I do not own Naruto. Anyone asks me, they will be eaten alive like any ninja that tries to attack me.
Chapter I: Last Days
Naruto poked his head into the room, his spiky blonde hair bouncing. The ever present grin was on his face, and two large bags of something in his hands. The moment that Hinata saw him, she flushed bright red. "Oh, Naruto. How… n-nice to see you, b-but what are you doing h-here?"
His grin continued as he opened the door fully and she saw what was in his hands. Ramen. Nearly twenty bowls of it were stacked on top of one another. She should have known that if he would come to see her, he was going to bring Ramen. After all, that's practically all he ate.
He put the bowls down and put one hand behind his head, saying all the while, "Hey, Hinata. I know that Neji landed you in the hospital, and I know that Hospital food can be a real drag on the gut and all, so I brought you some good old Ichiraku Ramen!"
Hinata didn't say anything at all, instead, her face flushed plum and she fell back onto her pillows, out cold. Naruto was always confused by this and he went over to her, shaking her gently. "Hinata. Hinata. Wake up. The Ramen is getting cold!"
Hinata was in her own mind, overwhelmed by this overly generous burst of thoughtfulness. Maybe she hadn't failed in his eyes after all. Slowly, she opened her eyes and was hit by the wonderful smell of Miso Ramen at the same time.
Ichiraku Ramen was Naruto's favorite place to eat in town. So much, that when Iruka or Kakashi or anyone else took him there for dinner, or any meal, for that matter, they were pretty much guaranteed to have a depleted wallet by the time he finished eating and they got home. Six people had already declared bankruptcy after they had taken him there after a mission or a hard day of training.
It was easy to see why. In the few minutes that she had been out, he had already eaten six bowls of ramen and was busy devouring a seventh. And the scary thing was, these weren't small bowls. No, they were massive, easily bigger then his face. Hinata could never figure out where all of those noodles, meat, and soup went.
As he loudly slurped the last of the broth, he balanced the bowl on his growing pile. Faster then the eye could see, he reached into the bag for another bowl of Beef-Flavored Ramen. "U-Um, N-Naruto?"
He looked up from a large piece of meat that he was chewing and quickly bit off a piece, "Yeah?" he said, swallowing the food after two bites.
"I-I don't h-have any ch-chopsticks."
Naruto smacked himself on the forehead. How could he forget to hand her the chopsticks? After all, one did not use fingers to eat the delicacy that was Ramen. Well, unless they were starving and had no choice. "Yeah, one second." He reached into the second bag and rummaged around the bottom for a bit.
Accepting the pair of chopsticks from Naruto with a flame-red blush, she began to eat the Ramen, though not as quickly as he did. His speed at eating ramen was very easily seen, as the fact that one bowl would be enough to satisfy the average person. By the time she finished her first bowl, he was on his last. Seeing that she was finished, Naruto balanced the trash, and with his mouth still full of noodles, said, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
The newly created clone picked up the precariously balanced pile of bowls and took the real Naruto's frog-shaped wallet as well. "Go back to Ichiraku's and get me another ten bowls of Beef-Flavored Ramen. All that training earlier really took it out of me. If there's not enough, tell him to put it on my tab. I'll pay him tonight; I just need to get my paycheck."
The clone nodded and hopped out the window, careful not to drop any of the dishes. After a second, Naruto seemed to change his mind on eating more, since he hopped out the window after the clone, and with a resounding crash, it disappeared and he climbed back into the room, the frog-shaped wallet back in his pocket.
With another grin that sent Hinata's face burning, he waved good bye and poked his head out of the door, only to withdraw it a split second later. "I'll, um, just take the way out that my clone did. Catch you around. After he had finished speaking, Naruto jumped out the window and took off along the rooftops.
Five seconds later, the door burst open and two nurses tumbled their way inside. After seeing that the room was empty, they nodded at Hinata and dove back into the hallway. They were obviously on the trail of Naruto. Maybe he had just made shadow clones and sent them running through the halls so that he could come in here. That meant that he made a lot of shadow clones, since they had just realized that they weren't chasing the real one.
She sighed again. Leaning back into her pillow, she pulled the covers over her eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep. Dreams started to flash in her mind. Dreams about her days at the academy, about Naruto and herself, and about what she would do the next time that they met all floated through her mind.
Naruto bounced from rooftop to rooftop, reverting to all fours for extra speed. However, it was nowhere near enough to escape the person who appeared in front of him in a puff of black smoke.
He tried to swerve, but Kakashi, his Jounin teacher, merely stuck out a foot and tripped Naruto, who went spinning head over heels. He finally stopped six inches away from the edge of the building, and rolled onto his back. Kakashi, whose face was always partially covered by his forehead protector and a black mask, was busy reading the book that he always carried around with him, 'Make Out Paradise'.
Naruto spit out a mouthful of gravel. "Kakashi-Sensei! What the hell was that for?"
Kakashi did not seem perturbed by this outburst; since he heard twenty a day. Every time they got assigned a mission that he wouldn't like, Naruto would start shouting and insulting the Hokage for giving him such an easy mission. "While the boy definitely has talent," he mused, turning a page, "he lacks focus and attention. If he had those and some common sense in that brain, he would be unstoppable."
"I assume that you still want this?" he said, holding out the frog-shaped wallet.
Naruto snatched it back and tucked it deep within his jumpsuit. Before he could leave, though, Kakashi commented, "Is it just me, or is that little guy on a diet? I swore he's lost so much weight. Or have you just been out to lunch again?"
He grinned and put one hand to scratch the back of his head. "Yeah, I went out for lunch. I was tired and I couldn't resist."
Kakashi snorted gently, "And let me guess what you ate. Ramen. Well, am I right?"
"Yep. Nothing but Beef Ramen from Ichiraku's!"
"And let me take a shot at how much you ate," Kakashi said, turning another page in his book. "You just had to have five bowls of that stuff and your poor friend here is starving."
Naruto grinned rather like a fox would. "Wow, Kakashi-sensei. You are really off today. I had seventeen bowls of that stuff."
Kakashi face valuted and fell off the side of the building.
Naruto scrambled over to the side of the building and peered over. Kakashi had landed, making a giant crater with the impact of his head. His limbs were twitching, but he managed to wave at him to go on and leave him there.
Naruto burst out laughing and started making his way back to the training grounds. When he finally got there, he found Shikamaru, sleeping on a stump. He grinned evilly and started making seals. "Oroike no Jutsu!"
Shikamaru was still napping when a loud popping noise made him open his eyes. And when he had, he wished he was still asleep. In front of him was a blonde girl with blue eyes with only wisps of cloud covering her… assets. He instantly had a massive nosebleed and face faulted at the same time.
Naruto laughed and reassumed his natural form. Shikamaru scowled and wiped the blood from his nose, then with his traditional saying, "How troublesome…" jumped off and headed home where he could sleep without being disrupted.
Naruto was still sniggering when he did his trademark technique, the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. Instantly, a hundred copies of himself popped into existence. "Alright, guys," He yelled. All of the clones stopped fooling around and looked at him expectantly. "Fight!" With a savage yell, all of the clones charged at Naruto and the sparring began.
A month passed. With a master who taught him new tricks that he could do with his chakra, along with better focusing and molding, the match with Neji didn't only seem possible, but easy. But this proved to be false. Neji had quickly locked up all of his chakra points, rendering him to cast any Jutsu that required chakra. However, he still would not give up.
He was beat down again and again. Finally, he remembered something that his new sensei, Jiriaya, had said to him. "You are special in the fact that you have two chakra sources. However, only use the second one when no other course exists." Well, at that time, no other source of chakra existed, so he drew upon this other source, and the battle instantly evened up in Naruto's favor.
In the end, however, he wouldn't be stopped. With a small series of blows, Neji was incapacitated and Naruto won. However, disaster struck quickly in the form of the Third Hokage's death and the invasion of Konoha by the sound village. After this of course, they had to go off and find Sauske, who was kidnapped.
Hinata was torn. On one hand, they had a new Hokage, Tsuande. However, she had not even been able to catch a glimpse of Naruto, since he was so busy nowadays. He had even stopped coming to Ichiraku's, as she found out when she asked the owner. A Naruto that stopped eating Ramen just wasn't Naruto anymore. Something was definitely going wrong here.
Tsuande was buried in paperwork, almost literally. Since becoming the Hokage, she hadn't had so many fights with enemy ninja as the never ending flow of papers that needed to be signed, bills that had to be paid to other villages, and missions that had to be assigned to the different teams.
And to add to all of her troubles, Naruto was running around amok, trying to convince her to let him go look for Sauske, and Jiriaya was in her office. She sighed and pulled out a bottle of sake she kept for just such an occasion. Uncorking it, she took a generous swig of the alcohol and then put it back under her desk.
Jiriaya grinned and started to lean in-
WHAM! BAM! CRASH! CRASH! CRASH! SPLAT!
Tsuande, who had been watching him carefully, suddenly stood up and smashed his face through the desk, the carpet, the floorboards, the support beam underneath, and finally to the marble reception hall beneath them. Jiriaya was head-first in a crater, twitching comically.
The Hokage sighed. The old pervert hadn't changed one bit in all these years. Sighing again, she pulled the bottle out from under her ruined desk and took another gulp. She raised an eyebrow as he jumped back into her office, along with several huge lumps on his fore and to the crown of his head as a message not try to do that again.
Smiling threateningly, Tsuande raised her empty palm. "Next time, you go up. Then, I get creative."
Jiriaya shuddered and thought back in time to the time when they had been teenagers. Back when they had been real teenagers, not this image that she kept up to keep her appearance of youth. She had nearly killed him for peeping on her. He made a mental note not to try that again with her.
"Tsuande, I've been thinking about something."
She rolled her eyes. He THOUGHT about things? "What kind of things?"
"Well, frankly, about Naruto. Since the attack on the village, I've had a feeling that he's not really getting the training he needs here. I would be glad to take him off of your hands and train him myself."
Tsuande choked on her sake. Spitting it out in a mist, she replied, "Are you out of your mind?"
Jiriaya removed his polishing cloth from his pocket and wiped all of the sake from his face. "I mean," he said while thoroughly cleaning his eyebrows, "if you want me to."
She grinned. "That kid is a horror. It takes all of us to keep him in check. Do you really think that an old pervert like you could hold him back?"
"Trust me. I have a way. And in any case, I think that anything is better then him running around here, making this huge mess in his wake."
Tsuande sighed and emptied the bottle of sake. "Fine, he's yours. Do you have any idea when you're going to bring him back?"
"I'll bring him back when he's ready. I can't really say anything that's any more specific then that."
She nodded and he leaned in close-
WHAM! SPLINTER! CRASH! CRASH! SHATTER! SPLASH!
Jiriaya had still not learned his lesson. With a single kick to the chin, she sent him flying through the ceiling tiles, air ducts, support beams, and finally through the roof's ceramic shingles. She sat back down and pulled out another bottle of sake from a cabinet as he came pin wheeling back down to earth, this time landing in a fountain.
Will that pervert ever learn his lesson?
Author's Note:
Heyo. Whats cooking?
Anyway. Here's chapter I. Hopefully, its a little more amusing then the prolouge. I hate to bore the living soul out of you first, but the background must be set. Once i finish revising chapter II, then ill put it up. I'm not going to say when it's out. What i will say, is that it'll be out when i feel its ready and have enough feedback on the last episode. Anyway. The NaruHina parts will come somewhat later in the series. And here's what happened when i brought it up in front the cast earlier today.
Earlier today
Naruto: What? Say what? Have you gone BAKA, you crazy old man?
DDRMSTRPRO: Baka? Speak english, for god's sake. And, yes. this is a NaruHina.
Naruto: Why does everyone know whats going on here but me?
Everyone sweatdropped at this point.
Sakura: You are really hopeless, Naruto. Didn't you hear anything that the author's been saying?
DDRMSTPRO: Sigh. I guess this is my fault. I never should have designed that bottomless bowl of ramen for him.
Sauske: Man, you are a dobe, like Naruto here. WHY WOULD YOU GIVE HIM A BOTTOMLESS BOWL OF RAMEN?
Naruto: MMM! RAMEN! MAN, WHY CAN'T I STOP EATING? MMM! LETS HAVE A BOWL OF PORK AND BEEF RAMEN!
Hinata: Umm... Naruto-kun? Maybe you should listen to the kind man telling you. Maybe you should stop eating that ramen.
Naruto: WHAT? ME, STOP EATING RAMEN? munch... munch... munch... MAN, I GOTTA SAY, I LOVE THIS STUFF ALMOST AS MUCH AS I LOVE YOU, HINATA!
Hinata flushed cherry red and collapsed on the spot, a small trickle of spit landing on my lamp, shorting it out.
DDRMSTPRO: Damn it! That's the fifth one she's ruined! Sigh. Will someone please pick her up and put her on the couch? Anyway. Yeah, since i've got writer's block on my book, ill try my best to write one for each of you.
Sakura: Oh YEAH! (Grabbing Sauske by the elbow) CAN YOU TELL US THE PAIRS?
Sauske: LET GO OF ME!
DDRMSTPRO: First of all, Sakura. Let go of Sauske before i tase you. Two, im not sure if i will, since Timeless is scheduled and designed to go on for ALOT longer. And three, if you try to attack me, i'll have to unleash my kick-ass side. I would hate to have to retreve your corpse from that creek over there. Or maybe i should, so that Me and Sauske can get a decent night's sleep without you attacking us.
Sakura: You wouldn't dare.
DDRMSTPRO: Try me.
Sakura: ...
Sauske: ...
Kakashi: ...
Ino: ...
Shikamaru: ...
Jiriaya: ...
Tsuande: ...
Shino: ...
Kiba: ...
Lee: ...
Tenten: ...
Temari: ...
Neji: ...
Choiji: ...
Naruto: MUNCH. MUNCH. MUNCH
Everyone face valuted again.
Master Chief: Yo.
DDRMSTRPRO: CHIEF! WHAT DID I SAY? I NEED THAT VIDEO BY TOMMOROW! AND I HAD BETTER NOT FIND ANY MORE PORN ON IT THIS TIME!
Master Chief: But arbitur is being a jackass!
Arbiter: Oh, you're so full of it.
Master Chief: This is so ghey. Do you have any beer around here?
DDRMSTRPRO: CHIEF! GET BACK TO WORK! NOW!
Master Chief and Arbiter: Yes, sir. Straight away, sir.
DDRMSTRPRO: Sigh. Anyway. So, yeah. Where was I? Oh, yes. Yeah, Timeless is a NaruHina. However, Sakura, there will be some SasuSaku in there. Along with some others. Two slots remain. There were three, but Sakura here applied for the first one the moment it came out.
Ino and Tenten squeal, but the all mighty DDRMSTRPRO ignores them.
DDRMSTRPRO: Anyway. Tsuande. I've been meaning to give you this. (Takes out bottle and hands it to Tsuande) Here. Drink it. You'll feel better.
Tsuande pockets the bottle and DDRMSTRPRO gives Jiriaya the thumbs-up.
At this point, Hinata comes back around and Naruto drops the Ramen Bowl. Walking quickly over, Naruto pecks her on the cheek, which turns redder then a boiled lobster. She kisses him back.
DDRMSTRPRO: How many times do i have to tell you? If you're going to do that, GET A GODDAMNED ROOM!
Both look sheepish and climb the stairs to the guest bedroom.
DDRMSTRPRO: Anyway, in order t-
EAH! EAH! EAH! EAH!
DDRMSTRPRO looks up at the light next to the clock and sees that it's flashing red.
DDRMSTRPRO: Goddamnit. Didn't i tell them to leave me alone? I'll be right back, guys.
DDRMSTRPRO climbs the stairs and opens the door. The desktop computer is on and Naruto is lying sweatdropped on the ground. Hinata looks scared in the corner. After using his amazing computer skills, he shuts down the alarm. He then notices the skewed antenna and the wires.
DDRMSTRPRO: Naruto! WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT TOUCHING THIS COMPUTER? YOU JUST BROKE MY EMERGENCY TRANCEIVER! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET EMERGENCY UPDATES NOW?
The people downstairs hear Naruto trying to say something, then a Hhh-ack, the sound of a body hitting the floor, and Hinata rushing over to see if Naruto was ok.
Hinata: What did you do to him?
DDRMSTRPRO: Nothing Serious.
Hinata: He's lying on the floor! You call that not serious? I thought i knew you better, Xingster!
DDRMSTRPRO: How do you know my offical screenname?
Hinata: I... umm... picked it- Hhh-ack!
DDRMSTRPRO walks back downstairs with the two lovebirds draped over one shoulder.
DDRMSTRPRO: Hey, guys. Sorry to say this, but the meeting is over. Could you take these two lovers back to their homes?
Everyone stands up and stretches, says farewells, and left.
DDRMSTRPRO: Finally. Some peace and quiet.
Arbiter: NO, chief! Xingster told you not to drink any more beer!
Xingster: CHIEF!
Master Chief: Arbitur made me!
Now you know why I dont call meetings that often? That's a relatively tame one by most standards. Anyway, until next time. Reviews are highly recommended.
Xingster/DDRMSTRPRO