Ok so after so long I have finally managed to get this typed up.
Sorry it took so long and I will not attempt to use my usual excuses to justify the wait.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoy.
NOW ON WITH THE SHOW! -slams my hand down on an orange button-
It was a beautiful sunny day in the village of Konoha and current three pre-adolescent kids were standing in the middle of an open field. Now normally this wouldn't be any real cause for concern, most people would just assume they were either genin or genin hopefuls waiting for their sensei. However, what was different about these kids was that they were members of Konoha's newer residence, one being a female orc, another being a male blood elf, and the last being a male troll. The female orc had her black hair in a braid, that for an orc, could be considered elegant wearing a dark brown leather vest, a red long sleeve shirt, black pants held onto her waist by a black leather belt with metal rivets, leather boots with metal plating protecting her shins, and a brutal, if somewhat crude looking, war axe strapped to her back. The male blood elf had ruddy colored skin, glowing green eyes that were symbolic of his race, a dark green shirt covering his torso, dark brown cloth pants tucked into green boots, and cloth fingerless gloves covering his hands, it should also be noted he had an elegant looking iron dagger hanging from a sheath on his belt. The final member was Zin'Jin, wearing a black shirt that hung loosely on his lanky frame, grey pants that had to be held up by a rope, and he stared at the other two with a scowl. The three were all eyeing each other, likely sizing up the people they viewed as competition. It was this scene that Naruto came upon when he arrived at the training ground.
"Alright," Naruto called out, looking at each of them like he was staring into their souls, "you are probably wondering why you are here. Well the Hokage in her infinite wisdom asked me to train you three, in the hopes that you MIGHT become valued members of Konoha's Shinobi Corps."
At that all three of them let either a smirk or a grin cross their face, until he sneered at them.
"But before any of you become shinobi," Naruto stated, leaning forward a little with his arms crossed over his chest, "you have to go through me."
At that moment, he yanked two bells from his pocket, like the kind generally seen around Christmas, and tied them to one of his belt loops.
"What's wit da bells," Zin'jin asked, squinting at the bells like he was trying to evaluate them.
"Glad you asked," Naruto replied, a sadistic grin on his face, "you have till noon to get a bell from me, those who get a bell will go on to become Shinobi, the rest will go home and have to wait for someone else to consider teaching them."
At that all of them tensed up and had a frightened look on their faces.
"Ready," Naruto announced, all at once the three charged at Naruto, hoping to be the one to get a bell while he was seemingly distracted, only for the blood elf to end up in a headlock, Zin'Jin to end up with his face in the dirt and Naruto's hand on the side of his and the orc girl's head to be on the ground with Naruto's foot on the side of her head.
"Eager aren't you," Naruto stated with a comical grin, "but I didn't say start."
With that Naruto disappeared in a swirl of leaves.
"Now start," Naruto's voice echoed from all around.
Meanwhile…
Sakura, Tsunade, and Shizune stood on the edge of the clearing and watched as the events unfolded.
"Lady Tsunade is Kakashi-sensei dead," Sakura asked, her nose scrunched up in concertation.
"Not the last time I checked," Tsunade answered, "Why do you ask?"
"Naruto seems to be channeling him in a big way," Sakura replied, remembering when she took the Bell Test with Naruto and Saskue and almost the exact same thing happened, except it was just Naruto who charged in. As if to confirm what she had been saying Naruto reappeared in the center of the clearing and pulled out a worn book with a green cover, which even from here they could tell was "Tales of a Gutsy Shinobi".
"I see what you mean," Tsunade stated, sighing in exasperation. After all, sometimes you just couldn't stop the teacher's bad habits from transferring to the students.
A few hours later…
It was almost noon and things had not been going well with the three genin hopefuls, first the orc female had tried the time tested orc tactic of overpowering her foe, only to end up neck deep in the ground and Naruto using axe as a foot prop while he continued reading on a stump, the blood elf male had tried to attack from the apparent safety of the bushes, casting a series of rather unimpressive fireball spells, only to fall into one of Naruto's cleverly hidden traps, and poor Zin'jin had tried to go hand to hand with Naruto, only for him to end up flat on his back while it appeared that Naruto hadn't thought to look up from his book. It was at this moment, with noon fast approaching, that Zin'jin began to stop and think.
'We've tried ta take him on by ourselves but we failed,' Zin'jin thought, before an idea came to him, 'but if we tried ta take him on together.'
With that idea in his head Zin'jin set out to find either of the other two to see if they would try to help him. The first one he had found was the orc girl, panting in exhaustion from having just gotten herself out of the earth.
"How are we supposed to beat him," the orc female asked rhetorically.
"Alone we cannot," Zin'jin stated, shocking the orc girl who immediately jumped up ready to punch him, "hold on I gat an idea."
"What is this idea," the orc female asked, squinting her eyes in suspicion.
"We need ta work tagether," Zin'jin stated.
"How are we supposed to do that," she asked, throwing her arms into the air.
"Lets start simple," Zin'jin answered before he extended his hand, "ma name's Zin'jin.
"Mine's Tamaja," the orc girl, now known as Tamaja, stated before shaking Zin'jin's hand.
"Nice ta meet ya Tamaja," Zin'jin stated with a smile before his face got serious, "now we just need da blood elf."
Immediately the two set out to find the blood elf that had been with them, neither noticing Naruto up in the trees with an approving smirk on his face.
"Looks like those runts are starting to figure it out," Naruto stated, before disappearing in a puff of smoke revealing that it had been a shadow clone. The original Naruto smirked and calmly turned the page of his book as the memories from his clone flooded his mind.
"Runts might actually make it," Naruto stated, before he looked up at the clock that read 11:40 am, "we'll see."
Meanwhile, while Naruto was thinking this, Zin'jin and Tamaja had found the blood elf, and he was proving to be quite stubborn, not wanting to work with either of them.
"I refuse," the blood elf said, glaring at the two of them.
"Why," Zin'jin asked, sighing and rubbing his forehead.
"Because unlike you two weaklings I don't need help from anyone," he stated with a glare.
"Listen we each tried to take him down on our own," Tamaja stated matter of factly, "and it has either ended with all three of us with our faces in the dirt or him taking us down with ease."
At that the blood elf glared and looked to the ground, having remembered being caught in both a headlock and the trap that he had only just escaped from.
"Right now, our best chance is trying to take him down together," Tamaja stated.
"But he only has two bells and there are three of us," the blood elf stated, "what are we gonna do about that."
"We'll worry about dat bridge when we get to it," Zin'jin replied, "but for now, my name's Zin'jin."
"I'm Tamaja," Tamaja stated.
"Well if I have to work with you two to get a bell I suppose I can stomach your company," the blood elf stated, "my name's Northaen."
"Alright now dat dat's out of the way," Zin'jin stated, "we need a plan."
With that the three of them began to quickly try to formulate a plan that might enable them to succeed.
With Naruto…
Naruto looked up at the clock, which now read 11:50 am, and sighed to himself. He was now beginning to wonder if he gave those kids too much credit, when a fireball shot out of the woods and would have hit him, had he not stepped to the side. Only for another fireball to launch itself towards him. Grunting in annoyance Naruto stepped to the side again, only to feel a rope tighten around his ankle, which if he had been paying attention he would have noticed cause it wasn't hidden that well, it hadn't been knotted properly, and the fact that Tamaja was holding the rope in an attempt to hold him up. Looking at the branch that was being used as the pulley he saw Zin'jin lowering himself down on another rope to try and grab ahold of the bells. Grunting Naruto quickly grabbed a hold of a kunai from his kunai pouch and sliced the rope, landing on his feet just as the alarm on the clock went off.
"Well that does it," Naruto said loud enough that all three of them could hear as Northaen walked out of the tree line and Zin'jin and Tamaja looked down, "none of you got a bell so it's only natural that you all…"
All three of them looked down in shame, already knowing he was going to fail all of them and they would have to go home in shame.
"Pass," Naruto said with a grin that would have the Cheshire Cat envious.
"What," was the resounding response from all three of the new genin as they stared at him with wide eyed shock.
"What do you mean we passed," Northaen asked.
"None of us got a bell," Tamaja stated, fury written on her face, thinking it was all a joke.
"It was never about da bells," Zin'jin said, his mind finally processing everything, with his hand on his forehead.
"Exactly," Naruto stated, the grin having never left his face.
"Then what was it about," Northaen asked, his mind trying to process what had just happened.
"Have any of you ever heard stories about the Fourth Shinobi War," Naruto asked, looking at them intensely as they all nodded, "and in any of those stories was there anything mentioning a three-man squad?"
They all stopped and looked like they were ready to give an affirmative, before they stopped and took on thinking postures. Eventually they all shook their heads, before looking back up at Naruto.
"That's what I thought," Naruto stated, before smirking at his new students, "so get your stuff and be back here at six tomorrow morning, after all since I gotta train you three from the ground up I might as well start as soon as possible."
With a grin Tamaja grabbed her axe and bolted from the training field to tell her parents the good news, Northaen ran to the bushes and looked for his dagger, realizing he had dropped it, and Zin'jin grinned as wide as he could as he ran to his new home.
"So, what do you think," Tsunade asked as she walked out from the brush.
"They got potential," Naruto stated with a smirk.
"How much," Tsunade asked, hoping that this team would pay off.
"We'll see," Naruto replied, "for now I need to get home, need to try and getting a training regimen together."
With that Naruto disappeared in a swirl of leaves, trying to figure out how to get these new kids up to snuff so that, hopefully, the Civilian Council might stay off the newer residence back a little.
Meanwhile in an unknown location…
In the back room of an upscale bar in Konoha, that looked much like any other, a secret meeting was being held by several members of the Civilian Council. The reason this covert meeting was being called was because of one simple motivator, they were losing money. You see it was by the simple fact that these people were either the wealthiest merchants or heirs to some of the greatest financial empires in all of Konoha that they had stayed in power since before the Kyubi attack. But now their power was being threatened by these newcomers. After all, why would people pay exorbitant sums of money for a new kimono or tailored clothes for audiences with the Daimyo when a blood elf could make better looking clothes with just a bottle of dye and thirty Ryu worth of cloth? Who would hire their expensive miners when orcs would work twice as hard for half the cost or what shinobi would by their overpriced kunai or shuriken when orcs could make finer quality weapons with just a hunk of iron ore? Who would hire their workers to help on their farms or other businesses, when trolls could get the job done twice as fast for half as much?
"Our profits are way down," one of the merchants stated, smoking an expensive brand of tobacco from his ornate pipe.
"No kidding," another replied, this one reeking of gaudy cologne, his gut hanging over his belt, and with expensive rings on all his fingers.
"You know the Inugura Weapon Shop has been hiring those pig people," another said, a glass of rather expensive sake sitting in front of him. Now normally they would not be discussing the Inugura Weapon Shop, which was currently run by run by one Tenshi Inugura who was the mother of one Tenten Inugura. But ever since the weapon shop started hiring Orcs the "less than acceptable" materials they had allowed her to purchase from them had been making quality weapons.
"And the Hokage does nothing to protect us," another shouted, banging their fist against the table, the numerous necklaces hanging around their neck jangling as their wearer stood up quickly. It was moments like this they missed the Third Hokage, not because he tried to protect them far from it, but ever since the Hokage's Office had hired some diplomatically minded Blood Elves they had been unable to slip in any clauses that they could use as leverage, or to make it so that the Hokage basically worked for them.
"I think it's past time to remind the illustrious Hokage who really holds the power in this village," the gaudily dressed merchant stated with venom lacing his voice.
"Yeah," the sake drinking merchant replied, "lets show that big titted bitch who is really in charge here!"
At that the room was filled with cheers, already readying themselves to contact the various shinobi, peace keepers, and politicians that were on their payrolls. After all, the Kyubi Brat, the Hokage, and these new comers needed to be taught their place, firmly beneath their boots and bowing in reverence to them.
So how did all of you enjoy it?
Well I hope it met all of you lovely reader's expectations!
Anyway, here is a preview I have for a future chapter:
Thrall stood outside the great wooden gates of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, the combined armies of the Horde and Alliance banging away at the massive gates with their battering rams. Out of nowhere a spear with a dark green banner that prominently featured a red circle with a spiral inside of it landed two feet away from him. As soon as the spear landed a orange flash appeared and out of the flash stood a blonde haired human wearing a black shirt, black pants, black sandals, a headband with a metal plate that had lines forming something like a leaf, and a dark orange long coat with black flames appeared before him, although the most striking feature about the human were his eyes, because they were blood red and slitted just like a snakes.
"Warchief Thrall," the human called, the sound of his voice causing even the people working the battering ram to stop what they were doing and look at the human, who had their undivided attention, "I challenge you to Mak'gora!"
So I will see you all and remember…
-spray paints Death's mask on the screen-
The apocalypse will be televised!