priorities straight.
"I would also spike his food and drinks but he'd always go for takeout and not eat or the drink the stuff at his home."
"Drats!"
Upon realising she had said that response out loud and had many of the people on the street looking at her due to her outburst, she blushed in a manner very similar to… she looked left and right before intoning the name in her own mind.
'Hinata.'
She could feel Inner shudder at the name.
That thing was a terrifying existence; worse? She was in Konoha with Sakura, something she tried not to think about too much.
Inner whimpered.
For both of their sakes, she tried not to think about it.
She'd go to the secret shrine she had made for Sasuke with plenty of his stuff that she had stolen from him.
It would help calm her down.
Until later on in the day when she'd remember that Ino had a similar shrine, too, and she'd feel that her's was inferior even though she had no proof of such a thing as she had never seen Ino's shrine, and she'd get herself all worked up over it.
(A Sensei and his Student)
"I will report you to the civilian council."
"There's, uh… there's no such council, Shikamaru."
"I know that, Sensei. Was just hoping you didn't. It's so troublesome that you do."
"Could have tried to be realistic by mentioning the elders/Hokage Adviser's or the clan council or even that animal rights group the Inuzukas have going on right now."
"Because the Elders wouldn't care or would take your side, the clan councils are a drag to bother with, plus you have too much influence among them, and the animal rights group is being led by the Inuzukas… the same Inuzukas who are the most troublesome people in this village after Naruto."
"Naruto is a person, not people, last I checked."
"Oh, I just like to think of Naruto as just one large Kage Bunshin hive mind, really."
Asuma had nothing to say to that.
"Look, if you train with me, I'll give you this chakra metal ore."
"No thanks," drawled the teen.
Why did no one ever accept!?
"I am not kidding, Shikamaru. This is, legit, a high quality, chakra metal ore I am talking about."
"And what use would it be to a genin that doesn't know how to do nature manipulation or its techniques, and has no idea how to turn it into actual chakra metal that could be used to make a proper, chakra conducting metal?"
"Why did the smart one with so much lip have to be the only member of the team that made it to the final stage of the Chūnin Exams… At least with the other two, I could have inspired or manipulated them."
The teen had to give the slightest of smirks at his teacher's defeated words.
"Just know something, Shikamaru." The teen felt a sense of warning at those foreboding words. "I didn't want to have do this."
And then he left.
Unfortunately, the foreboding feeling didn't.
Not even staring at the clouds helped.
"SHIKAMARU NARA!"
OH.
SHIT.
"HOW DARE YOU LAZE AROUND AND REFUSE YOUR SENSEI'S OFFER TO HELP TRAIN YOU!"
Asuma had gone for his mother.
He would have vengeance if it was the last thing he did.
For now though? Well… the intense pain in his left ear meant that his mother was probably here and had forcefully tugged on it.
'Yes,' he thought, 'vengeance would be sweet and not at all swift.'
(POV: Ino)
'I am in heaven,' I thought as I lay in a pile of Sasuke's used clothes.
I was in the one place that I felt completely happy, content, and safe, if only for a while.
A flicker of the colour lavender passed my mind. I shuddered.
Well, not completely safe.
Then again, maybe nowhere was safe from that thing.
In here, I was free from my worldly issues like Shikamaru's laziness, Chōji's food issues and complaints, and Asuma-sensei trying to force me to train or offer us a chakra metal ore.
I couldn't train because that could make me dirty! And what would happen if Sasuke saw me like that!? What if I got a cut or something happened to my pristine hair and Sasuke saw that!? I, absolutely, could not allow that to happen.
I couldn't accept the ore because I was afraid it was secretly a pot of nicotine or something like that which could get me addicted like the Sarutobis' are with smoking.
Daddy always told me to be careful around them or they'd try to get me killed via lung cancer.
Daddy knows best about everything other than his weird and totally terrible idea that I shouldn't try to go on diets or do anything to get Sasuke into me. Says he is a threat risk. I'll show him a threat risk.
… That sounded worse in my head than it did when I… conceived of thinking it?
Great, now Daddy was causing me issues even in my safe haven.
I looked around at the—stolen—stuff around me with a smile. There was nothing that could beat my collection.
'Except for Sakura,' a traitorous part of my mind whispered at me.
That may have been true. As much as I'd like to claim my shrine's superiority, I had more often than not come across Sakura in my… borrowing of clothes from my future husband. An excuse Sakura didn't have because Sasuke wasn't going to be her husband. She was just stealing from a classmate that wouldn't be her husband.
"Ugh," I moaned as I got up.
I was feeling competitive now. I felt the NEED to make sure my shrine was better and bigger.
Time to… borrow… from my future husband.
(Uchiha Compound Entrance)
The Uchiha Compound Entrance. Soon to be hers and Sasuke's compound entrance.
There was just one obstacle stopping her from succeeding with her goals as always.
"Therapist."/"Billboard Brow."
Yes, Ino/Sakura was at the gate.
"... Did you just call me a therapist?"
'Damn… Kakashi-sensei's habits must be rubbing off on me. Quick, give me a comeback, Inner.'
"Clearly, one of us is advancing and one of us has stumbled and stayed behind." Inner pulled through.
"Just because you call me a different… insult? Doesn't mean that you have gotten ahead of me, Sakura."
Sure it does, my insults have advanced in complexity, yours have stagnated.
"Quick, make a run for it before she can respond."
"Oh, and, Ino?"
"Yes?"
"Last one there isn't worthy of marrying Sasuke!" Ino blinked staring at the flying dust that used to be where Sakura stood.
"You are cheating!"
After running for a while she finally reached Sasuke's house. Sakura having gotten there first, to her annoyance.
The only good thing was that she didn't see Sakura's smirking face when she got there.
The only bad thing is that she didn't see Sakura's smirking face when she got there.
Deciding to not worry about it and take advantage of that fact, she looked around. She looked around.
She looked even more. Then some. And kept it up.
"You took Sasuke's last shirt when you came here last time!?
"What! No! It must have been you who took it last time!"
2 people, 3 minds, and not one thought that Sasuke may have been wearing his last shirt.
Ino started getting scared when Sakura's eyes started turning white in anger. She remembered the Chūnin Exams all too well.
(Sasuke While his House was Getting Destroyed)
Sasuke backflipped a kick, got elbowed down to the ground mid-flip, bounced off the ground only to be greeted by a lightning wolf being formed right in front of him and about to touch his any millisecond now.
"Cut it with a Chidori, Sasuke!"
'Screw that!' he thought as he used a Kawarimi, a jutsu that he felt that he had seemingly mastered during these sessions with Kakashi.
A point he felt was proven when he disappeared in another poof of smoke after doing his first Kawarimi because Kakashi had already sent more Lightning Wolves to his new location.
He could have used his Sharingan and copied how to make those wolves. It was a lightning technique, though, and that was a big 'no no' in Sasuke's incredibly humble and traumatized opinion.
The thing that showed he was a true expert with the Kawarimi was the fact that he was substituting with logs in a place with no logs around for quite some distance. Some of the older Log religion believers would have praised his skills as "log worthy". Of course, most of them had converted to Shintoism, the religion of the Uchiha's for glorious reasons that he didn't feel were needed to be explained.
As he jumped up just before the ground turned into a sticky/quicksand-ish mud, he pondered if he could eventually just, as Itachi would put it, "git gud" enough to dodge everything and tire his enemies into giving up in the Chūnin Exams.
Upon the realization that he hadn't jumped in any sort of diagonal angle but straight up, he realized he'd be going straight back into that mud/quick sand that Kakashi had prepared for him.
In a seal-less Kawarimi, his issues were dealt with.
At least until he heard chirping sounds coming from the ground directly below where he was standing.
Eyes widening, he tried to move. He'd be damned if his last shirt got damaged!
Kakashi burst out of the ground.
"Use the Force, Sasuke!"
He was pretty sure that was code for "Use the Chidori, Sasuke".
He couldn't dodge without his shirt getting hit.
He would have to get creative…
The sound of tearing was heard amidst the chirping.
Thankfully, it was the sound of Kakashi's clothes tearing.
He couldn't manage to Kawarimi his entire body so he just did the shirt.
Kakashi just narrowed his eyes at him. Clearly annoyed it was his clothes that had been hit.
'Did one of his eyes have a ripple pattern for a second?'
Ignorant to the thoughts going on in his teacher's head, he gave a standard Uchiha "Hnn" that would have made his parents and clan proud. He made sure to put extra smugness in it.
Then he tried to Kawarimi clothes back. Nothing happened.
Kakashi noted it as well.
'That earlier 'Kawarimi' didn't make the standard sound as well…'
Sasuke started getting desperate. He had to get his last shirt back before the lightning freak of a sensei managed to sweat in it and stain it with his sweat. He was pretty sure that's how animals in nature marked stuff as their territory/property?
He wasn't quite sure how he passed Biology in the Academy, actually.
Why couldn't he use the jutsu again? He was basically half full on chakra before using it, he couldn't be low on chakra now!
(Sasuke's… House?)
They both stayed there, just watching.
"Maybe no one will notice?"
Crack.
That couldn't have been good.
And then the upper floor collapsed because of the fact that most of the beams and walls meant to support it were gone.
'Maybe if I run away, I could get away with it,' thought one… very beat up Ino.
She had spent that entire 'fight' trying to run or dodge. Even deflecting meant so much pain.
Ino's heart started to sink as she saw the large amounts of pink hair everywhere—she would admit to having gone as far as to pull Sakura's hair in her desperate moments.
There was blonde hair as well but, well, the blonde hair, while it hurt her vanity to think this, didn't matter anywhere near as much as the pink hair because loads of people had blonde hair.
Pink hair, though? Very few. Pink AND blonde hair in a singular place AT the LAST LOYAL UCHIHA'S house, though? They would be caught faster than Naruto could eat 12 bowls of Ramen.
What if Sasuke found out about this?
And then the two houses next to Sasuke's house also collapsed.
'We.'
'Are.'
"Fucked." The three of them thought/said at the same time.
Chapter End
I… write… so fricking fast on mobile. Like, I should just forget about the damn laptop.
Like, dayum, those days spent typing on Discord be helpin'.
I'll write the rest of the author note, like, 12 hours later because I am sleeping now. The underscores are gonna signify me writing 12 hours from now.
_ Anyone see that "Journey to the Center of the Earth" book name reference?
If you didn't get the Among Us game part, not my fault.
If you didn't get the Horizon Zero Dawn part, well, yeah, that's my fault, probably.
Poor Sasuke.
Also, I feel like I messed POVs up so much. I did a bit to fix Sasuke's but that's about it. Also… I only realized this when I was going to sleep yesterday, but… I forgot to post that chapter 4 to other websites. Crossposting for the lose! Loss? And, I also forgot to reply to the chapter 3 review dude. Imma go to the top of the chapter and answer now. Also, this is for my sake; this bottom author note was finished on 10 July, Saturday, 12:54 PM.
_ A friend came to visit so this may be a little later than it was supposed to be posted. It's 9:57 PM on July 10th, Saturday, 2021. I write that more for my sake than yours.
_ I just noticed that all the chapters don't have horizontal lines. Whether it is Docx or ODT file upload, the site just doesn't retain them. This pains me. I'll have to manually fix it here like I do on AO3? Like, really?
