Summary: (Fullmetal Alchemist/ Naruto crossover) Ed and Al tried to resurrect their Mother but something went wrong. Not only did they fail, their bodies paying the price, but they are no longer in Amestris. They are in a world where all the natural rules aren't always obeyed...
Finally back with a new chapter. Sorry I wasn't able to update last month but I was going to have my exams the next week and my beta-reader hadn't gotten back to me yet because she was busy around that period as well. The new semester's started for me and I still haven't written any new chapters for this yet. Mainly because I've hit a road block and might be scrapping my original plan of what was going to happen later on. But that should be okay because that was boring anyway. ;p
After talking about it with my beta-reader, I've decided to switch the names around for the Naruto cast. I've edited the last two chapters to show this with a bit of added dialogue but it's only a couple of lines that doesn't affect the overall storyline apart form Ed and Al calling Tsunade Hokage now.:3 I'm not sure I've caught all of the changes though.
Thanks to all the people who reviewed, added this to their favourites and alerts the last chapter and for waiting patiently for me to update. And also thanks to my beta-reader, Krows Scared. :)
Fullmetal Ninja
By Dark Ice Dragon
Watching
Ears still ringing from Ed's outburst, the three boys made it to the canteen a few minutes later. Naruto felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle as he sensed the glares coming from all around as soon as he stepped into the room, but he ignored them as he always did. Hey, they could be glaring because of the racket that Ed had just shouted up and it had absolutely nothing to do with him. Or they could be blaming him for making Ed yell in the first place. It ended with the same thing really.
The three of them joined in the queue to the till, Ed and Al peering curiously at the sandwiches laid out in front of them. After a few seconds of staring, they selected two different types and put them on the tray, both looking like they were hoping the food tasted like it looked. Naruto didn't hold many expectations that they would. The canteen didn't sell ramen; a fact which Naruto had found out a long time ago but it still annoyed him no end and so he also grudgingly, selected a sandwich for himself.
The two were getting fidgety - Naruto could see it in the way their heads kept on turning slightly to the side and then looking forward again that they were observing something but not wanting to be seen doing it. Which, after staring at everything and not caring, it was different behaviour for them. But they hadn't been around a lot of people yet (as far as he knew) so they could just be shy of large groups. Their voices were muted too, like they were trying not to be overheard. Naruto snorted and the two boys looked back at him; curiosity and worry flickered across their faces.
The dark haired woman behind the counter was eyeing Naruto distrustfully and scowled at him as the distance between them got steadily smaller and smaller. As soon as she realised Naruto was watching, she turned back to the person she was serving, a smile plastered on her face.
Al murmured something to Ed, who nodded.
When it was their turn to be served, the woman took in the Elrics' missing limbs and asked them in a sugary tone, "Are you patients here?" Completely ignoring Naruto as he stood there.
"They are," Naruto answered for them, "so just charge me the water and the chicken sandwich." Of course they were patients here, what kind of stupid question was that? The bandages and wheelchair were enough evidence.
"I'm sure they can answer for themselves," she said archly, puffing up and looking down her nose at him. Naruto heard some muttering coming from behind him but didn't bother listening to what was being said.
Naruto shrugged and lightly hit the top of Ed's head with a loose fist. Ed's reaction was to whirl around and start another tirade (this time more muttered than shouted), hand on the spot and half-glaring at him. Al said something to Ed and it quietened him down, though he was still glaring.
"They don't speak our language," he stated, unnecessarily. Naruto stared at her, a small careless grin on his face, challenging her to deny the fact all the same.
The woman stared at him longer than necessary, her face pale, before telling him the price of his food. He handed over the correct amount of change and before the woman's hand was even pulling away, Al was tugging at Naruto's jacket and pointing to one of the tables in the far corner.
Sitting around it -after moving one of the chairs so that Ed could sit with them easier- Naruto was then able to see the two boys' faces properly: Ed's was darkened with anger and Al was frowning slightly as well.
Ed's gold eyes met Naruto's blue ones and he indicated the woman with a backward nod of the head. "Fucking-" He stopped and huffed. Al didn't react to the word other than surprised curiosity. How and when did he learn to swear when they didn't know any other words? With a sigh, Ed barked softly.
Al's eyes widened at the implication. "Ed!" he hissed and slapped his shoulder.
Ed scowled at him before saying something back. After shaking his head and replying, Al turned to Naruto. "Naruto?"
With no way to explain anything to them, Naruto shrugged and waved a hand dismissively; there wasn't a specific gesture that meant 'normal' that he knew of and it wasn't as if he was going to explain the Kyuubi to them.
The two exchanged glances whilst Naruto started eating his sandwich, Ed and Al following shortly after. Naruto had already eaten half when he heard someone call his name. Eyes flicking up to the person, Naruto half-choked when he saw it was Ino. "What're you doing here?"
"Visiting Sasuke and Sakura, of course," she said with a grin and a wink. Naruto felt a hint of anger and guilt at the reminder of his teammates but before he was able to tell her that Sasuke wasn't around at the moment, she'd turned her attention to the other boys at the table. "Hi!"
"Hi," they repeated. They then looked at Naruto for confirmation. "Hi?"
"Uh, hi," Naruto said with a little uncertainty as he waved a hand at them for a demonstration.
Al's eyebrows were scrunched up in concentration. "Bye?"
Naruto shook his head.
"Hmm." The two started rapidly talking it over for a few seconds before nodding and then waving at Ino. "Hi."
Ino was pulling off an expression that was both puzzled and amused. "Hi." Her eyes focussed on him. "Naruto…?"
"They don't speak our language." And after saying that phrase twice in five minutes, Naruto was already considering putting a sign around their necks proclaiming the fact; it was getting annoying. Sighing, Naruto waved a hand in Ino's direction. "Ino." Then he waved the other in the brothers' direction. "Ed and Al."
Both of whom were staring at Ino, twin confused expressions on their faces. Ed looked at Naruto. "Ino… no…" He pointed to his eyes. No eyes? What did he mean by that? Seeing his bafflement, Ed tried again - this time, he covered his eyes with his hands.
No eyes. Can't see. Blind. Naruto shook his head quickly. To demonstrate that she could see, Naruto threw his half-empty bottle (cap on properly) to Ino. She caught it with one hand, and with a glint in her eye, she threw it back at Naruto's head. But he still caught it anyway.
What made them think she was blind?
xXx
When was this world going to make sense? Ed grumbled to himself. Ino shouldn't be able to see; she didn't have pupils. If she didn't have pupils, light couldn't get into her eyes. That meant images of the outside world weren't getting in either so there wasn't anything resting on the retina so nothing was being sent to the brain via the optic nerve. She should be blind.
But she wasn't. Naruto proved that she could see properly when he threw the bottle at her and she caught it, eyes tracking its movement and reflexes too fast to be catching it from sound alone. She'd even sent it back to him, aiming for his head deliberately – or it had seemed like that anyway. Taking in the tables, chairs and people around them, she would have needed a walking stick to manoeuvre through it all with no incidents and she had done so without one. And she'd found Naruto when he hadn't been saying anything at the time so she had to have seen him then.
Had she been born like that? Had her body mutated in such a way to compensate for her lack of pupils? Were her irises somehow also her pupils at the same time? Which didn't make any sense when he thought about it properly. Ed's head was whirling from all the questions being generated and no answers were forthcoming. Again.
Or was this completely normal for this world? He and Al had talked about the possibility of things being vastly different on this world; not that they had wholly accepted it, just hypothesising, from no Alchemy existing to the magic in fairytales that their Mother used to tell them when they were younger being as easy as saying just specific words. To find out, they would have to at least get out of the hospital to see what the other people were like in their daily lives. So far, what they had seen was what they had expected and nothing too out of the ordinary for them.
Apart from the stares and the angry muttering that surrounded them when they entered the dining area. To start with, they had thought that it was directed towards them, before seeing that they were glaring over their heads. Naruto didn't notice, or pretended not to. They couldn't ask why, and then they noticed a third expression on some people's faces: fear. There were a few more empty tables than when they had entered five minutes before. Ed and Al watched the groups as they chivvied stragglers and warily glanced over their shoulders every few seconds as they did.
It was as if they were expecting Naruto to attack them for no reason.
Which was another thing that didn't make sense. He was loud but he wasn't dangerous. What did they think he'd do – shout them to death?
When they'd sat down at the table after Naruto's brief staring match with the woman at the till they discovered that Naruto did know what was happening around him but what did that wave mean? Ignore it, don't talk about it? Argh… There really had to be some way to learn the local language quickly. There had to be at least one person who spoke the same language as them. Had to be.
Ed scowled thinking over what he had just gone over in his head, annoyed at his thoughts.
Which one did he believe – that he and Al were in a completely different world or that they were on some undiscovered continent of their own world?
So why had his earlier thoughts been using 'this world' rather than 'this place' without him noticing and seeing nothing wrong with it - just accepting it?
xXx
Tsunade frowned, staring at the thickness of the Wave Country folder and suppressed a sigh. It wasn't that thick, not when you compared its size to other countries like Fire Country; it made it look downright tiny but she really didn't want to go through more paperwork. All she was doing was going through the recent, and not-so-recent if her original search proved futile, missions to Wave to see if any of the ninja who'd gone there were still in Konoha at the moment. Not likely with the current state of things but at least she'd know who to talk to once they had returned. It would also decide what odds there were that the ninja who had been there knew of the Elrics.
Her eyes skimmed over the report in her hand. A C-rank mission being upgraded to a higher B-/lower A-rank mission. The team had refused to cancel the mission and it had ended in quite a battle on the Great Naruto Bridge-
What.
That was too much of a coincidence. Naruto wasn't a common name and the chances that the name was connected to the Naruto that she knew… She glanced back to the top of the report – it was dated just over two months ago. A Genin team with Hatake Kakashi as the Jounin leader.
Well, that was interesting.
Eyeing the folder again, Tsunade decided to leave the rest of the reports for the time being. She had an elusive Jounin to talk to.
xXx
Al watched as Ed half-hopped from the wheelchair onto the bed and twisted around on his palms with ease. Naruto looked at the wheelchair in puzzlement for a few seconds before he shrugged and kicked it back lightly so it rolled back and hit the other bed. Then he plopped down in it haphazardly, grumbling to himself.
Hmm. Al's eyes wandered across the room slowly. They hadn't learned that much of this language -not to mention the horrors of grammar- but every word they knew would hopefully get them closer to understanding and to be understood. Even if it was just everyday items. So he looked around and tried to remember the pronunciations.
When his eyes passed the door, Al was startled to see a face peering in. He was a boy, either a few years younger than himself or the same age, with a pair of thick goggles covering all of his forehead. The boy stared at Naruto's back, missing that Al was watching him, and tip-toed in, bringing his knees up high with every step.
Ed had seen him too, though it wasn't hard since they were both facing the door whilst Naruto was facing the wall behind them; he was now looking at them curiously.
He turned around to see what they were staring at. "What's-"
That was when the boy sprung, quickly scrambling over the bed and launching himself at Naruto's head with a loud war cry. Al and Ed could only watch in disbelief as the two fought each other in front of them with full-throated yells; they could both see however, that Naruto wasn't taking it very seriously or really attempting to hit the other boy, just holding him off.
"Do you think they're brothers?" Al mused out loud.
Ed snorted. "Yeah."
None of the words being shouted were anything Al had heard before (but he was betting that Ed was somehow picking up all the wrong words from his previous example at the cafeteria) though Naruto's name was cropping up every couple of sentences.
"Huh." Al turned to look at his brother. "Their fighting styles… It's a bit like what Teacher taught us," Ed said, a concentrated frown on his face.
With that piece of information, Al turned his attention back to the other two boys. Even though their fighting was rowdy, they were able to keep themselves to the other half of the room, somehow not disturbing anything (apart from their eardrums) while they were literally bouncing off of the walls. Their fighting style was similar but there were some differences – like their centre of balance was much lower than what was normal for he and his brother, and the younger boy did a lot more grappling, though that was probably due to the difference in sizes.
Just as Al came to that conclusion, the younger boy misjudged the strength of a jump and barrelled backwards into him.
(flails) You barely get any dates about how long things take inbetween stuff and how long it takes to get to place. Just 'it'll take a while' or something. But there was the month wait between the second and third part of the Chuunin exams so I based the two months between the end of the Wave arc and now off of that.
The kid at the end who attacked Naruto is Konohamaru, the grandson of the Third Hokage (Tsunade's the Fifth) and he sees Naruto as his rival.
I'm in university, doing a Psychology course. One of my modules this semester is 'Psychology of Language and Thinking' and I had the first lecture on Monday. I had so much fun when I learned just how much problems there are going to be for Ed and Al to really learn the language. Things like grammar (which I knew when I was writing this chapter); syntax (I kinda knew but wasn't too bothered by for some reason); pronounciations; the double meanings for words in some languages but not others; when language is spoken, they usually aren't grammatically correct; knowing what a person means because of the context; and slang to name a few. D: Joy. This'll be fun to do. Buut, the good thing is, Ed and Al aren't learning language completely from scratch so a few of these will be confusing but they should be able to get through it eventually.
Plus, later on, we'll be taught the difference between an expert and novice writer. :D Can't wait to find out just how bad I am. But that's gonna be in seven weeks so I'm gonna have to wait. (Standard disclaimer: Ignore me when I complain about stuff like this, i.e. writing, because it's a habit that I do and I do it about anything I do. Believe me, I'll say anything I do is bad because I'm fairly critical of my stuff. And I'm the sort of person who pokes fun at themselves on a regular basis but I don't really mean anything by it. Basically, don't take me seriously when I complain. :3)
The next update will be on the fifth of March. :) Until then.
Edit: 03/03/08. The next update might not actually be on the fifth of March. I'm still waiting for Krows Scared to get back to me. Also, just as a heads up, I've got most of the seventh chapter done but there's some stuff which I want to add to it. I normally send the next chapter for beta-ing once I've posted a chapter and it usually takes her about a month to get back to me so yeah, the seventh chapter might take longer than a month to get out. Also around about that time, I'll be handing in coursework so that'll slow things down in the writing stage too.
