Chapter 4
Sarutobi Hiruzen sighed. He seemed to be doing a lot of that these days. The cause of his troubles usually came in the form of young Uzumaki Naruto. When the boy was younger, he played simple pranks. He tripped people, threw rocks at people, and even pulled his pants down and bent over, showing his small little ass to angry civilians. Youth these days! Now, the boy went from childish pranks to dangerous threats.
Why, in the past week alone, he received over twenty complaints about the blond!
He was brought out of his internal musing by a sharp knock on the door.
"Come in," he called.
The door swung open, and Naruto walked in.
"Sit," he gestured at the comfy chair in front of his oak desk.
When the blond did as asked, Sarutobi began to speak.
"Do you know why you've been called here, Naruto-kun?"
"Nope," he answered honestly.
"I've been receiving complaints about you. The council is trying to kick you out of the academy, and some even call for your exile! Can't you stop threatening the civilians?"
"Sure."
"I mean it, Naruto. You say that all the time, but you never actually listen!"
"Whatever."
"I'm serious. If this continues...I'll have to take you out of the academy," the old man threatened. Of course, he knew he would never follow through on the threat, but hey, Naruto didn't know that.
For Naruto, being kicked out of the academy did not really matter to his plans. In fact, it might make them even easier!
"...Fine! Take me out!" he shouted in reply, crossing his arms over his chest in a childish pout.
Sarutobi, for his part, was stumped. He honestly expected the threat to work, since all Naruto could do back when he was younger was yell about being Hokage.
Backing down, the elderly Hokage just shook his head. He should've known that this would happen. Naruto was much too stubborn to simply conform against his wishes.
"How about this?" the older man ventured. "I'll treat you to an all-you-can-eat ramen buffet if you stop."
"...Ok."
"I'm not kicking you out of the academy though. You'll still have to go."
'Well, that was too easy,' Sarutobi mused to himself.
Of course, what the Sandaime didn't know was that Naruto didn't plan on keeping that promise. He only agreed since it was free food.
"Alright, so meet me back here at six, and we'll go get your all-you-can-eat ramen buffet, ok?"
Naruto nodded once and left the office.
'...Great. Now I'm supposed to reprimand Anko. My day just goes from bad to worse.'
-
"It's been...what, three or four years, since we met, eh Weasel-san?" Naruto seemingly asked himself.
From his right, the air distorted before revealing a masked ANBU. "It's been three years and ten months," the short elite corrected.
"Whatever. Anyway, after all this time, you're still stuck acting as a bodyguard for me? Don't you feel ashamed at your lack of promotion?"
"A shinobi is a tool. A tool must obey its master, and my orders are to protect you. And besides, I find this job quite...relaxing."
"Relaxing, hm? How is that?"
"The only people I must protect you from are drunk civilians and the occasional chuunin or jounin. No one that I can not handle. I don't have to leave the village, so I can visit my brother whenever I feel like it, and there aren't any orders to kill innocent people."
"But aren't civilians innocent people?"
"Only if they do not break the law, or go against my orders."
"I see. Well, I'm off to lunch. Want to join me?"
Weasel paused for a moment. "Sure."
-
The next day, something interesting happened at the academy. The sensei, Iruka, separated students into pairs and called each pair one by one to spar with each other, so that he could accurately measure where they stood in terms of power, speed, and ability. Since he separated by names, Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto were, of course, put together.
Sasuke, although not arrogant despite being from a mighty clan, was confident of his skills.
When the teacher told the two to begin sparring, Sasuke settled into the Uchiha taijutsu stance and waited for Naruto to settle into his own stance.
By the time Naruto did so, Sasuke was already running towards the blond, intent on showing the instructors that he was just as good as his brother was.
He jabbed with his left hand, released a hook with his right, and followed up with a quick leg sweep. Unfortunately for him, nothing hit his opponent.
On Naruto's part, he didn't really want to reveal any skills that might show that he knew more than he was supposed to, so he stuck to simply evading and giving light punches. Avoiding the youngest Uchiha's simple and straightforward attacks were nothing for him.
Sasuke, quickly feeling the signs of impatience, took two deep breaths to calm down, like his brother had taught him.
After he finished exhaling, he felt slightly better. Again, he rushed in first, although his attacks were much more wary, as if to measure the extent of Naruto's skills.
The blond boy pushed away Sasuke's arm as it neared his head, and brought his other hand up to block the incoming knee. With his hands on two of Sasuke's appendages, he flipped the boy up, eliciting a cry of surprise.
With a loud thump, the raven-haired Uchiha fell to the ground in a heap. His head bounced off the dirt ground, further aggravating him.
"Alright, alright!" Iruka cried. "You guys can stop!" Marking down a few things on his clipboard, he then beckoned Mizuki over to look at Sasuke while he oversaw the spar of the last two students.
-
Naruto's life soon fell into a simple schedule. After getting up, he'd go to the academy for a few hours, leave to get lunch, occasionally with Weasel, return to the academy for another few hours. When that was over, he would usually meet up with Neji to spar and talk, and when dinner time came around, he usually met up with Anko at the dango restaurant. Personal training time was squeezed in at random times.
On the second week, the class started to go in depth about the other villages. Thursday was about Suna.
"Suna is our neighbor to the southwest. They are located in Kaze no Kuni (Wind Country), and they are surrounded, as their name suggests, by sand. In recent years..."
That was about all Naruto heard for half of the lecture. However, the mention of puppetry made him start paying attention again.
"Suna is famous for producing skilled users of puppetry. The basics of this field is simply forming a line made of chakra and connecting it to a puppet's joints, so that the puppet can move. Not much is known beyond that, since Suna likes to hoard any and all information about this art. The most famous puppeteer to date is Akasuna no Sasori, became a missing-nin when the people found out that he started to experiment with hitokugutsu (human puppets). Investigators found notes on this process after Sasori had fled, which involved some things too gruesome to say. However, the benefits of human puppets, which Sasori unknowingly discovered, were just too great. With a human puppet, the puppeteer could use the techniques that their unwilling puppets themselves could use before they died. Therefore, even with a great warrior's death, you could essentially bring him back to life to fight for you again."
'Puppetry, huh? It's been a while since I thought about that...I wonder if I should try my hand in that? I remember there was someone who taught me the basics, and it wasn't that hard. I mean, the chakra strings were pretty easy to make. It's just making enough to connect them to a puppet's joints were a bit hard, and there's the fact that using puppets efficiently required you to only need one hand to control a single puppet. Now doing that was pretty damn hard. It was fun though...Not to mention, if I do take up puppetry, I could make lots of fun puppets...That settles it. I'm definitely gonna go and see if I can make the chakra strings again.'
When class ended, Naruto quickly left, in the hopes that he would have some time to practice the techniques that he had learned long ago.
Making it to his and Neji's normal field, he sat down on one of the various tree stumps that the two had inadvertently created and closed his eyes. Reaching inside of himself, he could feel the vast power of the Kyuubi, just sitting there, waiting to be used. However, he didn't need it.
Finding his own natural well of chakra, he dipped in and pulled some out, channeling it to the fingers in his left hand. Small vestiges of blue chakra could be seen, before they completely died out, causing Naruto to frown. He tried once more, and this time, he managed to extend the chakra strings out of his finger and attach them to a sizeable rock on the ground. With a grunt, he jerked his left hand back, causing the rock to be pulled along. His eyes suddenly widened, as he realized his mistake. By jerking his hand back, he forced the rock to come soaring right at him!
He cursed loudly and rolled to the side from his meditative pose, watching as the rock smashed into the tree behind him.
A slow clapping sound reached his ears. "Well, now, wasn't that a genius move?"
Annoyed, Naruto used the chakra strings to connect to the rock once more, and this time flung it at the newcomer.
The newcomer silently ducked underneath the projectile, letting it pass over him harmlessly,
"Shut up, Neji."
"So what was that?"
"We were learning about Suna and their puppeteers, and it sounded interesting, so I gave it a try."
Neji's jaw actually fell at the simple revelation, something that was extremely out of character for him. "Chakra strings? Suna is known to hide their techniques! How'd you learn how to do it?"
"It just came to me," Naruto replied carefully. His answer wasn't the truth, but he wasn't lying either.
Shaking his head, Neji said, "Whatever. I'm not even gonna ask anymore."
-
That night, in Naruto's dreams, came the towering and fearsome image of the legendary Kyuubi.
"Ah, so today is the day..." he said to himself in realization.
Mortal human...I see that you have done well to spread my name across the countries...
"Yes, I have. Unfortunately, I have been sent back into time."
You weren't sent back in time.
"Hm? What do you mean, Kyuubi-sama?"
The red-furred demon snorted in contempt. Your soul from your original body was kicked out, and sent to the soul of this body. Basically, you have traveled to another world. This means that you might find some differences between the world you knew and the world you live in now.
"I traveled...worlds?"
Yes. Would you like me to repeat it a little slower? the Kyuubi taunted.
"Since you know about my previous life, can I ask if you are going to make me the same deal?"
The demon seemed to ponder that question for a minute. ...No. We already know what you're going to be like and how strong you will be if I gave you full access to my powers. I want to see how strong you will turn out to be without any access. Of course, you'll still receive everything I have by the time you have turned to the age of fourteen, but you won't get my chakra without a good fight until then. If anything, it'll provide me with some amusement, something I seem to lack these days.
Well. That was a startling development. But no matter. Naruto wasn't afraid. It was a good thing he decided to head down the branch of puppetry. as otherwise, reaching his previous full power would've been quite difficult. That's not to say he wouldn't stop trying to go as far as he could down his previous path, though.
Now. Begone!
-
In the blink of an eye, two years had quickly gone by.
The nine year old Naruto had not been idle during these crucial years. He had managed to recreate everything there was about puppetry with no real help or information. And while he had not yet started to create human puppets, his current wooden one was strong enough to last against a fight with an ANBU. The puppet itself was bland and unappealing, sealed inside a tattoo that Naruto had painfully inscribed unto himself. The blond had named it Shinobu (Endure), after its amazing ability to outlast and wear down enemies. The wooden puppet looked like a basic training dummy (and in fact, Naruto had fashioned Shinobu after one), only different in the fact that it concealed an assortment of weapons.
Shinobu was loaded with things like shuriken, kunai, and senbon, which was perfect for annoying and wearing down enemy shinobi, since any competent nin could easily deflect or avoid such projectiles. Unfortunately for Naruto, the projectiles were not poisonous or special in anyway, since he could not procure anything but these specific ones. Inside the left arm of the puppet were the launchers, which would, with the use of a finger, unleash his flying projectiles upon unsuspecting enemies.
Another special trait of Shinobu was the right arm. The fingers on the hand would push together to form something like a spiked mace, and the arm would disconnect at the elbow, allowing Naruto to make Shinobu swing the deadly flail like a lasso. While admittedly, it was better as a weapon to crush your enemies with, Naruto designed it in the idea that he could use it to capture the enemy. The spikes were an added bonus that would make escaping that much more difficult.
The final unique thing about Shinobu was its ability to withstand attacks, from which its name was derived from. Using normal wood, Naruto then lined it with chakra absorbing pads, along with an iron core, making three thick layers for opponents to try to break through. The wooden layer acted as a defense against standard taijutsu and ninjutsu attacks (but not Katon techniques). The pads would absorb any chakra-infused punches or kicks, making their attacks damage only the first layer, which would block it anyway. It also would absorb any chakra used in a ninjutsu if said technique managed to break its way past the wood. The third layer, which was more of a core than a layer, was a decent sheet of malleable metal forced into the proper shape. It basically reinforced the first two layers and acted as the second layer for the arms, the legs, and the head. This is because as long as the body was intact (meaning it needed the best defense), Naruto believed he could rebuild the puppet if it lost a limb. Sure it would be annoying as hell having to get all those shuriken, kunai, and senbon, and it would be irritating to have to rebuild the flail-arm, but it was the perfect trade-off between metal and wood. If he were to use too much metal in the puppet, it would lose mobility, since it would be too heavy, and the joints would not function properly. Too little metal, and the wood would be easily destroyed, thus becoming more of a nuisance than a boon.
Compared to a real puppeteer like those that Suna produces, the puppet would be far less efficient, but against any organic enemies, Naruto believed that Shinobu would be useful to have.
Neji, his best friend, quickly completed and mastered his style, which he named the Tsuku no Mai (Dance of Pain), since his moves caused considerable pain and damage to both the external body and the internal organs, something the Hyuuga had found out during a mission. With his taijutsu far above those his level, he had moved on to study a little ninjutsu, thereby enlarging his arsenal from the standard three techniques and the Hyuuga techniques to include a variety of lower level Suiton jutsus like the Mizu Bunshin and the Kirigakure. While Neji was in fact only eleven years old (a year early from graduating), he had been lauded as a genius, and thus, graduated before the normal age. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it), his two teammates were just two older genin, nothing special, so his status was praised about even more. With all this praise about being a genius, despite coming from the branch house of the Hyuuga, Neji's arrogance grew quite quickly, only to be tempered during his bouts with Naruto, who would systematically defeat him. The worst part, for Neji, was that sometimes, Naruto didn't even need to move. All he needed to do was unleash Shinobu, who would act as the perfect defense against Neji.
-
"Mizu Bunshin!"
Three clones appeared from the puddle of water that was spilled on the ground from a now empty water bottle.
The three simultaneously leapt forward, aiming to strike Shinobu in the joints with powerful Goken attacks, thus disabling it, but the nimble puppet bent itself in inhuman ways to avoid the clones.
Growling, Neji jumped down from the branches and joined his clones in trying to strike at least one of the joints. Naruto, the smirking bastard, stood with his arms crossed over his chest behind Shinobu, fingers twitching madly as he controlled the puppet.
Neji finally achieved success when he managed to tap Shinobu's left leg. With no chakra string now connecting to it, the puppet collapsed, not being able to stand properly.
Grinning at his achievement, the three clones and the original all leapt around the puppet, surrounding Naruto in a square-shaped formation.
"Suiton: Teppoudama!"
The four spat four bullets of water at Naruto, only to blink in surprise when Naruto jumped straight up, completely avoiding their attacks. The bullets smacked the opposing Neji's, causing all four Neji's to dispel.
"They're all clones?"
At the peak of his jump, Naruto was suddenly beset by the real Neji, who forced his hands through a series of hand seals.
"Suiton: Mizurappa!" Neji unleashed a powerful stream of water at Naruto, smashing into him and suddenly changing his rising ascent to a falling descent.
Just as Naruto hit the ground, he burst into a cloud of smoke, obscuring Neji's view of him.
"Damn, he switched with a clone!" Neji cursed, still in the air.
It was at that moment that Naruto's puppet, Shinobu appeared on the ground. Its arm was already disconnected, but the spikes weren't formed, since this was just a friendly spar. Swinging the right arm around twice, the puppet then let it loose, sending it right at Neji. Having no time to react, Neji was caught by the puppet's hand, and jerked towards Shinobu, who caught him in a bear hug.
"You lose...again," Naruto stated.
Struggling for a moment, Neji then went limp, signaling that he forfeited. He was immediately released by Naruto.
Reaching for their packed bentos, the two found a spot of shade under a tree where they could eat their meal.
The only sounds they made were the sounds that came with eating. When they finished, Naruto got up and beckoned Neji to follow him.
Obediently, the Hyuuga did so, and the two started to dash through the forests and eventually the streets of Konoha.
It wasn't long before they reached their destination, which happened to be the top of the Yondaime's head on the Hokage Monument.
"You know how we've always talked about revenge on Konoha? For everything they've done?" Naruto asked.
Neji nodded, unsure where this was heading.
"Our revenge starts in a week. There," he pointed towards the southeast, where a large city could be seen.
Sparing a glance at his friend, Neji wondered, "How does our revenge have to do with that city?"
"Our revenge has always been to destroy Konoha, right?" When Neji nodded again, he continued. "But what happens once Konoha is destroyed? We just...move on with our lives? I don't see that happening, unfortunately. We must first establish ourselves somewhere else, so that we may gather allies, build our forces, and overwhelm Konoha when the time comes! Well, the first step is to establish ourselves somewhere else and to gather allies. I luckily already have one more ally to call upon at this moment. Anyway, in just seven days, we will meet up there. You will be the first missing nin at the rank of genin, and I will be the first missing nin to come from the 'rank' of academy student,' Naruto chuckled. His laughter was dark and menacing, a foreshadow of things to come...
The two fell into a brief silence, staring out at the wonder that being on top of the Yondaime's head provided them with.
"You know how you've always wondered about what my dream was?" Naruto asked, breaking the quiet.
"Yes..."
"It's to conquer all of the villages."
Neji's eyes flickered over to Naruto again. "All?"
"Yes. All."
"Why?" Neji questioned.
"You really wanna know? It's because I think world domination sounds fun. It's always been something I've wanted to do."
Neji raised an eyebrow at his friend's nonchalant way of telling his dream. "Regardless, Naruto...you are my friend. My best friend. I will follow you no matter where you take me, and I will help you achieve your dream. I promise you that."
-
A/N: Wow when I reread the scene with Naruto and Neji, I thought it sounded a bit gay. So...I feel I have to say. NO FUCKING YAOI. NONE WHATSOEVER!
Oh, and I got several reviews asking me to include a bunch of people in Naruto's group. Sorry, but that's not happening. And besides, harems are cool and all, but making EVERY single girl to ever make an appearance in the anime (most of whom I don't even know, since the anime sucks) join Naruto's harem is just a little overboard. And I'm not even sure if I'm making a harem in the first place...