AN: ... It has occured to me that I cannot be a fanfic writer and detached from my readers. So, here's my attempt to warm up to you all.
I'm UnagiKeki, and I am unreliability personified (see profile). I used to write, but fell off the wagon because I actually had to get out and develop a personality. I'm still working on that, but now I'm writing fanfiction again for the hell of it. This one features the OC I got around to making and the OC of my 'friend', who is chronically Internet deprived. I don't know. I just missed the fame, the glory, and the flamers. So even though I have no time to scratch my watch or wind my butt, I'm glad to be back to writing... But Shippuuden scares the hell out of me, and I'm afraid to make Naruto look dumb, so I'll try to avoid writing about him. But how can you?
My story's beginnings are usually weak, so I thank you for your fortitude. I promise it'll pay off! Arigatou gozaimasu! *bows*
"Oh, that is most certainly not a fish!"
The coolie's gruff voice was high with surprise, as he leaned down to examine, from the end of the rickety pier, the small bundle floating towards him. It was a young girl, with wide eyes drained of tears and salt-swollen hands clinging to a half-deflated raft made of animal skins.
The stench of dying seafood was everywhere; he reached out as she drifted by, and her cold little body flew up his arm as though she were a monkey. In the minutes that followed, his comrades convened, their hands tangled in the nets and their homey eyes wide with concern. He just held the wet and trembling little girl against him, thinking of how much thinner she was than his own son, just her age.
"Where did you come from, Sweetie?"
"Hell", was all she would say.
----
Naruto was out the door before the ramen cup hit the trashcan. Mind you, it bounced off and splattered on the wall- but still, he was bookin'.
Tearing down the back flight of stairs, the neighbors would testify that all they saw was an orange flash. They hardly even knew it was Naruto, until he was at the bottom floor, bleeding from the face and screaming about a lawsuit. Sweet, histrionic Naruto had tripped on Aji-baa-chan's calico cat, who was older than time and would never again sleep on the stairs. But Naruto kept yelling until at length someone finally gave the boy something edible, and then headed off on his merry way. For the time being.
Crisis averted, Naruto scanned the streets in his usual morning duties: see if someone had dropped anything valuable outside the izayaka bar down the street, feel around in the collection box at the neighborhood temple before the old lady nuns could catch him, write "I LOVE SAKURA" on some freshly-poured concrete- you know, all that stuff that wouldn't get done if he wasn't around. Thank god for Naruto.
But he hurried, because today was an awfully special day. The Chunin Exams commenced, huzzah! Danger, adventure, thrill awaited, and he wasn't about to miss a bit of it, believe it!
----
And somewhere above the pampas grass that wound around the village gates, someone's voice was floating: "Amitaba, amitaba"- the traditional march of the dead.
----
"It smells like an armpit in here."
Kazeki glanced at Suzuki through the corner of his eye, thinking about how sparingly she spoke; at that point a line of elbows came jabbing directly into his ribcage, causing him to momentarily lose the fuel by which to speak. Bobbing between the heads of taller Shinobi, Suzuki appeared ever as unaffected, almost humorously so. She was cheerfully munching on a steamed meat bun, her left cheek obnoxiously filled.
Squad 14 had been standing amidst the tangle of Chunin Exam constituents for nearly a half an hour, which wasn't a trying period at all to endure- it was just that the guys who had been there for three hours were getting a little antsy. Everyone was jittery, in a steeled kind of way, and tension salted the air worse than any proliferance of body odor.
In violent usurping of their bored state, there suddenly appeared a zipping, crouched figure who was covered, apparently, by a rug made of several dead sheep. Kazeki caught a glimpse of only his single, unbandaged eye before the wake of the Genin's momentum caused him to lose his balance- and knock the bun out of his teammate's hand. It plunked, with a small and fat sound, onto the ground amidst feet. "BARBARIAN," Kazeki called after him, regaining his composture; Suzuki was utterly ignorant of the situation, as a small white dog had nuzzled up to her feet and was now consuming the food she had dropped. She seemed frozen in deciding whether to strangle Akamaru, or shae him until he let go of her food.
"… That is disgusting!" the gray-haired teen sounded off immediately at the dog. "What kind of irresponsible person lets you consume half-eaten things off of the floor!?"
"Dude," came the interference of a nearby Genin; the sharp-featured young boy wore a parka and a smug, and gave off an overwhelming aura of both animal dander and bullying confidence. "Five second rule." Akamaru gave an approving yip after this, as if he comprehended the all-consuming presence of bacteria.
"Don't come near me. I don't want to catch parvo." Kazeki huffed in a not-exactly whispering voice; he had an unnatural obsession against smaller mammals, which drove him over the edge of tolerability at times. OK, all the time. (He had the same excuse for disliking Academy students, shojou magazines, and babies: all too germy.)
Kiba just blinked. His team had wandered over from the far side of the pavillion, where the kids had been pretty scary. Now what had they found? "Freak," he pronounced, sneering.
"Says the kid with a fleabag on his head."
"MY DOG IS PERFECTLY SANITARY," Kiba tried to say very nicely. (It didn't come out quite that way, though.)
"There is no way! Do you know what that dog steps in, before he snuggles up to your face? Do you know that dogs spend ten minutes a day licking their ground-contaminated feet and drinking rusty, ringworm-infested water from puddles and lavatories before they kiss you on the mouth!?"
"Kiba-kun…" Hinata reminded from his elbow. Alas, it was too late- the heat had gotten to everyone, and it was juuust about, to borrow the phrase, 'clobberin' time'.
"What the hell do you know? Looks like someone needs to get out of the padded room more often!"
"At least mine is sprayed and disinfected! I'll bet you sleep with that, that thing, too-" Here Kazeki paused to shudder from head to toe, contemplating the horror of such an endeavor. "THEY GNAW OFF HUNKS OF THEIR OWN FLESH."
"Leave me the hell alone, or I'm you're gonna be the one eating your own skin," Kiba snarled. "After I peel it off of your face. I hope you're not here for the Chunin exams, 'cause I'll be really bored once this is over!"
"… I'm sorry, what?"
"'Cause if preaching at people is your only weapon, you're gonna die before I get the chance to beat your ass up! Hinata, I think this exam is going to be easier than I thought." The last sentence carried over the boy's grimy shoulder, which he likely wiped mucus and dog drool upon, as the cowering young girl trailed behind her strutting teammate. Kazeki was left, standing and feeling stupid.
"I think I caught fleas just talking to him," he said, trying to salvage any measure of pride.
"We're all going to die of something." Suzuki reminded uselessly, her mouth full of meat. Kazeki, though, would probably be lynched.
With a heady breath that swelled his sparrow chest, Kazeki whirled to direct his 'manly-man' anger at some other worthy target. It was during this period, however, that another offense was dealt to this otherwise-unassuming Shinobi; without turning, Kazeki snatched the lingering hand behind him and gave it a stark twist. The popping of disjointed bones and a light cry of pain followed, before the attacker relented through the crowd.
"Okay, that's the second time I've been groped." our paranoid young friend aqusciesed, sighing. "Why is this line not moving?" That said, he ambled towards the splendid oak doors at the opposite end of the hall, Suzuki following errantly behind.
What Kazeki found at the break in the masses was a pair of scruffy, overly-self-confident Genin loitering in front of the testing center's entrance. The congregation of observers were keeping their distance, mulling over whether they really wanted to challenge these guys; the last guy who tried, a kid with obnoxious eyebrows, now sported a bloody lip and swollen nose. Great- dictatorships were rising, and the exam hadn't even begun yet.
SMACK! Yet another challenger fell before the two obstructing parties, or at least a girl named Tenten. She'd recovered from her tantrum a few days ago, and had trooped all the way to the testing facility, only to get slapped for standing up for her teammate. So violently was she thrown back on top of Lee that they very nearly ended up sharing a kidney. Of the two ominous figures before them was a scrawny young boy, huge kunai knives strapped to his back, who simply grinned over her prone form. His smile was both lecherous and cunning, and you knew instinctively that he couldn't be trusted. Moreover he seemed to be having a great amount of fun; in other words this formidable foe didn't look too inclined to be scooching along.
It was time, you see: time for a hero to come riding in!
And no, it certainly wasn't Kazeki; Uchiha Sasuke, in all his self-righteous glory, came posturing through the crowd with his cell wagging their tails behind them. The impertinent Genin prone to slapping girls stood up straight and stared down this new opponent hungrily; the testosterone content of the room sparked sharply as the two gravelly sized one another up. Lee was fairly boiling, not only fighting intent but instantanious infatuation towards the fair-headed young Genin who hovered confidently behind the Uchiha angstcake.
Focused as he was on giving the boy the evil eye, Sasuke jumped a mile when a hand fell on his shoulder. With a nonchalant confidence, a tall invader stepped up to the twin guardians of the doors. Tenten barely caught a glimpse of him as he laughed with the pair, before he began to walk off. Kotetsu and Izumi wandered off in their Henge forms, causing a murmur to rise up through the crowd of applicants.
By now Lee had scrambled to his feet, and was biding at the edge of the crowd with errant humiliation. His moment in the sun had been stolen! Broken shojou hearts exploded around his shiny head like funerary fireworks. But then with the audacity of a boy with nothing to lose, Konoha's Green Beast shook himself off and strode over to where Haruno Sakura, to him, hovered like a magnificent goddess. Things actually could have gone well from here…I mean, there's always a sliver of a chance. To either effect, Suzuki was licking the crumbs from between her fingers as the fated pair first met, and she watched the interaction with silent contemplation.
"My name is Rock Lee! And I see that you are Sakura…"
----
It was all history from there- but Tenten wasn't paying attention to any of this.
"Hey," she called after the brunette who had sent the pair away; his long hair was twisted into a complicated knot, held to the back of his head by a single, silver pin; the gleam of it somehow portended, and Tenten stopped in midsentence. This was all she could see of the him beneath the brim of a wide, conical hat.
But he understood her, and answered without turning around. "They were Chunin in disguise. I told them one of their superiors sent me, asking them to report to the Hokage." And here he paused.
"They shouldn't be hitting girls as cute as you."
He proceeded out a side door, and she didn't follow; simply pleased, Tenten blushed bright pink and bit down on her knuckle, overcome. Neji was uncomfortably close to her by the time she recognized that he was present.
"Stay away from that Uchiha Sasuke kid. I never met anyone so rude… Lee's gone to pick a fight with him, so let's go fill out the waivers and hope we lose him."
"Yeah, let's!" she finished, a little too eagerly. Throwing a final glance over her shoulder, the now radiant and cloudy-headed Tenten bubbled with pleasure that chivalry was still alive in the world.
----
The Chunin exams were about making a man of you, no matter what gender you happened to be.
The foolish conversations above would be some of the last Naruto or any of his friends would experience for a while. They wouldn't all remember them, but these very interactions would in little ways end up saving them someday.
There were a lot of days left to most of their lives; none of them knew, or even considered that the Chunin exams might have cut any of them down at any time.
And that was the hardest part of growing up a Shinobi: recognizing, and then, battling, your own mortality. It was a lesson each and every one of them were soon to learn.
----
"… Neji? Tenten? … Where'd you go? ..."
Silence in the now-empty halls.
"Gai Squad!?... WELL, GEE, I LOVE YOU GUYS TOO! HAVE I NOT BEEN NEGLECTED ENOUGH TODAY!?"