Wow, 23 reviews before I even found time to start writing this chapter and now 25. I'm quite surprised and I thank you all for the excellent reviews that have encouraged me to continue this fanfiction. At first I was tempted to do a rewrite of the prologue, extending it by at least another two thousand words. Then I realized exactly how hard it is for me to go back and rewrite something. So instead I'm just making that extension into this first chapter and leave out what I would've put before hand though it may appear later on. Anyways, now I'm rambling on here a bit so I think I'll just cut this here and get on to the story.
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Za Kaze Shokkou: A Naruto AU Fanfiction.
Written by: Cloud1239999
Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. It is as simple as that. I'm only writing this story for both my personal and the enjoyment of others. I do not intend to make any form of money off of this story. If however you do see reason to sue you will find no money within my pockets. That's right; I'm a 21 year old with no money and still living with my parents. :P
Rated: M (For Swearing, Gore, and any other mature thing that may show up including a possible future lemon ((Don't know this one for sure)). Reader Discretion is advised.)
PS: All the things mentioned probably won't appear until later but I'm making the rating M now so that I don't have to change it and wind up getting some people confused. So just don't be too surprised or offended when it does, because I won't put up any giant banners warning about something like language. In the case of a lemon though, if I put one in, I will put a warning in an AN at the beginning of the chapter. Oh yes, and just to warn you, when I mentioned gore in the Rating Warning I meant that I can be quite descriptive with gory details when I want to be and I've even had some of my friends read some gory parts and enjoyed watching them squirm in imaginative discomfort.
And now the story REALLY begins.
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"Alright class, now that our resident prankster is back among us." This first sentence resulted in light laughter from most of the students in the class. "We will be doing review of the Henge-no-jutsu."
Umino Iruka stood at the front of the classroom with an amused smile on his face as he looked over the students of his class. Iruka waited a few more seconds for the students to calm back down before he continued.
"As we all should know by now, the gennin exam will be tomorrow so we will be doing this review in order to be sure that we are all ready and if not the respective people will have a better clue of what they need to touch up tonight. Alright," He claps his hands to make sure that he has everybody's attention. "Everybody please line up at the front of the classroom. We will begin right away."
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It was two hours later after class that Iruka and Naruto stood at the base of the Hokage monument looking up at the results of what Naruto had done. The faces of the Hokage's stared out over the village with paint that made the first look stuck up, the second looked like he was about to start a rant, the third had a nose bleed, his eyes looked glazed over and he had a perverted grin, and the fourth; well the fourth was the only one untouched except that he was painted to look like a real person instead of just a stone face.
They stood staring up at Naruto's handy work for a few minutes in silence before Iruka broke said silence with a question.
"Why?"
Naruto moved his eyes from where they were recently glued to the lifelike visage of the fourth over to his teacher. "As a reminder."
That answer was one that Iruka was not expecting. He turned his face down from the monument to look at Naruto as he looked back up at the face of the fourth. Out of the corner of his eye Naruto saw the unspoken question on Irukas face.
"I did it as a reminder to the people of this city that nobody is perfect, that even people as great as the Hokage's all have their faults and that it is not an impossibility for anyone who decides to work hard enough to be like they were or in the Old Man's case are."
Iruka stood there with a proud look as he contemplated the words of his student. After a little bit he couldn't help but chuckle a little bit at a thought that just came to mind.
"But you mostly did it to get a rise out of the village didn't you."
"Hehehe, you know me too well Iruka-sensei." Iruka chuckled again after hearing that from Naruto.
"Well, I think it is about time that you cleaned this up Naruto. If you do a good enough job, then I might treat you to some ramen tonight." That last statement grabbed Naruto's attention really quickly and he started jumping up and down in his excitement for a few seconds before he suddenly stopped.
"This will only take a second." When he saw Iruka's incredulous look Naruto gave one of his huge foxy grins and Iruka suddenly had a sneaking suspicion. Which was proved correct when Naruto put his hands in the ram seal and simply muttered one word, "Kai". After Naruto did that, the paint on the faces wavered for only a second before completely disappearing.
"So it was a mild genjutsu, eh Naruto?" Naruto grinned up at Iruka as they turned away from the monument as the villagers who wanted to see 'The Demon Child's' punishment just stood slack jawed.
"Yep, I just used the bare minimal chakra necessary just to create the visual illusion and spread it as thinly as I possibly could. By doing that I knew that with the shock of the paint people wouldn't think to look for such a small amount of chakra. All it would've took for someone to see that it was a genjutsu was for someone to walk up and touch the paint. Heck, that probably would have dispelled the illusion." Iruka grinned at Naruto's statement.
"Well, good job. You obviously had everyone fooled."
As the two walked off toward Ichiraku's, Sarutobi stood off at the back of a small crowd of gawking villagers smiling softly as he listened to the conversation between the teacher-student duo.
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AN: I personally think that this would be a good place to stop but unfortunately for me I made a promise to several people that I'd be making longer chapters and with this one I plan on getting the ball on the roll. Not to mention that it is still much too early for a chapter ending scene. I thank you all again for being patient with me.
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The next morning Naruto walked into class with a big fox grin on his face. Some of the people who were already there were chatting about how the blonde boy before them had managed to pull off what they thought was a complicated genjutsu. Others who were there when Naruto dispelled the jutsu were speaking of the explanation the Naruto gave of the genjutsu.
As this was going on there were two specific people who each in their own way was thinking about what Naruto had done.
None of the three expected for them to ever wind up on the same team.
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A few minutes later Iruka and Mizuki both walked into the classroom and as Mizuki walked through another door into the backroom Iruka called the students attention through his usual (unfortunately) necessary loud shouts. Once everyone was calmed down Iruka took a deep breath and began to explain the test.
"Alright everyone, I know that nearly all of us are overly excited to be here today." As he said that his eyes wandered over the ever-silent Aburame, the lazy Nara, and the brooding Uchiha. "Unfortunately before we get to the test there is something that after talking to the Hokage we thought would be a great last lesson for you." If Iruka didn't have anyone's attention when he started talking he had their attention now.
Iruka grabbed an eleven-foot long scroll that was leaning in the corner of the room that was until then ignored and hung the opening flaps on two small hooks that were put on the ceiling for this purpose. When he pulled the scroll open he got snickers from some, curious looks from others, and some full blown laughter from a certain Inuzuka. Naruto was one of the curious onlookers instead of blowing out in laughter like Kiba because there hanging in front of the class was a large painting of the Hokage monument with the 'extra additions' that Naruto had done with his genjutsu. Iruka smiled as he looked at each student before he continued speaking.
"Now, this is one of three different paintings made of the Hokage monument. Yesterday evening while I was in a meeting with the Hokage, the artist who made this painting visited us and we discussed a few things about it. What we are going to do is a quick group analytical exercise. That means I want you paying attention too Shikamaru." Another few chuckles while said Nara lifted his head from his desk mumbling 'Troublesome' under his breath. "What I would like all of you to do, except for Naruto that is since he is the one who started off this whole thing and knows this already, is to take the next five minutes and individually analyze this painting. I'd like each of you to write down your observations. Before you start, I'd like to remind all of you to 'read beneath the underneath'. After the five minutes are up we will take forty-five minutes to discus all of your thoughts as a group. After this we will do our gennin exam. You may begin. Naruto if I may talk to you out in the hall for a minute."
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"Naruto, I hope you don't mind that the Hokage and I deciding to use this as the last lesson." Said boy stood across from Iruka in the hallway.
"Um, I don't mind at all Iruka-sensei." Naruto rubbed the back of his head. "It's just a little embarrassing is all." Iruka smiled down at Naruto hearing this.
"Well at least you aren't going to die of embarrassment by the look of things. At the end of the discussion I'd like you to tell everyone what you told me about it. Is that alright?" Naruto nodded. "How about we get back to the others then?"
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"Uzumaki Naruto. Please follow me to the testing room now."
At this point of the tests there were now only two students who needed to do the Jutsu portion of the test. Of the thirty students in the class three have failed so far. Naruto was nervous about this part of the exam. Not because he didn't have confidence in his abilities, but because from the whispers of exiting students he knew that the test required the use of the one academy jutsu he knew was an impossibility for him to perform. The Bunshin-no-Jutsu. Yes, Naruto knew how to properly perform the technique. But there was one slight problem.
"Ok now Naruto. In order to pass the test you must create two perfect replications of yourself." Here Naruto gulped and started sweating a little more.
"Ano Sensei, but I can't." Naruto looked down as he said this.
"And why would that be?" Asked Mizuki, the teacher's assistant.
"I'm unable to use the proper balance of chakra necessary to make the replications stable." When Naruto said that Mizuki raised an eyebrow as Iruka frowned slightly while crossing his arms across his chest.
"I'm sorry Naruto I do know of your problem, but the academy requirements state that you must be able to make two perfect replications in order to pass the Genin exam. No matter what I said the people in charge wouldn't waver on that requirement. You'll just have to try your best, and if you're unable to do it try again next year."
"Alright then Iruka-sensei. I was wondering then, if I'd be able to do a slight shortcut in the technique?" Iruka and Mizuki were curious about what Naruto was talking about. As far as they knew there were no ways to shortcut a jutsu except to learn the feelings of the molding chakra in order skip the hand seals, but Naruto said himself that he is unable to produce the balance necessary to create stable replications.
"Will you please explain for us Naruto?" At this statement Naruto put on his foxy grin as he started talking.
"In the last several months I've been doing research on the origin of hand seals and how they affect our abilities to mold chakra. As I was reading the beginning of this book I found in the library, it gave an explanation of how the first ninja's used jutsu and how at first they actually had to write each jutsu in a seal form then have a monk at a temple 'bless' it to give the paper chakra." Iruka nodded for Naruto to continue. "Then several years later a person whose name was never recorded discovered that these seals could be used to help change how chakra flows in a person's body."
"Ok, Naruto this is very fascinating and all, but how does this help with how you're going to perform this shortcut to using Bunshin-no-jutsu?"
"That's just the thing. That persons discovering led to the inventing of the Seal Tattoos. By using Ink to draw a seal on themselves they were able to make it so that by just focusing a little bit of chakra into the tattoo, the tattoo will force the person's chakra to mold in the shape required to perform the Jutsu with their own chakra. Unfortunately through this means you could only use as many Jutsu as tattoos you were able to put on your body. Around one hundred years later the first hand seal was discovered, that's now getting too far ahead of myself. What I have here," Naruto walked closer to the teachers' desk and pulled up his right sleeve to show them the inside of his wrist. "is a temporary Seal Tattoo that I made myself. By charging my chakra into it and focusing on the parameters I wanted I'll be able to make the clones without using any seals. In order to make the seal though I had to do several cross references on how hand seals mold chakra, along with which ones are necessary and how each line in the seal that I made will mold chakra in the same way as the appropriate hand seal would. I used a really diluted ink though, so this tattoo only has one use before it will fade away due to the chakra exposure. Besides, I don't have the things necessary to make a permanent tattoo. I don't plan on relying on Bunshin-no-jutsu anyways."
Iruka and Mizuki were only able to blink as they took all of that information in they were both pretty impressed with the information that was passed to them by their student. This would be one lesson that would be relayed to the Hokage later to see what he would have to say about it.
"Well, I don't see why we wouldn't be able to allow this. He would still be performing the technique." This was said by Mizuki. After a bit of thought and staring at the temporary tattoo, Iruka gave his answer as well.
"Sure, I guess. With your technicality that normally doesn't allow you to use Bunshin-no-jutsu I guess I can make this count since you did all of that extra research."
"Alright!" This was shouted by an enthusiastic Naruto as he hopped by to the place where he was to perform the jutsu. Naruto charged his left index finger to the tattoo and mumbling the name of the jutsu to himself.
Two clones later, the teachers congratulated Naruto on a job well done and Naruto walked out of the class room a very happy person.
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Chapter 1 end.
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AN: Alright, finally done this chapter. I'd like to apologize to those of you I promised that this chapter would be out by the end of last weekend. I had all but the last part written but then my father had to be rushed to the hospital in Calgary for emergency surgery. My family and I spent most of the week there and I was never able to continue working on the story. Now that I am back to writing, I will move on from here straight into the next chapter which will hopefully be complete by tomorrow or on Monday. Again I'd like to thank all of those who have reviewed. I must say that I never once expected any of my stories to hit 25 reviews from such a short prologue. It is great inspiration to know that I got such positive feedback from all of you. Thank you.
Before I forget, I need to give out some credit to where it's due. The history of hand seals that I described was not my own idea. I got the idea (though I might've edited it a little bit) from Halo2freak007 and use his theorem with his permission. Thanks again Halo2freak007.
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Warning!!! The next section is a brief preview of what's to happen in the next chapter. Those of you who don't want to spoil any small surprises (I am keeping the preview vague). Just ignore the last bit after this. You have been warned.
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Next time on Za Kaze Shokkou:
Naruto is finally assigned to his three man cell, and what is this? Naruto isn't with Sakura or Sasuke. Apparently the Hokage decided to, with the aid of Iruka, personally create the teams this for this year's graduating class. Apparently instead of deciding teams on marks, they have decided to create teams based on the students' personalities and how each one of them may be able to aid the development of their team mates.
We also meet their sensei who is apparently one who is really experienced in teaching younger ninja's, who will put the team to the test with his version of the true Gennin Exam.