Naruto was furious and sad at the same time, tears held back in the corner of each eye and lips curled into a snarl so vicious the usual disapproving looks on his stomp back home had been replaced with those of fear.
He hadbarely noticed even that though, fists clenched at his sides until he slammed the door to his apartment open with a kick.His lock was broken, obviously, and even in his fit of rage he could tell that he would be fixing the thing up as soon as he wore himself out.
The usual mess was present, the tables of his various projects had been paused to focus on his singly important project. The one that hung mockingly in a spread eagled fashion from his illicit line, head downturned in an image reminiscent of a crucifixion.
It was so close to completion, and he had already been so proud of it. It was, without a doubt, the single most complex and cool project he had undertaken. He had never put as much effort into anything as he had the ninja puppet before him, nothing came even close.
It had been his single minded obsession for nearly a month, he had missed school and trips to Ichiraku's for it, had gone without sleep and taken parts with him to work on in the bathroom. He bit back a sob.It wasn't fair! He thought, the previous adoration he hadfelt when looking at his pet project had turned to a bitter resentment.
So he punched it, square in the face he had taken hours to carve and felt a hollow satisfaction at hearing the crack of wood. So he grabbed a poker, remembering that he had decided against giving his puppet a sword arm, and whacked away relentlessly.
He knew that we would regret it and that it would make him even more bitter about the whole mess, but right now he only wanted the hollow satisfaction he'd felt as it's carved head had been cracked open.
He didn't stop until there was nothing left but pieces, his eyes stinging as he cried. He had a lot of stamina, freakishly so he had been told, but right now he just felt really tired.He fingered at the biggest of the remnants, the right forearm of what had only fifteen minutes ago felt like his greatest accomplishment.
It was the spring-loaded arm, the device he had designed all on his own remembering the cool things the sand village puppeteer had done.
In a childish moment he placed the wooden forearm over his own, then paused. A fit of inspiration later and the tears were gone, replaced by a grin, excited muttering and the clicks and clacks of tinkering that went on well into the night.
Naruto had arrived that particular Monday morning with a brilliant red cloth wrapped thick around his right arm, the huge bulge making it rather apparent that he was concealing something beneath. That was okay though, he wasn't trying to hide the fact that he had a concealed weapon.
All he needed to do was make sure that no-one figured out exactly what it was. And right from the get go he was forced to deal with an annoying witch.
"Why do you have a curtain wrapped around your arm, dobe? You do know we'll be fighting, not interior decorating? Oh, I know, you're saving that to spruce up your room at the hospital? The rooms there are really bland."
He didn't know what he had done to annoy her since their meetup with the ANBU but ever since arriving this morning she had been even more antagonistic than usual. It was a turnaround from before the mock exams, when she had barely said a word to him or anyone else.
"I don't know, Uchiha-sama." He called back with sarcasm "You'll have to let me know just how bland the rooms are when I send your backstabbing ass back there all black and blue."
"Kyaa!" he heard Sakura squeal from the 'stands', about a dozen rows of plastic chairs they had all dragged out from a supply closet upon arriving at the academy and lined up haphazardly in the dusty academy playground.
At least until the boisterous Ino Yamanaka had arrived with her posse of detail oriented and completely batshit insane harpies who had them arrange and rearrange the chairs for hours before being called off by Iruka sensei.
"Oh? Backstabbing? And when did I do something like that?"
"Oy, don't play dumb now all of a sudden! You left that bastard mutt Kiba and that creepy guy Shino to take my token back in that damned forest! I swore I'd get you back for that and now I'm just glad Iruka sensei gave me the excuse to do it without getting a detention." He said
"You really should be careful of what you say, dobe. You almost make it sound as if you have a chance of doing anything other than stand around and have me drag your pitiful excuse for a shinobi behind all through the tournament."
This was the final fight of the tournament, where thewinning team would split and face off against one another for the title of number one in the class. There were no prizes on the line, no points going towards final grade. Just an opportunity to beat a fellow student senseless.
He was definitely alright with that, though. "I earned my spot in the finals just like you did!"
"You don't really believe that lie, do you? If you do you're even more of an idiot than I thought. Though, since I feel sorry for you I'll let you quit now and spare you the humiliation of having to get knocked around like a ragdoll."
His fist reared back, Naruto rushed forward as fast as his legs could carry him planning to deck Sasuke right in her cocky little face. She dodged with a single step, twisting to the side in one fluid movement. And with that the pre-fight banter was off.
He swung out with a right kick but she dodged once more with the same ease and Naruto overextended as a result, the accursed laws of physics working against him when his intended blow hit nothing but air.
Sasuke didn't have the same problem, her responding kick sending him rolling onto the floor. She wasn't the type to play around, it seemed.
Herolled back into a standing position, embarrassed at the ease with which he had been dispatched.She would regret that though.
He redoubled his efforts, his taijutsu skills were not the greatest in the class, as far as having style and technique went he would admit being the worst. But he was fast, resilient and most of all, strong. Much stronger than a kid his age had any right to be, and it showed when even his blocked kicks and punches caused the unflappable Uchiha to wince.
For all his blocked attacks none were making it through and most were being dodged entirely. Sasuke really was that much better a fighter.
So when she saw an opening in his wild assault she took advantage, viciously. Sinking a punch deep into his gut when he raised his guard an inch too high she continued with a one-two-three jab, punch and kick.
Wiping the blood from his split lip, he swore. "Bitch. I'll pay you back for that."
"Oh? You couldn't afford to pay for skills like mine, useless wannabe." Sasuke said, self-important smirk still in place.
Then he pointed to a spot behind Sasuke with abewildered expression. "W-what the heck is that!!" Naruto exclaimed, and all gathered turned to look at what could have spooked him so bad.
Suckers. Snikt! Two reshaped kunai shot out of Naruto's wrapped arm trailed by the thin yet remarkably strong material that was ninja wire and aimed at Sasuke's torso. Amazingly she dodged and he bit back a frustrated groan.
"What was that?!" she practically ordered him to answer, sounding just barely surprised at his secret weapon.He was really tired of her inflated sense of self worth, acting as if she was a queen or something ordering him around but complied anyway.
He threw off his cloth with a flourish, revealing a bulky polished wood and metal device that wrapped around his forearm. Two thick coil springs were visible through slits in the wood, no doubt the source of propulsion and bright orange spraypaint made a poorly done approximation of flame patterns.
"This?" he asked proudly "I made it all by myself, you know. I call it my Reborn Puppet Steel-Line Emitting and Recapturing Gauntlet mk1, its super-cool, right?"
Sasuke face-palmed at his announcement. "God, you are
an idiot."
"Tch, broody bitch." He ignored Iruka-sensei's reprimanding squawk of indignation at his language "You wouldn't know what was cool if it hit you in the face."
"Whatever."
Sasuke ran forward, her long hair trailing behind her as she launched a kick at his head. He blocked with his left arm and grimaced at the power of the strike. Girl or not, even he had to admit that Sasuke was damn tough. Not as tough as he was though.
He made a grab for her raised leg that she dodged with ease. Then she wailed on him. Punch after punch, kick after kick. Anyone of his classmates would have needed to call it quits by now but Naruto took pride in his ability to take a hit. She wasn't going to be giving him the space to shoot his line at her again, though.
He would have to take his chance when he saw it, not that Sasuke would be making it easy. There didn't seem to be any holes in her fighting style, at least none that he could see. There would be no conventional means of retaliation, meaning he would go for the unconventional.
So when Sasuke did a jumping spin kick he took the shot to his sidewithout blocking and grabbed at her flailing hair, slamming her back-first onto the ground. It was only his second clean hit of the match against Sasuke's hundred but Sasuke wasn't anywhere near as tough as he was, so he didn't need to match her strike for strike he only needed to make each strike count.
"Uwhh" the wind was forced out of her lungs on impact.
Naruto, not being the chivalrous sort, didn't feel sorry for her and tried to beat her while she was down. She rolled back in spite of her pain, but now he had a clean shot at her. He grinned and pulled the trigger.
'click'
No wires shot out. Shit. The damn thing wasn't working!
'click. Click. Click.'
Sasuke looked vicious. He felt the punch before he saw her move, the force nearly lifting him off the ground.
"Winner, Uchiha Sasuke." He heard Iruka sensei call fromthe ground, the chalked out border line he had been knocked out of hazy in his swirling vision. Blood trickled down his face and his nose, which seemed to be at an odd angle in his peripheral vision, burnt as if on fire.
"You broke my nose!" he called out, his voice sounding strange. She didn't even spare him a glance as she walked off the platform. The bitch.
"I cant believe you would try to do something like that to a girl, Naruto."
Naruto held an icepack to his purple, swollen nose and shot Iruka-sensei the finger "That thing isn't a girl! She's insane!" he gestured to his face "Look at what she did to me!"
Iruka frowned at him. The two were in the classroom, his nose having been patched up with the class first-aid kit and by an indignant teacher. His nose had been reset and the usual smell of alcohol disinfectant was blunted, as were all other smells.
"She was just taking the fight seriously is all. You shouldn't treat her so badly, Naruto. You know what happened to her family."
Naruto made a yammering gesture, unimpressed. "Blah, blah, blah. I don't care about any of that. It's sad and all, but that doesn't give her the right to be a bitch all the time. I swear, I'm going to beat the crap out of her for this."
Iruka hit him upside the head. "Watch your mouth. Anddon't go looking for a fight with Sasuke tomorrow, I'm not going to fix up your nose again if you do something stupid."
"Tch. She just got lucky is all! I could totally beat her if I wanted to! I wasn't even trying that hard anyway!" he said
He could tell Iruka-sensei wasn't buying it though. "Anyway, did you really make that gauntlet thing all by yourself?"
"It's called the Reborn Puppet Line Emitting and Re-capturing Gauntlet mk1, Iruka sensei... And yeah, I did! I think it's going to be one of my top projects too. Though... it jammed up on me back there..."
"Hmmm..." Iruka thought for a bit "Let me have a look at it Naruto."
He was all too happy to have Iruka-sensei inspect his genius first hand.
"Wow, this is really impressive. If you could put as much effort into class as you did with this you might get out of the dead last position."
"But all that class stuff is sooo boooring, Iruka-sensei. Why would I want to know all that stuff anyways."
Iruka just sighed. He and his sensei had this conversation at least once a day for the past year, and he hadn't been convinced yet. And he wouldn't be any time soon!
"You know, it's too bad you don't know any fuuinjutsu. Devices as complex as this tend to be tricky to get working, and you could do the same thing better with fuuinjutsu, and a whole lot more besides."
Naruto looked thoughtful. Something that could work better than his spring mechanism?
"Hey, Iruka-sensei... What's fuuinjutsu again?"
"We just had a lesson on fuuinjutsu two weeks ago!" Iruka said
Naruto winced. He could tell that there would be a really, really long lecture coming on now. Maybe he should have just kept his mouth shut.
"Knock, knock."
No answer.
"Knock, knock" more urgent
No answer.
"Naruto, open up this door right now!" said Iruka, a bit of worry seeping into his tone.
Naruto hadn't shown up for school for three days, ever since his admittedly painful loss to Sasuke in the first round of their mock exam. Naruto wasn't exactly a model student, his attendance record looked like a game of tick-tack-toe, but three days in a row was a record even for him.
"Knock, Knock!"
No answer.
"Thats it Naruto!"
He had half a mind to kick his students door in but that wasn't appropriate. So instead he picked the lock. Ninja 101- a class Naruto had never attended once in the past two years he recalled with annoyance.
He swung the door open gently, then paused. He had never been inside Naruto's apartment but he had never
expected... this. There was no couch, no tv. Or rather, there was a tv, only it had been screwed apart and dismantled and was lying helter-skelter on a few different tables, of which there were five in what was supposed to have been a living room.
None of the tables were of the same make, or even the same size. The one pushed up against the blackout curtains wasn't even a table but a mass-produced door put ontop of cinder-blocks. There was no free space on any of the tables, an eclectic assortment of tools, cloths, mechanical parts rubber tubing and bottles of dye and other chemicals lay everywhere, some piled ontop of the other. If he didn't know any better he would have thought himself in a sweatshop.
"Naruto..." he called softly, looking around the apartment. The teen wasn't in his room or the bathroom, and his single-mattress bed was still made. Iruka started to panic. The whole situation was wrong. He had looked in the closet, behind the curtains and in every nook and cranny the sneaky blonde may have hid himself.
He had found an open Bingo Book on Naruto's kitchen counter- seemingly the only relatively clear surface in the whole place- but left it untouched. Five years and he had never gotten the boy to crack open a book of his own free will, if this had even achance of getting Naruto interested in reading he didn't care that it wasn't legal for civilians.
"Naruto!" he shouted, his voice tight with unease
"I wasn't sleeping, Iruka-sensei!" A head shot up from the cinderblock table, the pile of black cloth revealing a yellow head of hair. Relief.
"Naruto! Where have you been!" Naruto looked around, probably wondering why he wasn't in the classroom. "Umm... Why are you here, Iruka-sensei?" Naruto asked, scratching his head
"Dont play dumb with me, Naruto! You haven't been to class in three days!"
Naruto's eyes widened in surprise. Either the kid was a good actor- and he knew from experience that wasn't the case- or he really had no idea what was going on. "What? But I was there just yesterday, right? I fought the bitch and she got a lucky punch in, right?"
A lucky punch? More like a dozen, and a few good kicks too. "It's Friday, Naruto! What have you been doing anyway?"
"Lets see... I went to Ichiraku's for after class, then I visited the old man and..." Here Naruto paused and whirled around, mumbling "The squiggly-centre runs at a fifty-five degree to the line kanji... No, no, no! Its all wrong! It'll never work like this..."
Iruka went nearer and peaked his head to look at what Naruto had been working on and saw dozens of pages with carefully arranged symbols and sloping, untidy kanji. It was clearly Fuuinjutsu, and though he had never learned the esoteric art the pages he saw actually seemed to be the real deal. That was really impressive, even more so when he considered the student who had produced it.
"Naruto... Who taught you this?" Whoever could get an art as hard to grasp as fuuinjutsu and teach it to a super-hyperactive, hard headed kid like Naruto was an amazing teacher.
"No-one. I asked the Old Man for some scrolls on fuuinjutsu and he gave 'em to me as long as I promised to be careful and not attempt any, uhh... something-something transopti-something's. But all of this... it just clicks,you know?"
He didn't, and knowing that Naruto didn't even know what the method he was supposed to be wary of was called didn't put him at ease. Not that he could do anything about it. If Hokage-sama had decided Naruto was mature enough to learn Fuuinjutsu Naruto would learn it.
He wouldn't hope to think himself more intelligent than the man who had once memorised the entire village library verbatim... Maybe he could force the boy to read some books on safety before he burnt the village down, though.
"That's enough. You are coming with me." He grabbed Naruto by the scruff of his orange jumpsuit- the boy hadn't taken off his school clothes yet- and headed off to the academy.
"Hey, hey! I was nearly done, you know! Just a few more minutes and I'll have figured it out!"
"If you haven't figured that all out in the past three days I don't think a few more minutes would have cut it."
"I wasn't working on that formula all the time! I learned awhole bunch of other stuff too, you know!"
"Well, if you say so. You probably didn't eat that much did you? How about I take you to Ichiraku's after class?" It was better to appeal to the boy through his stomach than his head, and Naruto definitely deserved it with all the work he had done the last few days.
God, he was so proud. He would have never thought the day would come when Naruto missed class because he was studying too hard.
"Really! Yes!! I'm totally gonna wolf down some miso!" Naruto shouted, frightening an old man in the street below who looked up at the rooftops to glare at them.
'Sorry!' Irukacalled back. The apology's effect was watered down because of Naruto's laughter, though.
Years later it would be this day that Iruka would think back to as the time he first noticed Naruto change.
Hereafter Naruto would no longer be the rambunctious, dim-witted dead-last. His grades would skyrocket, his martial arts would become deadly yet eerily similar to Sasuke's own and the boy's momentary fascination with fuinjutsu would become all encompassing.
Scrolls of paper, thick esoteric textbooks and bottles of ink would cover his class desk and frequently that of Shikimaru, who was more than happy to use it as an excuse for not doing work.
He would completely tune out the lessons and work on his own projects, lectures ignored. A few months after this he would go cold turkey on even his pranks, claimimg time spent teaching people lessons was time that could better be spent working on his totally awesome ninja skills.
It would slightly insult Iruka as an instructor, but the Chunin would still make a better effort to keep in fighting shape from then on.
