Hello once again to all those who read this story.I am going to take this time to respond to the reviews that I have received. Just to make it simple, these will be in order of when I got them. Guest: I thank you for the encouragement. Narutogod123: Thank you for your compliments and the advice, it was helpful and appreciated. Shadow Wolf Fang: Thank you, I hope you enjoy what more I write in the future as well. Guest #2: I am glad you enjoy my story. And you are somewhat correct; I did draw my inspiration from something similar to Cell. Naruto will not have a "Perfect" form, simply due to the fact that it would imply that there is a barrier or limit to the amount of power he can obtain. He does eat people for fun like Zetsu; however he also gains power from each victim in a way that will be explained in the story soon. He eats people because he wants to; the added power is just a bonus. Zero543: Indeed you do not good sir, indeed you do not.
It has recently come to my attention that I forgot to include a disclaimer. Well here you go: I do not own Naruto or any other content that I pull from other sources in this story, I only own my personal ideas and a mind twisted enough to write something like this. There, now you have a disclaimer, I will probably not remember to do one again so for any chapter in this story just refer to this disclaimer. Now that that is out of the way, let us begin the story!
Chapter 3: Adaptation
*sigh* 'I should have know that this would happen…' thought one Naruto Uzumaki as he sat in his seat in the back of the room. The seats surrounding his were all empty, in fact the entire back two rows were barren excluding Naruto himself and a silent boy with most of his body covered by his large clothing. 'All of these weaklings fear me because of my appetite.' Naruto thought dully as he looked over the students in the room. It had been a week since Naruto had entered the academy, and for the whole week no one had even attempted to go near him, most outright avoiding him. Even the teachers never called on him unless necessary and even then tried to make it as fast as possible.
'Honestly I think it may be for the best, I hold no interest in speaking with them anyway, but sitting here quietly all day is… boring…' thought Naruto as he silently wished for something, anything to happen to end his boredom. As if a Kami had heard his prayer, at that moment Naruto was approached by a boy his age. The boy his scraggly brown hair, he wore black pants and had a small dog's head popping out of the collar of the grey hoodie that he wore.
"H-Hey" spoke the boy, looking nervous but then seemed to steel his nerves. "I noticed you looking bored to death back here and was wondering if you could use someone to talk too, after all it is lunch time you're supposed to enjoy yourself." The boy said as he sat in the seat next to Naruto's own. "Are you not afraid of me? Do you not find yourself fearing me due to my… eating habits…?" Naruto spoke as he tilted his head slightly, not expecting any of the other students to approach him at all, especially not so soon after he had joined the class.
"Well, when I got home I asked my mother about that, she told me that you were probably someone like us, closer to your instincts than the rest. She told me not to judge you by what you ate and that there was probably a reason behind it, so since my mom's always right, I thought there was no real reason not to talk to you." The boy explained "By the way, my name's Kiba, nice to meet you I guess." The now identified Kiba said as he extended his hand to shake the blonde's.
Naruto stared at the hand for a bit, not expecting this turn of events. 'Might as well befriend him, it would do me good to have an escape from this boredom, and perhaps I may be able to get him to come over to my side of the food chain.' "Naruto, Uzumaki Naruto." Naruto stated as he extended his hand to meet Kiba's and shook it. "Nice to meet you Naruto!" Kiba said and began grinning, while his puppy barked lightly.
"Oh yeah, I nearly forgot! Naruto, this is Akamaru, my ninken! Say hi Akamaru!" The small white dog yipped, jumping onto the table and licking Naruto's face. Naruto chuckled slightly as he pushed Akamaru lightly back from his face, saying "Well hello to you too Akamaru, you did a good job training your human." "Hey!" Kiba shouted, while Akamaru continued barking and Naruto let out a light smile. 'Yes, befriending Kiba is definitely a good idea.'
Naruto and Kiba talked about random subjects throughout the lunch time, ranging from discussion of Kiba's family to different ideas for jutsu and training that they had done recently. When they went back to class, Naruto and Shino were joined by Kiba in the back row of the room. After school got out, the both of them said their goodbyes and left for their respective homes. 'Well that was an unexpected development. A welcomed one, but unexpected all the same.' Naruto thought as he crossed the threshold of his apartment.
(Time skip- 1 year-Naruto Age 9)
A year had gone by without much incident for Naruto and his friend, the only real development during this time was that Naruto had taken the top spot of the class next to Sasuke and Kiba had become a close second in terms of taijutsu, but still had a problem with the academic aspects of the academy. Naruto's outfit had also changed slightly, he now wore lose black pants held up by a dark grey sash. His top was a dark green straight jacket with elongated sleeves, and wore dark green tabi on his feet. All of this was covered by a large dark green hooded cloak that covered almost every part of him from sight and shadowed his face, allowing only his mouth and whisker marks to show. All in all, Naruto looked rather intimidating for a nine year old.
On this particular day Naruto was sitting in his usual seat in the back of the class. Kiba was absent today due to having "clan issues" to take care of, and as such Naruto was rather bored without someone to speak with. 'It's times like this that I learn to truly appreciate Kiba's constant rambling, at least it gives me something to distract me.' Naruto thought as he stared out the window and wished that he was anywhere but here. Seeing that one of his students was not paying attention to his lesson, he decided to make an example of him.
"Naruto!" called out Iruka "Since you seem so uninterested with my teaching, perhaps you could explain to the class about how chakra binds with the body." Naruto turned his head toward Iruka and sighed at the smug expression on his face.
"Chakra is bound to the body in almost every piece of our anatomy. It binds to you more the more you train to use it, however the binding is concentrated in special parts of the body called 'tenketsu' where it is easiest to expel and manipulate chakra. There are 360 of these tenketsu scattered throughout your body, and they are all invisible to the human eye. These chakra points are the target of the Hyuuga clan's Jyuken taijutsu style, for which they utilize their Byakugan's ability to see chakra to locate the tenketsu of their enemies and then disrupt them with their own chakra." Naruto stated, seemingly uninterested with the amazed looks his classmates were giving him or the shocked look on Iruka's face.
"In addition to tenketsu, the chakra in your body is also bound to several more things in particular, the first being the Eight Chakra Gates. These gates are "limiters" so to speak on ones chakra to insure that you are not harmed by the intensity of your own energy. These Chakra Gates can be released with training, but each gate takes a large toll on your stamina. The more gates you open, the larger the toll on your body. Upon opening the eighth gate you will gain power equal if not greater than that of a kage for a few minutes, but you will die afterwards from the strain it puts on you." Naruto continued. Iruka looked somewhat taken-aback by the sheer depth of the description of chakra binding that Naruto apparently had memorized.
"Finally, ones chakra is largely bound to ones vital internal organs, especially the heart, lungs and brain. This is to insure that no matter how much chakra you use, you will not die of chakra exhaustion unless you use nearly every drip of chakra in your body. This also allows more skilled members of the Hyuuga clan to kill you with a mere tap on the chest, as they use their chakra to disrupt the chakra near your heart, causing an effect similar to cardiac arrest." Naruto finished as he kept staring out the window just as he had done when he had started his explanation.
Iruka stared at Naruto incredulously, along with many of the students. "Y-Yes, that is correct, though I must ask why you know so much about how chakra is bound to the body." Iruka said attempting and somewhat succeeding at regaining some of his composure. Naruto gave Iruka a bored look and said "The binding of chakra to the body is what makes humans taste so much better than any other form of food, I know these things because I was researching what parts would likely taste the best…" Naruto said casually, causing several students to openly give him disgusted and fearful looks, while Iruka merely flinched slightly.
"A-Alright, thank you for sharing Naruto. Now then, back to where we left off. The ways in which chakra is bound to the body were first discovered in" at this point Naruto once again tuned out Iruka's lecture, peering again out the window and waiting for the school day to end.
-After Class-
Naruto sighed happily as he left the academy building, glad that the seemingly endless day was over. As he was walking down the main road of Kohona he wondered what he was going to do for the rest of the day. 'Well, maybe I could try and see what Kiba is up to… no wait he said that he was doing something with his clan all day so I probably shouldn't bother him… Maybe I could go explore that strange forest I saw a while back… No I don't really want to get lost in a forest as large as that one. Hmmmm… what to do what to do…' Naruto thought as he wandered around. So caught up in his musings he was that he did not notice the presence of the girl in front of him until he ran face first in to her… rather impress assets.
Jerked out of his internal thoughts he fell to the ground and was about to speak but was cut off by the voice of the person he had just run into saying "Hey you damn gaki, watch where you're going!" The sheer loudness of the voice rang in Naruto's ears as he looked up at her. She seemed to be a girl in her earlier teenage years, perhaps 14-15 years old. She had black hair done up in a style somewhat reminiscent of a pineapple. She wore a large tan trench coat that went down just past her knees and an orange miniskirt with a fishnet suit that covered her body until slightly above her knees and just before her elbows.
"Well gaki, you gonna apologize or what?" Said the girl with an annoyed expression on her face. This snapped Naruto out of his temporary daze and he said "I'm sorry; I was thinking about something and wasn't paying attention to where I was walking." He said as he got up and dusted himself off "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, it's nice to meet you miss…" he trailed off "Anko, my name is Mitarashi Anko." She said slightly less annoyed now. Being feared and hated in the village due to her traitor of a sensei Orochimaru's betrayal she could sympathize with the boy which she now recognized as the one person in the village she viewed had it worse than her.
"So gaki, what is it that's got you thinking so hard you don't even know where you're walking?" She asked the boy, curious as to what had caused him to run in to her. "I was just trying to think of something to do today, I just got out of the academy and my friend Kiba is at some kind of clan thing and I don't know what to do." Said Naruto, slightly surprised that the woman didn't react to him with hatred or fear as the rest of the villagers did, although he hid it well.
'I might as well help him out, it's not like I have anything else to do today. Maybe if I help him I can find something to do for the day as well.' Thought Anko "Well gaki, what were you thinking of doing then?" she asked. Naruto, still surprised by her lack of aggression or fear to him, said "Well, I was thinking of going to explore this large forest I saw a while ago, but I don't want to get lost in it."
Anko had a thoughtful expression on her face, then appeared to gain a look of realization and said "Wait; was this big forest you saw surrounded by a large metal fence with a lot of 'Do not enter' signs on it?" Naruto was happy that she knew about where he wanted to go, giving her a small smile and saying "Yes, that's exactly it! Do you know about it? Could you take me there?" asked Naruto, gaining a hopeful look in his eyes.
"Gaki, the forest that you want to get into so bad is ninja training ground number 44, lovingly called the 'Forest of Death', it's filled with tons of dangerous animals that would eat kids like you for breakfast, are you sure you wanna go in there?" Anko said, thinking that her explanation might make the gaki not want to go. She was surprised when she heard him say "Yeah! Of course I still want to go there! I've killed plenty of bandits before so a bunch of animals will be easy to deal with!"
Anko looked at him in surprise, not expecting the young boy to say that. In disbelief she asked "Gaki, you're tellin me that you, a nine year old academy student, have killed people before?" She said, nearly laughing at the prospect. Naruto on the other hand became annoyed and said loudly "Of course I've killed people before, I've killed plenty, I mean how else am I going to get anything to eat?" The boy then crossed his arms and glared up at Anko. Anko merely stood there in a shocked silence…
And that my readers has been another chapter of 'Perfection', I hope you all enjoyed it! If Naruto's seemingly innocent and childish behavior in this chapter confuses you, l shall explain it simply. Naruto is a child. He may be an insane, cannibalistic and paranoid child, but he is a child none-the-less. He is only nine years old, and while he is vastly different from other children his age there are some things about him that remain the same, namely a child's natural curiosity, their desire for companionship and, of course, dislike of what seems to them a mundane prison of boredom and suffering in which its only purpose is to annoy and limit your time playing around and having fun, a.k.a school.
As for my plans for Anko, well as one who is influenced by his instinct as much as Naruto he must at some point feel the desire for a mate. *wink wink* Yes I do intend this story to be a Naru/Anko pairing, though it will not show greatly until later down the line. Willing to write about gore, cannibalism, beatings and hatred I might be, but writing about a 17-18 year old girl being in a relationship with a twelve year old is something I don't think I can pull off. (I don't know Anko's actual age in canon, and I don't really care. In this story she is about 5 years older than Naruto.) Also, I will not be making this into a harem fic, so please do not ask me to. Any suggestions for other girls that may be with Naruto instead of Anko are appreciated, but please send me reasoning behind it and not just your favorite pairing. I need the relationship to be realistic and plan on Naruto's lover and several others close to him to take up his eating habits and I just cannot see someone like shy little Hinata dining on the flesh of her enemies.
Any feedback that anyone has is appreciated, whether in the form of review or PM. I assure you I will read all reviews and messages and either respond to you directly or respond in the starting author's note of one of the following chapters like I have done in this one. Alas I have done enough rambling for one author's note, so I bid you all farewell.
Until the next moonlit night
Musamura