:) Megan's Mini Guide to Japanese for the Illiterate Baka: gaki-brat, Fuuma Shuriken-Windmill shuriken; i.e. one about twenty times bigger than normal size that can collapse into itself, ojii-san- old man or grandpa, gomen nasai-I'm very sorry/please forgive me, Chikusha-dammit, Shunshin-a transportation jutsu with variations using smoke, sand, leaves, water, etc.
Chapter Names (so far): Shi-Death, Yosha-Forgiveness, Shomen-Façade, and Honto Chikara- True Strength
Quite frankly, my fight scenes suck, so I try to make them as short as possible. Gomen nasai!
¤Chapter Four¤
"People who want happy endings have to write their own."
Paine, Final Fantasy X-2
Mizuki snarled under his breath as he ran through the forest. The scroll of Forbidden Seals weighed heavily on his back. His senses were on high alert, checking for the ANBU he knew would soon be on his tail.
'That damn Kyuubi gaki!' he swore. His plans had been totally trashed by that cursed demon boy. It was well known that he barely scraped a pass in any of his skills and that bushin was his worst technique.
It had been Mizuki's plan to manipulate him when he failed, getting him to steal the scroll for him. Then Mizuki would have been able to follow him into the woods and kill him. Two birds with one stone, as most would say.
He stopped suddenly on a high branch. He felt a familiar chakra signature ahead, and it only took a moment to figure out who's it was. 'Speak of the devil.' he started to grin evilly. From the was the boy's chakra was fluctuating, he must have been tired from training. "Perfect." He unloaded a Fuuma Shuriken from where it hung on his back, and crept slowly through the trees.
Finally he got a visual on the boy. He lay in the middle of a grassy clearing, and all around the trees were dotted with shuriken and kunai. The blonde appeared to be asleep and he'd obviously been training. 'Heh, this is too easy.' He put the shuriken back in it's place and withdrew a simple kunai. He silently walked over to the other and poised the knife above him.
"Time for you to die, demon!"
And he plunged the kunai into the boy's jugular.
¤ (1)
Mizuki smirked in triumph. He'd finally killed the demon brat!
He almost didn't notice when the supposed body poofed into smoke. "Nani!" He could still feel the blood that coated his hands, so that couldn't have been a clone. 'Not even Kage Bushin can do that!' he whipped around wildly looking for the brat.
His eyes widened as he saw a gigantic fireball rushing right for him. He desperately tried to jump out of the way, but was caught by the edge. He screamed in pain and surprise as flames licked his skin.
Suddenly something slammed into him with astounding force, knocking him to the ground. A glint of reflected sunlight was the last thing he saw before the base of his skull exploded and he blacked out.
¤
Naruto shoved the kunai back into it's pouch and dusted off his hands. "That…was ridiculously easy."
Sasuke snorted from where he was leaving the bushes. "You defeated him the first time. Of course it was easy!"
"Hey, don't make fun of my abilities!"
"Whatever."
Naruto stuck out his tongue childishly, and was mildly surprised when Sasuke returned it. He grinned, then turned his attention to the unconscious chunnin.
He lifted the enormous scroll gently off Mizuki's back (not without giving him a harsh kick of course), and set it aside while Sasuke bound him up in chakra reinforced rope.
"As much as I wanna kill the bastard, we need to take him to ojii-san. We still don't know his motives. He could be working independently, or he could be working for someone." Like Orochimaru or Akatsuki, went left unsaid.
¤
Sasuke didn't say anything but nodded unhappily. He desperately wanted to kill the blond chunnin here and now, but could see the other's reasoning.
He watched as Naruto opened the Forbidden Scroll all the way and pulled out a separate piece of paper. The blond stuffed it in his pocket before re-rolling the scroll with a flick of his wrist and looking up at Sasuke.
"Come on, let's get this to ojii-san. We don't want to be late for our meeting with Lee-kun!" he said excitedly. Sasuke rolled his eyes and hefted the heavy chunnin over his shoulders, as though he were a feather.
Rock Lee had somehow stumbled onto one of his and Naruto's Taijutsu spars a few months ago. He'd been delighted to find two other people with such 'brightly burning flames of youth', and asked to be another sparring partner. Naruto had, of course, agreed immediately to the offer, then managed to convince Sasuke that it would be a good idea to train with someone under the tutelage of Maito Gai.
Sasuke couldn't say he hated Lee so much as he was freaked out by him, (2) so he'd grudgingly agreed, and now they went out to Training Ground 6 at least once a week to spar with him.
Sasuke wrenched from his inner monologue to follow Naruto over the trees towards the Hokage tower.
He preferred not to think of just how thoroughly the blond had him wrapped around his finger.
¤
Sarutobi was sorely tempted to start bashing his head into his desk.
Repeatedly.
A few hours ago an alarm had sounded in the not-so-secret scroll room. Ninja of all ranks had rushed to it, only to find the intruder long gone. Sarutobi had done a quick once over and discovered, to his horror, that the scroll of Forbidden Seals was gone! He'd sent hunter-nin as quickly as possible to track down the perpetrator. If the scroll fell into the hands of an enemy ninja…he hated to think of the catastrophic consequences.
The ANBU had already started on the trail of the intruder by the time Mizuki's chakra signature was recognized by one of his co-workers, Umino Iruka. Sarutobi had almost had to forcefully detain him so that he wouldn't follow after the traitor. Things were in chaos now and the Sandaime had retreated to his office to await news and to try to relieve his pounding headache. "Chikusha…"
A snicker from the window startled him upright. A blond sat on the ledge, grinning at him. "Naruto! How did you get up here?" Then he noticed the gigantic scroll under his arm. "Is tha- How did you get that!" he asked, shocked. The blond grinned wider and handed the item over to his relieved hands.
"It was easy! Mizuki-sensei (he spat the name) ran by me and Sasuke training with this on his back. He looked really suspicious, so we knocked him out and brought him back here, just in case!"
Sarutobi stared at the young gennin with a raised eyebrow. "We? You did that with Sasuke?" He didn't think the two could speak to each other without insults, let alone work together.
At that exact moment a dark blur came through the window, proving to be a panting Sasuke. He threw his burden on the floor, uncaring for the muffled grunt it made. He glared at the shorter boy. "Next time, Naruto, you carry the nin and I carry the scroll. He woke up halfway and I had to gag him!" Naruto just looked innocent and Sasuke glared harder. Sarutobi nearly cracked up at the duo's antics, but instead reverted his attention to the now conscious chunnin.
"You two did very well to have beaten a chunnin. To do so would require a lot of effort from most gennin, good job! Since you both are gennin, I will award you the pay that would be warranted by a retrieval mission." Both of them smiled at that, but then Sarutobi adopted a serious cast. "Neither of you read the scroll, did you?" Both shook their heads (perfectly honest!). "Good. That scroll contains high class information that is forbidden to use." He turned away and called a pair of ANBU. He instructed them to take him to Ibiki. Both nodded and drug him out of the room, still gagged and squirming.
Sarutobi turned to the boys with a small smile. "Now, why don't we sit down and you tell me how you beat him."
Naruto told the short tale (slightly edited of course), and soon the Hokage sent them off to do as they would. He sighed at the disaster closely averted.
Suddenly he remembered that the gennin weren't supposed to know wall-climbing yet…
¤
Naruto entered the classroom (later than Sasuke as usual, because they didn't want anyone suspecting they lived together), and headed over to a desk. Today they would be placed in gennin teams, and Naruto couldn't say if he was looking forward to it or not. He took a seat next to Shikamaru, who only nodded in acknowledgement.
Eventually Iruka entered the room, and the class quieted down, all of them exuding a tense aura. Naruto smiled down at t the chunnin. He wasn't as close to Iruka as the first time around, but it was still nice to see the other walking and breathing.
Iruka cleared his throat. "Welcome, all my former students! Congratulations on passing the Gennin Exams. Now I shall assign you to your gennin teams, and soon your instructor will come to pick you up."
From around the room, he could hear the sighs of fangirls as they all daydreamed of being on a team with Sasuke.
Iruka started listing teams, interrupted many times by the sobs of disappointed girls, until finally,
"Team Seven: Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto…" Sakura's face dawned in horror as Naruto clapped a hand to his forehead. 'Kuso! I forgot to ask ojii-san about changing teams! Now what am I going to do?'
"…and Uchiha Sasuke." Sakura cheered and tried to latch onto Sasuke's arm, but was shoved away roughly by the boy. Naruto smirked imperceptibly. 'At least we ended up on the same team.'
¤
Sakura twitched in anger. An hour had passed since Iruka-sensei announced the teams, and their team instructor had yet to make an appearance. She glanced over where Sasuke and the dumb blond sat. As soon as everyone had left Sasuke'd gotten up and went over to the other. Sakura was fuming at Naruto now.
'If he wasn't here then maybe Sasuke-kun would talk to me!'
Sakura didn't try to go over to them though.
She couldn't admit to herself that both of them scared her a little. Naruto never looked at anyone else with hostility, but when she met that gaze…it seemed as if he was trying to freeze her to death.
And Sasuke's eyes seemed so blank…
She stayed firmly in her seat.
¤
Kakashi whistled as he walked to the classroom where his team was waiting. He was approximately three hours late, and he loved to see the rise he could get out of the children. They almost always set up mundane traps for him. Pretending to fall for the harmless ones tended to make the brats underestimate him, after which he could teach them a lesson by beating the shit out of them. He grinned evilly.
'Ah yes. The ever popular eraser-in-the-door. It never gets old.' Kakashi reached the door and slid it open, not bothering to dodge the eraser. It fell on to his head with a PAPF, sending a cloud of white dust into the air. He gazed the three children apathetically.
"My first imp-" he barley heard the whistle of warning before he jumped away, and heard ten solid THUNKs hitting the door behind him.
Kakashi looked back at the door and saw ten kunai, all aimed right at where his crotch would have been. He felt a bead of sweat on his brow as he looked back at the kids. The girl looked bewildered, where the blond was trying to look innocent and the dark hared boy just returned his gaze with a flat stare.
"Ah…" he coughed, "Meet me on the bridge in five minutes." He quickly performed Shunshin, glad to be transported away from that heavy atmosphere.
¤
"My name is Haruno Sakura. I like…" she trailed off, staring at the dark haired boy on her left. "I dislike blonds!" she said, glaring at Naruto, who shrugged. "My hobbies are…My dream is…" she trailed off both times again, staring avidly at Sasuke who was having none of it. Kakashi sighed in irritation. He pointed to Sasuke.
"You next."
Sasuke straightened a little where he sat. "My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I like…" he paused, as if considering. Sakura perked up at this. "I like training with Naruto and onigiri. I dislike traitors, fangirls, and practicing my kenjutsu." He motioned to the black-sheathed sword he'd laid at his side. "I don't feel like sharing my hobbies. My dream…is to protect the one I care for, and to find out the truth." He rested his chin on his hands and closed his eyes. Kakashi looked at him for another moment. 'He certainly turned out interesting.'
He looked at Naruto then. 'This boy already looks like Arashi-sensei.' he thought sadly. "Now you, blondy." Kakashi said out loud. The boy looked up at him with almost familiar sky blue eyes.
"My name is Uzumaki ('Kazama' Kakashi's mind supplied) Naruto. I like training with Sasuke and cup ramen! I dislike waiting three minutes for ramen to cook, and snakes. I like reading scrolls and training. My dream is to help Sasuke and to live up to my nee-chan's expectations of me!" He grinned a bright foxy grin at the three of them.
'He is…unusual.' Now that the introductions were over, Kakashi cleared his throat. "Meet me on this bridge tomorrow at 0600 hours. We'll be having another test."
"What! We just had a test!" Sakura screeched, making the males cover their ears.
"That was a test just to see if you had the potential to become gennin. This is your actual gennin test."
Before anyone could protest he started walking away. "Oh, and don't eat or you'll throw up!" he threw over his shoulder cheerfully, then disappeared in a swirl of leaves.
'It's time to see how truly strong they are.'
¤
A/N: I apologize for the long wait the shortness of the chapter. Being back in school is doing a number on me, and sometimes I lose the will to write. I already put Invictus on hold. See profile for details.
I'm just going to wing it on the Sasu/Naru Naru/Sasu thing. It will turn out how it wants to be, and it's looking pretty much in the direction of Naru/Sasu. Thank you for all the input!
(1) Wouldn't you all just kill me if I ended it there?
Please review.