Here we go! Chapter 1. Hope you like!
Chapter 1 – Life's ambition: Become a Ninja!
"Hey! - where do you think your going pipsqueak!"
"Yeah - We've only just started havin' fun!"
Dana looked back over her shoulder. The group of kids were still following her, their grating taunts and cruel insults echoing throughout the street.
At the crossroads she turned left, only to find herself at a dead end.
"Oh no!" she gasped as she turned round and found her assailants blocking her escape.
"Please!" she cried desperately, "leave me alone!"
"Pleeeaase!" one of the girls cried shrilly, "leave me alone - little squirt! - I don't know why you bother coming to the academy."
"Yeah," a boy chirped, "like you would ever be able to become a ninja!"
"Not that you were one to begin with," said the leader of the group coldly, "you don't even belong in this village."
Dana clenched her fists. "I am so - I grew up here, just like you, Mori!"
"But you weren't born here," Mori continued with a sneer, "you only belong to the village if you were born here, but you weren't, so your not one of us."
"Where were you born, Dan-Dan?" another boy said, pushing her back against the wall.
"Don't call me that!" Dana shouted.
"oooooooohhhh! - What are you gonna do, freak!" the boy said shoving her again, "run crying to mommy?"
The group roared with laughter.
"She doesn't have one," Mori said; he was the only one not laughing, his cruel beady eyes matching Dana's hateful glare.
"Shut up!" she spat.
"She doesn't have a dad either," Mori continued to the jeering group, "she's stuck in that old shack with that fat cow!"
"SHUT UP!!"
Dana lunged for Mori, but was set upon by the other members of the group who held her back.
"Coward!" she yelled at Mori, who stood with a triumphant grin on his face. "You're nothing without your band - fight me fair"
"Why do that, when I've already won," said Mori in a low voice, bring his face close to hers. "Thanks for making the first move, now when I beat the crap out of you, I can say it was self-defence."
He raised his fist and punched her hard in the stomach. Dana grunted in pain and fell to her knees, past experience making her concentrate on her breathing. She looked up at Mori, who was hamming it up to his adoring fans.
"If this were one-on-one, I'd beat the hell out of you," Dana gasped, clutching her stomach.
"You wouldn't stand a chance," said Mori, "my dad's an ANBU squad leader; everything he knows, he's gonna teach me, which is why I'm gonna graduate and become a ninja while you'll be stuck washing dishes and mopping floors for the rest of your life"
Dana stood up, the pain in her stomach subsiding, but was instantly set upon by two boys, who held her infront of Mori, who was hamming up for his adoring fans.
"Hit her in the face, Mori!"
"Yeah - teach her a lesson!"
Mori obliged, punching and kicking Dana until she slumped to the ground. She was bleeding from the nose and mouth, and her right eye was beginning to swell.
Mori turned his back to her. "Face it, Dan-Dan - You'd be better off just leaving. No one wants a little nobody like you hanging around."
"Hey!" one of the girls said pointing, "she's getting up."
Mori spun round. Sure enough, Dana was on her feet again, still in pain, but standing nonetheless.
'How the hell does she do that!' Mori thought, 'how does she recover so quickly!'
"Alright!" he said, cracking his knuckles, "guess I'll just need to beat you up a bit more."
"Why? Wasn't once enough?"
Mori jumped with fright, along with the other kids as they looked at the newcomer.
It was a boy, standing on top of the wall behind Dana. He was the same age, with long black hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing a plain black kimono and sandals. Around his head, he wore the hidden leaf village symbol of a ninja.
"Uchiha Itachi!" one of the kids gasped, and the rest of the group trembled. Dana looked up at him; he didn't smile, nor look at her, but gazed at the group with cold dark eyes.
"I think you guys should leave," he said, his voice unusually low for a child, "before someone ELSE gets hurt."
Dana watched in amazement as the group scrambled as though an earthquake was about to hit them. Itachi jumped gracefully from the wall and seemed to float down in front of her, watching them runaway from him like it was completely natural they should.
Another stab of pain made Dana fall to her knees.
"You alright?"
Itachi Uchiha knelt beside her, patting her back softly as she spat out more blood.
"I think he punched out a tooth," she mumbled, the blood flowing freely from her mouth.
"Better go to the hospital," said Itachi making to lift her up.
"Nah, it's okay," she said, making him kneel back down, "just give me a minute - I usually recover pretty quickly."
She rubbed her bleeding nose against her sleeve, not having anything else to wipe it with.
"Here."
Itachi held out a white silk hankerchief; must be wealthy, Dana thought.
"Thanks," she said, taking it, "and thanks for helping me out back there."
"What did you do to annoy them so?"
"I walked in the same general direction as them," Dana said with a laugh, "that's an old favourite."
"You mean this happens often?"
"Couple of times a week," Dana replied causally, making Itachi blink in suprise.
"Haven't you told anyone?"
"Oh sure," said Dana sarcastically, "that'll help, we're suppose to be training to become ninjas - people will just say to think of it as practice to defend yourself, cause it's not like it's gonna be fairer out in the big bad world."
"That doesn't mean you should put up with it," Itachi persisted.
"No worries," she said standing, "I've survived it this long, I'll get them back one day."
Itachi stood up too, and watched her as she cleaned her face with the hankerchief.
"They beat you up pretty bad," he said after a while, "aren't you still in pain?"
"It's died down now," she replied, "told ya I only needed a minute."
"But how's that possible?"
Dana shrugged, "fast healer, I guess."
Another silence followed; Itachi seeming to ponder over her words.
"Oh, by the way," Dana said, "sorry, but I didn't catch your full name."
"You mean you don't know who I am?"
Dana looked at him for a moment before shaking her head. "No, I don't. Sorry, should I?"
Throughout the entire conversation, his face remained completely impassive, not even the glint of an emotion; something that made Dana shiver slightly. She had seen ninjas walk about the streets like that, but in an eight year old boy, it was unnatural. But when she said she didn't know him, the shadow of a smile appeared on his face.
"Itachi," he said, "my name's Itachi Uchiha. And no, I don't suppose you SHOULD know who I am - it's just that everyone in the village does."
"Oh." She didn't know why, but somehow his smile seemed even more unnatural than his impassiveness. But determined to remain friendly, she smiled back and held out her hand.
"Well, nice to meet you Itachi. I'm Dana."
Itachi took her hand in his and shook it.
"Listen," Dana continued, "I don't mean to be rude, but I was meant to be home half and hour ago, so if its alright - "
"Mind if I walk with you?" he interupted.
Dana paused. "Oh - erm - sure, if you want to. But don't let me detain you, if you have things to do."
"That's okay," he said walking beside her, "don't have anything else to do."
"Cool."
They walked through the streets in silence until they were on the main street, with the village front gate a few metres away. For a moment, Dana paused. The gates were wide open; she hand never seen that before. A couple of figures were walking from the entrance conversing, but they were too far away yet to see. Itachi followed her gaze.
"Just some ninja returning from a mission," he said dismissively, but Dana still watched as the ninja's approached; one of them looked familiar.
"What's wrong?" Itachi asked, his voice as emotionless as his face.
"That ninja," Dana said, never taking her eyes off him, "I think I know him."
"Which one?"
"The one on the left."
"You mean Kakashi?"
Dana spun round. "Kakashi?"
"Yeah - the one on the left - his name's Kakashi."
Dana looked back at the ninja's who were now alot closer.
"That's him," she whispered, watching the silver haired ninja as he turned and walked down another street, out of sight.
"What's the big interest in Kakashi?" Itachi asked, his voice betraying a hint of annoyance.
"He-He was the one who found me," Dana said, still staring at the place Kakashi had stood, "four years ago...He saved my life - found me a home here - I would have died, if it hadn't been for..."
She looked at Itachi, who was staring at the ground, frowning thoughtfully.
"What do you know about him?" she asked.
Itachi looked at her.
"His family was disgraced because his father - once a great ninja - abandoned a mission to save a comrade. Bit stupid if you ask me," said Itachi, "he didn't manage to save his comrade, and returned here to disgrace. Guess it must have been too much for him..." he added enjoying the attention Dana was giving him, "he killed himself."
Dana gasped. "That's awful!"
"Kakashi became infamous for following the rules because of it."
"Why does he cover his face like that?"
"A few years back he was on a mission with his team. They were ambushed and one of them - an Uchiha - saved Kakashi from an attack, getting himself killed in the process. But before he died, he had his Sharingan implanted in Kakashi's eye."
"Kakashi has a sharingan?"
"Yeah. Apparently he's pretty good with it. They say he's copied over a thousand techniques; that's why he's sometimes called the 'Copy Ninja.'"
They were walking down the street again as they talked, and Dana remained silent for a while with an expression of complete awe on her face, which seemed to annoy Itachi.
"You know," he said pointedly, "the sharingan is an Uchiha clan Bloodline Limit."
"Really?" said Dana rather absently.
"Yeah... I'm the youngest Uchiha to ever achieve it."
"Now I remember!" Dana said suddenly, turning to him. Itachi stopped in suprise. "What?"
"Itachi Uchiha," Dana continued, "you're the kid who graduated from the academy last year - the youngest to ever achieve it."
Itachi smiled again, pleased that she remembered him. "Yeah - that's me."
"Tell me," said Danna, "what happens once you graduate."
"Well," Itachi answered, "you get divided into groups of three, and that will be your squad - the people you work with when you're on missions."
"Yeah..."
"Then you get assigned a sensei - a jounin ninja who trains you."
"Any jounin ninja?" Dana asked.
"Yeah, they all do it - but I wouldn't get my hopes up," Itachi added, glancing at Dana, "even in the unlikely event of you being put in Kakashi's squad, he won't train you."
"Why not?"
"Because all the teams that have been assigned to Kakashi, he's failed on the first day. Apparently he tests them, and every single one of them failed - he hasn't trained anyone."
"What does he test them for?"
"Who knows," Itachi answered in a tone that suggested the conversation was boring him, "but hey, the graduation test is suppose to be a couple of weeks from now right?"
Dana's face fell. She had never really wanted to be a ninja - she didn't hate it, but she was'nt enthusiastic about the idea, as a result she usually got average grades, but the other day, her sensei had told her that at the rate she was going, she was never going to graduate. At the time, it hadn't really bothered her, but now it did, greatly.
"If you want," Itachi continued, noticing her depondent face, "I can help you prepare for it."
Dana's face lit up. "Really?! You would do that?"
Itachi shrugged, "Sure."
"But won't you be busy with missions and training?"
"I could do them and help you aswell," Itachi answered, "Don't worry, I'll help you pass. We can start tomorrow."
"Right!"
Dana looked back over her shoulder to where Kakashi had stood.
'I'm going to be a ninja,' she thought to herself, 'even if I don't get put in Kakashi's team, I'm going to be the best ninja in Konoha - then...maybe...he'll see me.'7/997/9999999999999999999999Beginning status of hero999Hero thrusted into a tragic situation999)Hero either asking for, or getting advice999Hero starting adventure999#Hero in the middle of the adventure999$Hero's tests by Antagonist's Helpers999Hero's tests by Antagonist999¤Hero in trouble999-Hero's discovery of maturity. Transformation999Attempt by Antagonist to make Hero conform999Hero outwits the Antagonist999µFinal status of hero999