Ramen Doodles
By Andrew J. Talon
Disclaimer: I do not and probably never will own Naruto or any other copyrighted works mentioned in this story. I am not writing this for profit.
Author's Note: When I have writer's block, I often write a lot of random snippets of ideas, omakes, and continuations of other author's ideas that kind of petered out. As I'm afflicted with a bit of writer's block regarding Key Through the Heart (again), I've decided I'm not going to leave you guys in the lurch. Therefore, enjoy some writing I've been doing over at The Fanfiction Forum.
Kiba groaned as he slowly felt his senses return. He ached all over, and his head was pounding. Next to him, he could feel Akamaru, hear him whimpering as he awoke with his master.
"Unghh... Goddamn..." He slowly opened his eyes. They widened, as he saw absolutely nothing.
"Oh shit... Oh shit..."
Stay calm, stay calm! He mentally shouted to himself. His chakra may have been acting weird right now, but his instincts and duties remained the same-Protect the pack.
He sniffed the air. At least his enhanced sense of smell still worked.
Okay... Shino's here... But where is everyone else? He strained his ears, but he couldn't hear anyone else. Wherever they were, the room was soundproofed.
"Kiba," Shino's calm voice emerged in the darkness. Kiba gulped.
"Shino? I... I can't see."
"Neither can I," Shino said, as thought simply talking about the weather. Kiba slowly sat up, hand instinctively reaching to Akamaru to rub his head comfortingly.
"You know where we are?"
"A cell of some sort," Shino said. "We are completely sealed in. My insects have determined no means of escape."
"The others?" Kiba asked. Shino was silent for a moment.
"I have been unable to locate them. Something within the cell is preventing me from contacting my allies I placed on them," the Aburame reported. Kiba grimaced.
Kiba formed a few handseals, an old academy exercise designed to shape and bring out chakra, like working with modeling clay. Rather than the familiar feeling of his energy moving within him, as natural as breathing, all he gets is a whisper of his power, and nothing else.
"Just... What the hell is this?" Kiba muttered. "It's like our chakra is just..."
"Gone," Shino murmured. Kiba can imagine the puzzled frown his friend is wearing right now.
"Wish Sakura was here... She could probably figure out what was going on..." He tried not to speculate on what might be happening to her, but the worry twisted inside his gut like razor blades.
When he first met her, Kiba had thought of Sakura as little more than some weak know-it-all, who was going to meet her end fangirling over the Uchiha. Even after the Chuunin Exams, she hadn't changed all that much. Still had to be rescued, still pined after the Uchiha.
After Naruto vanished though... He remembered seeing her walking through the gates of the village, the covered Stargate being rolled in behind her, every aspect of her body language transformed. She walked with purpose now, clear purpose.
She's worked the hardest out of anyone in the village to get the Stargate working. Even with instinctive knowledge he knew she didn't understand, knew she even feared a little, she pressed herself harder than anyone else. He'd passed the door to the lab she'd taken for her own underneath the Hokage Monument Mountain and seen her scribbling on chalkboards and scrolls, doing calculations with computers, even an abacus, all day and well into the night. In between training sessions he'd watch her, unable to understand much about anything she was doing but strangely fascinated.
The Uchiha stopped by once in a while, but he didn't do anything. He just watched Sakura work herself to exhaustion, and then leave.
Kiba couldn't understand it. He was Inuzuka. You looked after your packmembers, period. After seeing she wasn't allowing herself breaks, he took it upon himself to go into her lab, and drag her off to get some real food. The first time was rather memorable.
He'd walked into her lab. Sakura was pushing up her new reading glasses to rub her tired eyes, sitting at the desk. While she did, he walked over, grabbed her around the waist, and thrown her over his shoulder.
"ACK! K-Kiba! What the hell are you doing?!" She'd demanded, slamming her fists into his back. "Put me down!"
"I'll put you down in the cafeteria," he'd stated flatly.
"Damnit Kiba I have work to do-!"
"It'll still be there when you've eaten," Kiba stated flatly. Sakura kicked and struggled for a bit longer, and then began screaming at him as they went down the hallways, her face burning bright red in humiliation when other people in the complex saw her. She had actually refused to eat when he'd set her down at a table in the cafeteria, until he'd threatened to tickle her until she did so. Even then, it took five minutes of tickling to get her to take a bite. He reflected she had a nice laugh, a nice smell...
"We've gotta get out of here... Find the others..." Kiba said, trying to focus on the here and now. He almost expected Shino to begin laying out the difficulties inherent in doing all that-They were locked up, they were blind, they had no jutsu capability and they had no idea what they were up against...
He could feel Shino's nod. "Agreed."
"So... What's the plan?" Kiba asked.
"It is likely they will wish to interrogate us," Shino said. "It is likely they have no idea where we come from."
"Right," Kiba said. He rubbed Akamaru's head. "You okay, boy?"
The ninken made a human-sounding groan in response. Kiba grimaced.
"He's still pretty out of it..."
Akamaru softly barked a few times.
"His chakra feels wonky too... Like it's hovering out of his reach and he can't grab it."
"An apt metaphor," Shino mused. "What could be causing it?"
"Not a clue," Kiba mumbled. "But... You could feel the change the moment we stepped through the 'Gate, couldn't you?"
Shino slowly nodded. "I could..."
"It's like..." Kiba tried to come up with the right words. "It's like..."
A door opened, and Kiba froze. He heard a body fall to the floor. It smelled like the same men as before, yet... Something was different.
"Like... Your chakra's got no anchor?" A male voice asked. Kiba started, and looked in the direction of the voice.
"Who the hell are you?"
An audible poof, the smell of smoke... Then Fox, ramen, explosive powder...
"... Naruto?!" Kiba hissed. He could hear a laugh. It was familiar, Naruto's, yet... Changed. Wry, deeper... Like an older man laughing.
"The one and only..." He felt Naruto kneel down and heard the grimace in his voice. "Shit, they got you with a grenade..."
"How did you find us?" Shino asked.
"Where the fuck have you been anyway?!" Kiba demanded. Naruto sighed.
"Look, it's a long story and I don't want to have to repeat it so I'll tell you all when we find everyone, okay? I promise."
"That will be problematic. We are blind," Shino said.
"Don't worry, your eyes will start working again soon... Though it'll hurt like hell," Naruto said. Kiba slowly stood up, Akamaru clambering into his arms.
"I take it you know these guys?"
"Sort of," Naruto said. "I know Jaffa weaponry... That's what they're called, by the way... Though these guys have some stuff I haven't seen before."
Kiba heard some sort of device being fiddled with, then a loud blast combined with the smell of ozone. He jumped and Akamaru yelped.
"What the hell was that?!" Kiba demanded. He could definitely see again, but it was all moving shadows and points of light, slowly coming back into focus. A black blob with a yellow head made what looked like a shrugging motion.
"Staff... Pistol, I guess you could call it," Naruto said. He pushed an object into Kiba's hands, and he gripped a handle.
"Some information on the problems with our chakra would be pertinent right now," Shino said. Naruto nodded and wandered over, handing another staff pistol to Shino.
"Okay... Near as Sam-nee-chan's been able to figure out-"
"Sam-nee-chan?" Kiba asked. Naruto shrugged.
"Long story... She thinks that because our planet has so much chakra in it that everyone on it is kind of like one half of a circuit. Our energy keeps flowing in and out of our surroundings."
"So how'd you henge?" Kiba asked, now able to see their surroundings pretty clearly. Naruto stood there, dressed in black, wearing a vest and boots with foreign patches on them. He could see he still wore his forehead protector though, tied around his neck very much like Hinata wore hers.
"Well... I had to learn how to make myself into a circuit, basically," Naruto explained. Shino nodded.
"Our chakra flows within our bodies, but has been kept moving by our planet without us even noticing that when we are offworld, the flow is thrown off?"
"More or less, I think Sam's going to like you," Naruto said with a grin. Kiba looked down at the weapon in his hands, and Naruto coughed.
"Okay, just point the tip of the weapon at the badguy, and pull the trigger. Very simple," Naruto explained. "Who else came with you?"
"Sakura, Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke, and Hinata," Shino reported. Naruto nodded grimly.
"All right... Let's see if we can find them next. Follow my lead." Naruto henged into a Jaffa again, and looked around out of the cell. Seeing only unconscious guards, he motioned for Shino and Kiba to follow. They did so, both left with a large number of questions they kept in check. Now wasn't the time.
A little bit more for Stargate: Konoha. More to come. The polished versions of these snippets will go into the main story.