Naruto Unchained
Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto.
No material profit was made from the creation of this story.
Prologue: Chain Reaction
Training Ground 15, Hidden Leaf Village
11:48 PM, Friday, November 23, 993 After Sage (AS)*
~Naruto~
He ran through the pitch black forest with a swiftness that, had he been calm, would have surprised him. The branches of trees and other shoulder high flora whipped him in the face as he went, but his near blind panic made him immune to such concerns. He ran, and ran, and ran for what felt like forever.
Then his teacher appeared in the clearing ahead of him and he dashed to hide behind one of the trees. His heart jumped into his throat and pumped blood from there as he waited, his arms tightly squeezing the body sized Forbidden Scroll of Seals as the seconds ticked by. Why hadn't he been caught yet, he wondered. Then he heard someone speaking.
"How did you know I wasn't Iruka?"
That brought him up short. A quick burst of curiosity suppressed his panic long enough for him to convince himself to take a look around the tree. Mastering his heavy breathing, he crept, ever so slowly, around the side of the tree. Revealed in a clearing lit by moonlight was his other sensei, Mizuki the traitor. What, he wondered, how am I over there? Mizuki was staring at another battered, bloody, blond version of his orange wearing self sitting against the base of a tree in the clearing.
"Because I am," his other teacher said as the transformation around the other boy dispelled and revealed Iruka. The sitting teacher had a grimace of pain, blood clearly dribbling from his mouth, as he rested one of his hands on his slightly upraised leg. He almost looked to be sitting leisurely, save for the blood leaking out of him.
He watched as Mizuki straightened up from his bent position and sneered with a darkened look at Iruka. "I see," Mizuki said, "he-he, this is quite amusing. You're so noble. Here you are, saving the demon who murdered your parents. And for what?!" Mizuki spread his arms out and leaned towards Iruka. "What does anyone get from letting that monster get away? What happens if we let him live?"
"Oh I don't know," Iruka said back, a rueful grin on his face, blood stained teeth visible. "I, for one, like to think that he and the scroll are safe from a complete scumbag."
Mizuki scoffed and spun around to stalk away a few steps before he whirled back around and pointed at Iruka. "You're a fool," the silver haired teacher growled. "Naruto and I are two of a kind."
"How do you figure," Iruka asked with a sneer of his own. "Naruto is nothing like you!"
"Wrong!" Mizuki shouted. "I would use that scroll to achieve unlimited power! Nothing would be able to stop me from destroying everything and everyone in my path. The demon that he is hungers for that same kind of strength. You were right to fear and despise him."
He pulled back behind the tree and clutched the scroll in his arms all the tighter. What Mizuki said was true. He was the Nine-tails after all. So why did he feel so alone? Why did it hurt so much? As if someone had reached into his chest and was trying to rip it apart.
"You're right, the demon would want that," he heard Iruka say. Somewhere deep inside of him, something broke.
I thought Iruka was different, he thought to himself.
"But Naruto is different," Iruka continued. "For him, I have nothing but the highest respect. He is my most precious student!" Iruka grunted as his injures worsened, but forced himself to continue. "He works hard, trying with all his might, but sometimes, even so, he's awkward, clumsy, a screw up. People have mocked him and shunned him." The injured teacher looked up with a glare at Mizuki. "And it has given him empathy! He knows what it means to be in pain! What it means to be alone! That boy is no demon fox! He is a shinobi of the Hidden Leaf Village, Uzumaki Naruto!"
It was like a dam had been burst within him. Emotions so powerful that they paralyzed him and so heady he couldn't stop the tears he'd sworn never to shed. For the first time in his life, he felt the pain of being himself going away. For the first time in his life, he felt what it must mean to have someone believe in him. It wasn't like the Hokage, who had to believe in and love everyone. This was just Iruka, and it was overwhelming. Tears and snot were flowing down his face non-stop, despite his best efforts to keep quiet. It took everything he had not to let his voice out.
"Aww, isn't that sweet!" he heard Mizuki deride. "Just hearing you say so makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside." He heard Iruka cry out in pain. Panic surged to the surface and he scrambled to look around the side of the tree again. Iruka was trembling and more blood was flowing from the sides of his mouth. Mizuki was now holding onto the inner ring of a large Fuma Shuriken as it span around, continually picking up speed. Mizuki sneered and said, "Well, Iruka, I was going to save you for last, but I've decided to just kill you now. Now die!"
His heart leaped into his throat, but his body reacted. The moment Mizuki shot forward, he was already half way to his destination. Before the traitorous teacher could react, Naruto's knee was smashing into and breaking his nose. The blow had enough force that Mizuki was thrown backwards across the entire clearing. The boy, on the other hand, had to slide to a stop while bent over and trying to slow himself down with one hand scraping against the ground.
Mizuki grunted as he pushed himself back to his feet. Meanwhile, Iruka was staring at the boy, his eyes wide open. The boy glared past his bangs, his head bent forward, as he stood tall with one hand on the Forbidden Scroll of Seals to keep it steady on its end and the other in a fist.
"Stay away from Iruka-sensei," he growled. His heart sang a song of righteous fury as he then said, "Or I'll kill you!"
He could feel it, his power surging within his body. His energy, his chakra, had always been really hard to control. The stupid leaf sticking training never worked for him because he would always blow the leaf way off his forehead instead of sticking it. Everyone always laugh at him when he couldn't get something everyone else could. But now, he had no intention of controlling the raging ocean's worth of energy stored in his body. He wanted to let it out, all of it, and use it to break his foot off kicking the shit out of Mizuki for ever daring to think of hurting Iruka.
"Naruto!" Iruka shouted. "You idiot! You should have run away!" Iruka started coughing, blood and spit flying with each heave. "Run away," he yelled, his voice now hoarse. "Save yourself!"
"Loud mouthed brat!" Mizuki shouted. "I'll kill you with one blow!"
"Try it, trash," Naruto growled out. He brought his hands up and placed them into the position he'd been practicing all night while he was trying to master the technique in the Forbidden Scroll of Seals. The hand seal itself looked like he was holding one fist perpendicular against the other, and with two fingers stretched out on each hand, he appeared to be making a cross with both arms. Glaring as much as he could of his rage at Mizuki, Naruto said, "Anything you throw at me I'll give back a thousand times over!"
"Yeah right," Mizuki screamed, almost incoherently. He rushed forward, ready to end Naruto's life with one swing of the wildly spinning Fuma Shuriken. "Now, die you demon!"
In another life, in another world, in a similar place, this would be the turning point in young Naruto's life. He would go on to create over one thousand shadow clones, each of which was solid with blood and everything. It would impress his teacher, Iruka, because Naruto had never been able to master the regular clone technique no matter how much he practiced. Iruka would graduate Naruto by handing the boy his own headband, which Naruto had asked to wear the day before but had been denied.
Naruto would grow up while he struggled to be recognized for practically his whole life. He would appreciate the few who did so without prompting and consider them lifelong precious people. Eventually, Naruto's dream would come true, as would a prophecy, both saving the world from ruin and becoming a great leader of men.
This is not that tale…
And then, somewhere deep inside of him, he felt it. It felt like something had snapped earlier, when he thought Iruka hadn't believed in him after all. Whatever broke inside of him was quickly becoming further and further unraveled. It wasn't necessarily painful. Instead it felt like a part of him that had been missing before had finally appeared. Now that missing part was filling in all of the spaces that had been left empty, and then it was overflowing. It felt like the world's best backrub while he was lounging in a hot spring. Before he even realized what was going on, and before he could actually perform the Shadow Clone technique, a great rush of power flowed through him. From his back, what felt like his bones exploded outward and stabbed into the dirt.
The next thing Naruto was aware of, twenty five different blue chains burst from the ground below Mizuki and stabbed into and through the traitor's body. Mizuki's limbs were all quickly torn from his torso. The head was stabbed through by one of the four blades that topped each of the chains and then sheared off from the immense speed at which the following chains tore through the man's skull. Organs and body fluids of all nature exploded in a violent waterfall of gore. From a strictly macabre point of view, Naruto's future psychologist would call it a work of art before proscribing further extensive therapy.
After seeing all of this so suddenly, the raging fire of righteous fury in Naruto's gut vanished and was quickly replaced by disgust. Before the blackness edging around the sides of his vision overtook him, he uttered, "Oh."
Hokage's Office, Hokage Tower
10:13 AM, Saturday, November 24, 993 AS
~Naruto~
Naruto's eyes opened, but he didn't move from his position. He'd woken up here before, on the Hokage's office couch. It was a rather comfortable couch, leather, and always felt good to relax into. When he made Hokage, he'd have a couch just like this one!
How much trouble am I in and… what did I do again? he wondered to himself. Then it all came rushing back to him. Failing his test, stealing the Forbidden Scroll, and then the revelation that he was the Nine-tailed Fox/human boy that everyone hated. But there was something else, wasn't there? he asked himself. What happened after that?
"I remember Mizuki telling me I'm the fox…" he mumbled to himself, "and then after that, I remember… him trying to kill me! That traitor! But… I'm not dead so wh-oh yeah! Iruka sensei was there too! And I ran away. Then Iruka and Mizuki talked a bit about me and…and… ugh, I can't remember what happened after that."
"I'm glad to see you're awake, Naruto-kun." Naruto jerked and turned his head to look at the short man wearing white robes sitting in the Hokage's seat behind the Hokage's desk. It was the Third Hokage, leader of the Hidden Leaf Ninja Village, and the closest thing Naruto had to family. Well, at least, that's how it was until last night. Iruka had gone from an annoying teacher that was always on his case to something like a brother. "You had a lot of us worried, you know."
"Eh," Naruto said, as he sat up. He tilted his head and looked at the Hokage in askance. "Who would care about me enough to worry besides you, Old Man?"
"More people than you'd imagine," the Hokage said cryptically.
Naruto grimaced. "Damn it, Old Man!" he griped. "Just because you're old doesn't mean you have to speak like it!" The Hokage chuckled quietly as Naruto pushed himself to his feet and walked to stand in front of the desk. Naruto coughed once into his hand and then felt his head glancing off to the side. "I… I'm sorry for stealing the scroll, Old Man," he mumbled.
"Hmm," the Hokage hummed in agreement. "Yes, it was a bad thing you did. But fortunately, it is one thing which I cannot blame you for. You were following the words of your teacher, who in the end, turned out to be a traitor."
"S-so, I'm not in trouble?" Naruto asked, hope filling his voice as he looked at the Hokage. The old man stared down at the quickly paling blond boy with all the seriousness he'd picked up in his long life for three long seconds. Then a crack appeared in that iron visage as the Hokage smiled.
"Hahaha," the Hokage laughed good naturedly, "you are in so much trouble, young man!"
"W-what!?" Naruto shouted. "But you just said…"
"Yes, I don't blame you for stealing the scroll, that's true," the Hokage said. "But, regardless of that, you still broke into my home, knocked me unconscious with a ridiculous transformation, and then disobeyed the direct orders of a superior officer in the field when Iruka told you to run away with the scroll. Now," the Hokage paused as he readjusted himself in his comfortable leather seat and fixed Naruto with his 'Hokage' stare. "What do you have to say for yourself, Genin Uzumaki?"
"Bu-bu-bu…" Naruto felt his brain twisting into knots as he tried to understand what the Hokage just said.
"Hahahahaha!" the Hokage loudly laughed. Then he pointed at Naruto and continued to laugh. "I finally got you! Hahahaha! You should see the look on your face! Hahahaha, priceless!"
There was a bright flash, and then the masked ninja holding the camera vanished in a small cloud of grey chakra vapor. It took far too long for the master prankster that was Uzumaki Naruto to realize what had just happened. When he did, he settled for scowling. The Hokage had pranked him and got a picture of his reaction face.
"That's so not cool, Old Man," Naruto said with his arms crossed. It was clear, though, from the small smirk on the boy's face that he was amused as well. I am so getting him back for this-ttebayo!
Once the Hokage's laughter came back under control, Naruto asked, "So what happens to me now? I mean… I didn't pass the test, does that mean I have to go back to the academy?"
"I'm afraid that you won't be allowed to attend the academy anymore," the Hokage said, all mirth gone from his face. "It would be hard for a registered Genin to be an academy student, don't you think, Naruto?"
Naruto blinked five times as he stared in slack jawed wonder at the Hokage before he fully processed what he was told. Then the brightest grin he'd ever had exploded onto his face and he started jumping up and down, shouting, "YES!" over and over again. The Hokage watched him prance about with a smile on his face.
"Now, before you get carried away," the Hokage said, drawing Naruto's attention, "there's something we have to talk about. Something, I'm afraid, that has been put off for far too long now. You know about the Fox now, correct?"
All of those happy feelings from before died a lonely death on a frigid mountain top. Naruto felt like he'd deflated on the spot as he slumped forward. "Yeah," he said. "I know." Then he looked up and stared right into the Hokage's eyes. "But I want you to know that I'll never go back to being a stupid huge fox or be evil again! I'm Uzumaki Naruto-ttebayo!"
The Hokage sighed. After rubbing his face in his old, weathered hands, he gave Naruto a serious look. "Naruto, do you believe I would know more about the fox situation than Mizuki?" At Naruto's nod, the Hokage continued. "Well, I can tell you with one hundred percent certainty that Mizuki was a moronic idiot. You, Naruto, are not the fox. At all. Nor will you ever be the fox. You were not the fox in a previous life and you certainly won't be the fox in a future life."
"B-but.."
"No 'buts' Naruto," the Hokage said firmly. "You said you would believe me. So, do it. You are not the fox. And the fox is not you. Instead, you are like a living prison cell. You are the warden who holds the monster inside his cell just by being alive. In fact, the seal holding the fox in is printed on your stomach. Surely you've seen it before."
Naruto clenched his stomach with one hand while he thought over the Hokage's words. At length, he said, "If I'm not the fox, then… why?"
The Hokage closed his eyes and released a long, distraught sigh. "I ask myself that many times a day," the now visibly older man confessed. "Honestly, I've tried to convince them of the truth many times, but they are stubborn and foolish. Sometimes, those are good traits to have. Just not in this case. I'm sorry, Naruto. Your home has been horrible, when it should have been the exact opposite. The Fourth wanted you to be seen as a Hero, because you would spend your entire life holding the Nine-tails at bay, protecting the village with your every breath. Instead, no one wants to admit you even exist, despite seeing you right in front of them."
"I see," Naruto said. For a moment, it seemed like the despair of his life up to now would overwhelm him. But it did not. The bond he felt with the Hokage and now Iruka held it back. Memories of all the times that the Hokage had spent with him, talking to him, and inspiring him joined together with the memories of every time Iruka had been nice to him as well. "I don't know what to think… everything is happening so fast and at the same time. I'm so confused."
"You should take your time with this," the Hokage said. "Think through how you feel and come to your own conclusions. Regardless, I want you to know how proud I am of you, Naruto." Naruto's big, wide happy grin was all that the Hokage needed to know that he'd both said the correct thing, and that everything would work out alright. "Before we get side tracked, I want to talk to you about those chains you used to defeat Mizuki."
Naruto's eyes widened. He gasped and his body began to shiver uncontrollably. The memories he'd been suppressing began playing back right before his eyes, triggered by the Hokage's words.
"I… I remember now," Naruto said. His voice quivered as he spoke. "I killed… Mizuki-sensei."
"Yes," the Hokage said, his voice serious and his expression solemn. "You did. And I'm not angry at you or upset at all. In fact, if I were in the same situation, I might have done the same."
"B-but, Old Man, I didn't mean to," Naruto implored. It suddenly felt like the most important thing in the world to make the Hokage believe that he hadn't meant to kill the man. That the death was an accident. That he wasn't a monster. "It was an accident! I swear! I really, really just wanted to beat him up! It's not my fault!"
The Hokage placed his hand on Naruto's shoulder and waited for the boy the stop talking. It took several minutes more of Naruto swearing up and down for that to happen. Finally, on the verge of tears, Naruto trailed off while saying, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
"Taking a life is a serious thing," the Hokage said. Naruto shivered under his emotional onslaught as he absorbed the Hokage's wisdom. "But it not always the wrong thing to do."
"But-"
"No buts," the Hokage interrupted. "Mizuki was a trained killer who had given into his hatred and decided that he wanted to use you, kill you, and then blame you for the theft of a priceless village treasure. Do you know exactly how important the Forbidden Scroll of Seals is?" Naruto shook his head. "It was written by the First Hokage, and then added onto by every Hokage after that. Inside of it are the most dangerous jutsu that mankind has ever devised. Some of the jutsu in there are powerful enough to destroy the entire Leaf Village in one go." The Hokage nodded as he noticed the wide eyed boy before him. "Yes, the scroll is that dangerous, and Mizuki wanted to use it to destroy you and the village he once served. You didn't just stop a traitor from killing Iruka, Naruto, you saved the whole village. So don't feel too bad about killing the man, alright."
Naruto looked down at the floor as he went over what the Hokage had said. After a short pause, Naruto looked at the Hokage with a more determined expression. "I'll try, Old Man!"
The Hokage nodded. "Good. Now, onto your chains. I'm happy to tell you that you inherited those from your mother."
"B-but…you always said that you didn't know-"
"Yes, I did," the Hokage admitted. "But before you decide I'm some kind of evil old wizard trying to control you, hear me out as to why I kept this from you."
Naruto's lips trembled as he swallowed loudly, literally swallowing his outburst and showing a level of self control that the Hokage didn't know the boy had. "Alright, Old Man," Naruto said, "but you better have a really, really good reason. Or else."
A small bead of perspiration trailed down the back of the Hokage's neck. When an Uzumaki had that look in their eye and said 'or else', bad things generally happened for the remainder of the target's life. Uzumaki, unlike the rest of the shinobi world, did not get revenge through normal, kinder means such as murder, extortion, and mayhem. No, they achieved their revenge through what could nicely be called pranks. Extremely humiliating and embarrassing pranks that you never lived down no matter how long you lived. He personally witnessed Senju nee-Uzumaki Mito's grudge against Akimichi Miko last the entire poor woman's life. Even today, the Akimichi woman's great grand-child was afraid of soy sauce. The Hokage had learned his lesson and never made reference to the Uzumaki Matriarch's 'weight'. Never, ever.
"Tell me, Naruto," the Hokage said, carefully observing Naruto for his reaction while meticulously modulating his voice to sound as confident and welcoming as possible. "When you were younger, do you remember bragging to everyone who would listen that I was your friend?"
Naruto lifted his head the ceiling and squeezed his eyes shut, crossed his arms, and delved back into his ancient memories. There was the first time he ate Ichiraku. There was the time he lived at the orphanage, but then the Old Man moved him out when he was seven. There was the time he played at the park and got beat up… oh, wait, he didn't get beat up, he took some body blows as a form of pain resistance training. Yeah, hehe, that's how it was. And then the memory of him running through the village, shouting about how the Hokage was his friend finally surfaced.
Naruto tilted his head back down to look at the Hokage. "Yeah."
"Would you have done anything differently, if I told you your mother was not only one of the most powerful Kunoichi this village has ever had, but also the Princess of the Land of Whirlpool and the Clan Leader of the Uzumaki Clan?"
Naruto's eyes widened. "MY MOM WAS A PRINCESS-"
The Hokage immediately covered Naruto's mouth and stopped the loud noise that was the boy's voice from escaping. It didn't stop the sound from escaping past his hand, but it was mostly muffled. The Hokage gave Naruto a stern, appraising look.
Naruto got the message and stopped shouting. The boy even had the decency to blush. "I uh… yeah, probably would have… you know. Cause… yeah."
"Indeed." The Hokage nodded before he turned and started walking. He motioned for Naruto to follow and the two of them left his office. "As I was saying, I couldn't tell you this, because you would have screamed it to the heavens, and then your enemies would have found you. Now, understand, my ANBU ninja are the best in the world. But even they couldn't stop all of the assassination attempts that would have been tried against you were anyone to learn of your true heritage."
Naruto blinked several times as he processed everything the Hokage was saying. Then he asked, "But, Old Man, everyone already knows I'm Uzumaki Naruto. How come they haven't figured it out by now?"
The Hokage smiled as he stopped in front of a blank wall in the corridor connecting the Administration portion of the Hokage tower to the Leaf Village Shinobi Academy. "That, my young friend, is because you don't look like one. Most Uzumaki were known for several things, most specific of which are blood red hair and large chakra reserves. You only received the chakra reserves, thank goodness. Because you were born at the same time that the Nine-tails attacked, every one of your enemies believes that you were only given the name to commemorate the dead clan and that in truth, you don't share their blood at all."
"But they're wrong, right?" Naruto asked.
"Yes, they are," the Hokage said. Then he turned to the wall and placed his hand flat on the surface. A section of the wall slid back silently, startling Naruto. "Come, we're almost there."
"What is this?" Naruto asked as he followed the Hokage into the small room beyond the hidden door.
"This," the Hokage said, dramatically drawing out the pause as the entrance slid shut silently. Then the whole room shook as a slight sense of weightlessness overcame it. Naruto quickly latched onto the Hokage to keep from falling over. "Is an elevator, Naruto."
"What's that?" Naruto asked. "Why is the room shaking?"
The Hokage chuckled while keeping a calming hand on Naruto. The boy continued to cling to him as the elevator descended five hundred meters. "The room is called an elevator. It's going down to a secret training room hidden under the village. It is there, that I will teach you how to use your chains."
"Wha-really?" Naruto looked up at the Hokage. And then a light of understanding appeared in his eyes. "You mean my mom taught you how to do the chains too?!"
"No," the Hokage said, still chuckling at Naruto's bright eyes and eager demeanor. He considered it a minor miracle that the boy hadn't succumbed to despair after everything he'd learned the night before and just now. He prayed that it would stay this way for a while longer. "But Kushina did explain how it worked, in an effort to see if I could. I will teach you everything she taught me." Naruto grinned and started to bounce up and down as the elevator came to a stop.
Chapter One: The 'Weakest' Link
Shinobi Academy, Room 115, Hidden Leaf Village
12:05 PM, Monday, November 26, 993 AS
~Naruto~
Naruto had his eyes closed. He was sitting in the middle row, next to Sasuke Uchiha. If it were the day before, he probably would have moved after insulting the Uchiha in one form or another. He really hated that guy. But today was different, because today, he was focusing on controlling his chakra chains.
"Keep this image in your mind. A ball of chains, like a ball of yarn, rolled up in your belly," the Hokage told him. "It should be rolled up around your chakra, but still allows your chakra to flow through it, like a bucket with a bunch of holes in the bottom. If you want to use your chains, you simply unravel the chain ball. If you want to use your chakra for anything else, say a jutsu, you have to focus your mind and keep that ball all rolled up tight, otherwise, the chains will pop out and the jutsu will fail. If you practice this technique enough, you won't even need to focus on it anymore, you'll just do the jutsu, or use the chains, as easy as if you were breathing."
So here he was, focusing on holding a leaf on his forehead. Okay, a really big metal leaf that was actually a forehead protector. The Hokage said using a single leaf was probably going to never work for him since he had so much chakra, and instead should use something bigger and heavier. The forehead protector worked, strangely, in a way that the single leaf never had. Still, the amount of concentration he needed just to hold his chains in while using his chakra for this was intense. If this doesn't get any easier, I'm totally pranking that Old Man good, he silently swore to himself.
Doing this wasn't something he just picked up either. The Hokage had spent the better part of his Saturday, and half of Sunday, helping him to learn how to push the chains out and control them after they'd extended. The Hokage had helped Naruto discover that he could push the chains out of any part of his body, but it was easiest from out of his lower back and also from out of his lower wrists right underneath his palms.
Once the Hokage had managed to beat into Naruto's head how to control the chains, the man then focused on teaching Naruto how to separate his chakra and his chains inside of him so he could use jutsu. According to the Hokage, his mother had problems with this too and this made her relatively bad at Ninjutsu all together. Well, I'm sorry Mom, but I'm totally going to master this and use all sorts of Ninjutsu! Naruto mentally swore.
Of course, while he was practicing (read: Playing) with his chains, the Hokage told him everything he knew about his mother. She was a redhead, which was typical of the Uzumaki Clan, and full of vigor and life. Her favorite saying was something about finding your daily happiness, or at least, the Hokage thought it was. Despite her abysmal failure at Ninjutsu, the woman was, apparently, extremely lethal with her chains. Not to mention her hard hitting Uzushiogakure Style Taijutsu, her Uzumaki Style Kenjutsu, the Clan Famous Uzumaki Style Fuinjutsu, and the unique Chakra Chain Barrier Ninjutsu. All of this added up to one of the toughest, deadliest, and hardest to kill Kunoichi that the Hidden Leaf had produced since Senju Tsunade.
"I'm totally going to surpass my Mom, Dattebayo," Naruto said under his breath.
"Naruto?"
He opened his eyes at the surprised question from Iruka. He found the entire classroom staring at him. The sudden self consciousness that flowed through his body caused the forehead protector to drop onto his lap. It landed with a soft clink, which knocked everyone out of their reverie.
"What is the dead last failure doing here?" someone asked.
"Naruto," Iruka shouted, quieting everyone before they could begin heckling the poor boy. "The Hokage told me that he asked you to meet with him instead of coming here. Why are you here?"
Naruto scrunched up his eyes as he tried to remember. He recalled the old man waving his finger at him and saying something which was probably important, but at the time he was having too much fun swinging around from the ceiling by a chain extended from his wrist. Whatever the Hokage had said was lost to time because he clearly didn't hear it.
"Uhh…" He said, scratching the back of his head. "He did?"
"Yes, Naruto, he did," Iruka said, exasperation clear in his voice. "Get going. It's best not to keep the Hokage waiting and you're already late."
"R-right!" He shouted as he hopped up from his seat. He quickly tied his forehead protector back around his head and dashed from the room through the still open door. As Naruto ran past a pair of girls that were pushing their heads together as they fought to get to the classroom first, over his shoulder he shouted, "Later-ttebayo!"
Corner of Seventh Street and Fourth Avenue, Hidden Leaf Village
12:58 PM, Tuesday, November 27, 993 AS
~Sakura~
It's your fault!
She couldn't stop the tears that streamed down her face. She knew shinobi rule number twenty-five, just like she knew every other memorized shinobi rule, said that shinobi and kunoichi always must hide their tears. They don't show any emotion period. The fact that she was not able to hide her pain and sorrow only further cemented how much of a screw up and a failure she turned out to be. Because she didn't want to be noticed, and because she was doing her best to fall back on her training, she'd pulled the forehead protector from her head and let her long pink hair fall in front of her face like a curtain to block her shame from the world.
All you are is dead weight! Dead weight that does nothing but hold me back!
A sob, the first one of the day, broke through her self control. Then another and another after that. She shook from the strain of holding her emotions in check. Ultimately, she caved and shot off into the village. She didn't care where she ran or how far she, she just needed to leave. She needed to hide. She knew as sure as her hair was pink she had to hide herself away from the world. So she ran and didn't pay any attention to where she was headed. All she was aware of was the sound of her sandaled feet hitting the ground in an even, desperate sounding tempo. Though, in a small part of the back of her mind, she realized that everything sounded desperate.
You're not good for anything. Just go die!
The world was falling apart. Every step taken as she ran away only seemed to make the weight sitting upon her back grown heavier. Finally, when the weight became too much and she couldn't take another step, she stopped and leaned over to brace her hands against her knees. She heaved and had to hold down the bile rising up her throat, the burning sensation waking her to the fact that her legs and arms were shaking, her heart was beating thousand times a minute, and she was completely and utterly out of breath.
I can't believe I had to be put onto a team with weaklings like the two of you. Especially you, Haruno.
And now she realized that she was also alone and way off of the beaten path. Having taken a few moments to catch her breath, and nearly falling over from the waves of exhaustion flowing through her, she stood up as straight as her tired frame would allow in order to get a look at her surroundings. She was in the forest, which wasn't saying much in Konoha, and it wasn't a section of the forest that she recognized.
Were she in her right mind, she would realize that she wasn't lost. Anyone born in Konoha was never lost in a forest. And finding one's way was a simple as climbing the nearest tree, something that all shinobi and non-shinobi of Konoha could do practically from birth. Were she in her right mind, the overwhelming panic that swept through her and drove any semblance of thought from her mind would not have paralyzed her.
Go away, useless commoner. Don't bother me with your presence ever again, or I'll kill you.
She wasn't sure how long she stood stiff as a board in the middle of the forest. Eventually she came back to her mind and found she was standing awkwardly between two tall trees. None of the sunlight in the sky could penetrate to the ground, but even if it could, it would not now that the sun had gone over the horizon. She could just make out the deep purple hues of the evening sky sprinkled with bright stars when the wind moved some of the branches above her out of the way.
"Well, aren't we in a pickle," Inner said, pointing out the obvious. She mewled pitifully in agreement. It wouldn't have made much of a difference if the sun was up, but without light, she'd have no sense of direction and wouldn't be able to see any of the landmarks. Thus, as inner pointed out, she was lost until someone found her or the sun came back up.
"What's worse is I'm starving," she said as she rested a hand on her abdomen, which in response, rumbled loudly. "What am I going to do?" she moaned as more panic began to well up within her… until Inner stomped her spiked steel boot down onto it with extreme prejudice.
"Woman up, damn it!" inner shouted. She winced at the volume and almost reached up to cover her ears. Only the knowledge that there was no actual sound stopped her.
Getting used to having a voice in one's head was hard work. If people see you talking to your inner voice, they think you're crazy. Tell them that you're talking to the voice in your head and they ask you to speak to a man with a friendly demeanor in a white coat. At least Yamanaka-sama wasn't mean to her, though he was certainly patronizing about her 'imaginary' friend. If anyone see's you react to the things your inner voice says, they think that something is wrong with you or misinterpret your movement as an attack. Having an inner voice was really, really, hard work.
"We are the top kunoichi in the graduating class! So what if that… that…"
Before her inner could come up with a proper name to label the former boy of her dreams and fantasies, the perfect label appeared in her mind. "Uchiha Bastard?" She'd heard it often enough from the Supreme Annoying One.
"Yes! Bastard!" She was surprised by how vehement her inner was being about this. But she couldn't disagree with the sentiment in any way. Who knew her feelings for the Bastard would have changed so drastically so fast? Certainly not her and probably not anyone else either. No, that isn't entirely true, Naruto knew the truth long ago. "We don't need a bastard like him to survive on our own, in our own village's back yard! We have procedure and rules completely memorized! So let's do this!"
"Y-yes! Yes!" she said, confidence gaining in her voice. "I'm… I'm the top Kunoichi! Damn it! S-so what if I'm not as good as that pretty boy bastard… with his stupid… his stupid…"
"His stupid hair that looks like a chicken's butt feathers!"
"Yeah, his stupid chicken head!" she shouted. Then she paused and went over exactly what she just said. A hand snapped up to cover her mouth, but it wasn't enough to smother the snickering and then the laughter that erupted out of her. The laughing soon over took her entire being, shaking her body as she slid to the damp mossy ground. There she remained for several minutes as she continued to laugh at her former classmate's expense.
A sudden noise to her left sent a shot of adrenalin through her. Her body immediately moved without conscious thought until she was on her feet in a defensive position with a kunai in her hand and chakra had been circulated into her leg muscles so she could run or leap forward to attack on a moment's notice. Whatever was in the brush was making a lot of noises all of which put her on edge.
Out of the brush ambled a large boar. A boar as large as she was. Fear crept up her spine and gripped her heart. Then inner jumped onto the spiritual scene with the proverbial Flamethrower of Love and set fear on fire. Unleashed was an overwhelming sense of rage and anger that had been bottled up ever since the end of Team Seven's doomed genin test.
The boar, for it's part, immediately sensed the fear of an intruder into its territory. It enjoyed this fear. Fear meant it was going to either get a free meal for it's strangely carnivorous diet or it was going to quickly drive the intruder out. Then, in the dying light of the day, it caught sight of the intruder and noticed it was one of those hairless two-legs. And then the two-leg's fear changed into something else.
The big boar didn't immediately recognize it because, of course, it was the lord of this patch of the forest. As such it rarely ever faced a true predator in combat, let alone been in such close proximity to one. But the amount of bloodlust and hunger radiating from this small looking two-leg alone was enough to remind the boar of a long distant memory when he lost his mother, a great beast of a sow herself, to a mountain lion.
The lord of the forest didn't have that great of a memory, but it did remember that battle. The fight for survival had been seared into its little piggy brain and it never left. The stench of fear and the desperation to survive against a superior foe mixed with the overwhelming sense of bloodlust to create a vile sense of apprehension. It was almost enough to make this boar run away squealing like the pig it was.
Then the boar realized that it was slightly bigger, and thus stronger, than this little two-leg. The plan was simple, after that was known. Put his large tusks, that were longer than this two-leg's arms, through the two-leg. Do it over and over enough until it didn't move or make sounds anymore. Then feast. It was a good plan, for a boar.
"I… I am…" she reached into the weapons' pouch attached to her thigh and pulled out a second kunai. Flipping it around so both kunai in her hands were pointed toward the ground, she level her gaze at the stomping pig that was getting ready to charger her and declared, "I am Haruno Sakura! I am the top Kunoichi graduate of my class and I won't be beaten by the likes of you, swine!" She twisted her arm around so she could gesture for the boar to charge with her fingers in a 'come-on' motion. "Come. I'm hungry and mama wants bacon for dinner!"
She charged forward with a scream at the same time that the boar charged forward with a loud squeal. The boar lunged as it swung its head back and forth in an attempt to skewer her on its tusks. It was fast for a four-legged creature, but not fast enough to stop the girl who had chakra coursing through her legs and arms.
Just as the boars tusk was about to reach her, she reached out with one of her kunai and snaked it around the tusk so she could then hook the blade on the ivory and swing around. Her foot smashed into the big pig's flank and drew a pained snort from the great beast.
The abnormally large porcine shook the girl off of itself and stampeded away before turning around. It would not be losing here. No predator would ever defeat it, not a lion and not this skinny looking two-leg. Snorting out a blast of high pressure, hot steam from its overheated body, the boar charged again.
The girl grunted as she picked herself up off the ground. She quickly noticed her dinner charging at her and did something she'd never done before. At the very least, she'd never done it before when she was fighting in the academy during a spar. She grinned. And then she charged forward to meet her quarry in battle again.
This time, the boar simply wanted to ram into his prey and knock it out, but that plan went down the tubes when the girl jumped impossibly high and smashed her feet, which felt like a ton of bricks, down on its forehead. The blow knocked the pig for a loop and it began stumbling as it moved about the clearing in an attempt to get away and set up for another charge.
She never gave the pig the chance to recover. After she'd bounced off of the boar's head, she turned around and leaped up onto the porker and stabbed one of her kunai straight into its shoulder. The pain and weight on its back must have cleared up the pig's mind enough for it to start bucking and squealing loudly in an attempt to dislodge her.
She kept her hold on the kunai she'd embedded in its shoulder and used her chakra so she could keep a tight squeeze around the pig with her legs while it bucked and squealed. Eventually, the pig grew too tired to continue. It slowed, huffing and puffing as it stood there.
Leaning around the pig's head and slicing it's neck open was, surprisingly, easy to do. The beast had tired itself out from the fight. Whatever energy the pig might have left in it vanished when its neck was sliced open and its blood gushed out onto her hand, kunai, and the ground. It gurgled and tried to move before it lost the remainder of its strength and flopped onto the ground.
For a half of a moment, disgust and revulsion about what she'd just done attempted to rise up within her. Then inner appeared, once more saving the day, this time equipped with a pair of steel gauntlets. Inner proceeded to punch disgust and revulsion until they were a distant memory.
"I… I did it!" she said, breathing heavily as she stood there, in front of her first kill. "I can't believe… I totally killed that pig! And it was trying to kill me! What the hell kind of pig was this!?"
"Does it really matter? Food is food."
Inner was right, of course. Still, that was something. She'd succeeded in defending herself from a wild boar that was bigger than she was. And she did it in the near dark when she could barely see anything if not for the chakra sent to her eyes. She recalled the lesson in enhancing senses and remembered that Iruka-sensei had said it was extremely difficult to do anything with the senses, but not impossible, without lots of training. Even now, she could see despite how dark it was.
The elation flowing through her began to drain away, along with the adrenalin. Now that she looked at the situation with calm, calculating eyes, she knew what she had to do. With a grunt, she walked up to the now dead boar and ripped her kunai from its shoulder.
"I still got some stuff to do," she muttered as she turned and trudged away, her eyes on the ground.
The next morning, a pair of shinobi appeared on the edge of the clearing where she'd set up camp. She knew they'd appeared because she heard them land, quite noisily too. She didn't really have any kind of shelter or anything besides the boar' hide she'd stripped from the beast before she'd built a large pit over which she'd roasted the entire thing. Over the night, as she stayed up to keep watch for any other wild animals or even bandits or nukenin, she'd gradually shaved off pieces of the pig every now and then to eat, while turning the spit that she'd speared through the beast to make sure it didn't burn on one side.
When she heard the two ninja, she turned and saw two ANBU with their white masks depicting a monkey and a bird. A sparrow if she wasn't mistaken. She watched as the two elite ninja glanced at each other before they moved toward her. She waved at the still roasting boar, offering them breakfast.
"No, thank you," Sparrow said. "Are you Haruno Sakura?"
"Yes," she said. "Why are you looking for me? I'm not in trouble, am I?"
"I couldn't say," Sparrow said. The ANBU was apparently a woman, both from the soft higher pitched voice and the fact that there was a bust hidden underneath the chest armor plate that filled out the uniform in a way that men simply didn't. Otherwise, Sparrow didn't really stand out all that much with close cropped blond hair and the slender, wiry bodyframe that all elite ninja seemed to develop. "I and several other ANBU were dispatched by Hokage-sama to track you down. When we couldn't find you inside of the village, my squad spread out to look through the forest. To be honest, we were on our way back to the village because up until now we hadn't found anything. How did you wind up all the way out here."
Sakura blinked. Her green eyes grew a little more dull as she recalled the events of the day before. Another blink brought her back to the present. "I and my team… I mean, I was failed by the Jounin sensei that was testing my team and… things didn't end well between… words were said that… hurt. I ran out here to get away from it, and before I knew it, I'd lost my way and the sun was going down. Then, before I could get my bearings, the boar appeared and attacked. After that I set up camp here and that's pretty much it."
"Holy shit!" Monkey's outburst drew the two women's attention. "This… this boar is the Lord of the Forest! It's that C-rank chakra mutated monster that's been on the loose for over a decade! Look, you can recognize it from the shape that the tusks are in. It's the same as the description in the bingo book." Monkey looked away from the roasting pig and stared at the little slip of a pink haired girl. "How in the nine levels of hell did a skinny little, freshly graduated kunoichi like you take on and defeat a monster like this?"
Sakura blinked at the statement, but whatever shock at what she'd done or anger at being called weak, again, were squashed by inner. It was becoming obvious as time went on to her that inner wasn't taking shit from anyone anymore. Her poor emotions were constantly getting the crap beat out of them. Poor emotions. Too bad inner didn't give a crap.
"I was hungry," she said. She didn't elaborate and ultimately the two ANBU didn't ask. Monkey collected the tusks while Sparrow used an earth jutsu to create a hole into which the remains of the carved up husk of the boar and the fire that cooked it were dumped and covered up in quick order.
She arrived back at the village with little fanfare and was escorted into the Mission Office by the ANBU who disappeared after telling her to wait there for someone to come get her. Honestly, after everything that had happened over the last twenty-four hours, she was emotionally drained and ready to pass out from exhaustion. She was covered in scratches, blood, and dirt. She wasn't hungry, having filled herself with pig all night, but she did feel like she needed to scrub herself for a day just to get all the stains out of her.
An hour passed, during which several teams walked through the mission's office. At first, they didn't do anything other than pick up their missions leave, while giving her looks that ranged from curious to disgust at her pungent aroma. She might have cared if she wasn't sleep deprived, but right now all she wanted to do was get clean and curl up under some fluffy covers. Even her teeth felt disgusting; slimy.
Near the end of her hour long wait, several teams passed her by, asking each other 'is she was the one' or 'did she have something to do with it'. It got to be really annoying. The whispers were why when the door opened and the person stopped to stare at her, she growled and spun to face the new person and shouted, "What do you want?"
It took her a moment to realize she'd just shouted and nearly punched the blond haired menace that had haunted her entire academy career. Uzumaki Naruto stood in front of her gawking. Her mind, tired through it was, supplied that he was nearly as scuffed up and bloody as she was, though apparently he didn't have any open wounds that she could see. Furthermore, he was wearing a forehead protector. Hadn't he failed?
"S-sakura-chan!?" he shouted in his loud annoying voice. "What are you doing here?" The decibles grated on her raw nerves and it took all of her dying self control to not reach out and bash him in the face until he didn't make any more sounds.
"I'm waiting," she said through gritted teeth. "And keep it down, will you! Don't shout indoors!"
"Sorry," Naruto said, scratching the back of his crimson splashed blond hair. "I was just surprised. I was told by the old man to come down here and take the person waiting here to the hotsprings and then escort them home. You know, D-rank mission."
Sakura blinked slowly as her mind processed things slower than normal. "How are you doing missions when you didn't graduate? And furthermore, how did you get that forehead protector?"
Naruto grinned as he led Sakura out of the Mission Office the two of them set off down the street toward the public bathhouses. "I had a special graduation test because of Mizuki. He apparently tried to fail me as a cover for turning traitor. I got to retest and I passed the second time. But since I wasn't assigned to any teams, I have to wait until a team spot opens up or until next graduation when I'll be put at the top of the list to get a new team. Until then I can take local D-rank missions. Got to pay the ramen-bills! Dattebayo!"
They fell silent as Naruto escorted her to the baths. At first she was worried he'd try to peek on her and the other women, but then she saw him heading off to the men's side. Clearly, he needed a bath as well so for the time being he'd be busy.
After cleaning herself as thoroughly as she could and then scrubbing everywhere else, she gingerly set herself down into hot water. It was pure heaven and an expression of abject pleasure made itself known on her face.
"This is the life! Kicking piggie's butt, feasting on pork all night, and now a nice, long, hot bath paid for by the Hokage. The only thing that could possibly make this better would be if… we had a guy here to rub our feet or… something."
"You were going to mention the Bastard, weren't you?"
"Cha! Who would care about that jerk? I'd rather he jump off of a cliff or something! Shannaro!"
"Yeah…" A soft pang of regret and sadness passed through her. But it didn't stay for long, considering how nice the hot water felt. After letting the hot water soak into her sore, aching body for a long quiet moment, she said, "a foot rub would be nice, wouldn't it?"
"Shannaro!"
Epilogue: Chain Link
Hokage's Office, Hokage Tower, Hidden Leaf Village
9:55 AM, Thursday, November 29, 993 AS
~Sarutobi Hiruzen, Third Hokage~
He smiled internally as he watched the young girl squirm under his gaze. She'd given her parents quite the scare, given his ANBU the run around, and abandoned her duty as a Genin Kunoichi of the village when she ran off into the forest and left the village without permission. The first two weren't really possible to hold against her, even less so considering how emotional she was reported to have been at the time. The last, however, was a serious problem. If she had checked in with the gate guards and told them she'd be going out to train in the forest, then there would have at least been that to help cover the unscheduled exit, but she didn't even have that.
"I hope you understand the seriousness of the situation, Haruno-kun," he said, making his voice extra deep and gravely. He'd found out a long time ago that it added to how serious he sounded when Biwako cringed at him for using the voice to ask for some milk. At the time, they'd laughed it off, but the accidental technique had proven quite usefull. "Even if you were not on duty at the time, you left the village without permission. By all rights I should label you a rogue ninja and throw you in prison." The old man watched the girl shiver and seem to cave in on herself. "However, I'm not going to do that."
"You're not?!" He stared at her for her sudden outburst. She cringed inward once more, but the hope that had sprung up in her eyes didn't disappear again.
"No," he said. "Normally, because you failed to meet the standards of the Jounin assigned to evaluate you, you would be sent back to the academy for further study and training. After six months you would be given a second opportunity to impress a Jounin instructor, and failing that, you'd be shuffled into the general forces or placed into the reserves. But this is not a normal situation, so it requires an equally abnormal solution. You need to be punished for your actions, and I believe I have the perfect solution. I'm assigning you to a team." He held up his hand to stop the question visibly burning on the girl's tongue. "This is a punishment, because you clearly demonstrated that you are not ready to be a fully fledged genin both to your evaluating Jounin instructor and then your abandonment of your duties. Instead of giving you more time to grow and nurture any skills you may possess in an academic environment, I'm sticking you directly into active service. Granted, those missions you go on will not be dangerous and your pay will be garnished a certain percentage as an additional punitive measure for six months. Regardless of what you think of the assignments you, and by extension your team, are given, you will complete them to the fullest extent of your abilities. At the end of a six month period, you will be re-evaluated to determine if your punishment has been carried out satisfactorily. Do you understand everything that I've told you?"
The pink haired girl had wide open eyes. Slowly she nodded and said, "Yes, Hokage-sama. Thank you for not throwing me in jail. Or executing me. I'm really, really sorry for what I did."
He nodded. "Good," he said with finality. Or it would have sounded like it was final if his office doors weren't kicked open and an orange wearing, loud, unpredictable, blond kucklehead didn't barge in.
"Oi! Old Man! What the hell did you want me here for so damn early in the morning, you old coot!"
He groaned and palmed his face. There went his mystical, badass shinobi aura, blown to pieces by his pseudo grandson. He got no respect! Damn kids! To head off any more outbursts from Naruto, he gestured toward Sakura. "Meet your new teammate, Naruto-kun."
"Eh?" Naruto turned and found Sakura goggling at him and his blasé, irreverent treatment of the strongest ninja in the nation. When he saw who was sitting in the chair, his visibly brightened and smiled his big, megawatt smile. "Sakura-chan! I didn't think I'd get you on my team! Weren't you supposed to be on Sasuke's team?"
"E-hem." Clearing his throat got both of their attention before they devolved into a conversation and/or shouting match. Reaching over his desk, he held out a forehead protector toward Sakura. As she took it, he said, "Don't lose it this time, understand?"
"Yes, Hokage-sama," she said.
When she grabbed the cloth and metal apparel from him, he said, "Good, dismissed. And Naruto, behave, will you."
"Pssh, yeah right!" Naruto crowed as he turned and walked out of the room. "See ya later Old Man!"
With both of the genin gone from the room, and a manageable amount of paperwork on his desk, he leaned back in his chair and took a short break. It was sunny outside, and despite the autumn season, warm enough to have the window open to let a cool breeze flow through the office. He had a good feeling about the two he'd just teamed up. Only time would tell if his gut instinct was right on this.
A/N: So there's Naruto Unchained. Tell me what you think?