Puppets of the Leaf
AN: Wow now over 300 Hits and still counting. Thanks to CKMo for teh enthusiastic reviews. As of this moment i have Chapter five already done however I'll olny release it after i finish Chapter 6, which is about 2/3 of the way done so expect another update within the next day or two. Sorry that this chapter wasn't as long as the last ne bu the next two will be much longer.
Chapter 4
This had been the happiest day of his young life. Even more so than his discovery of the puppet technique, though he thought it to be a close second. Mizuke had been so stunned by the boys use of the technique learned from the Forbidden scroll, he hadn't been able to defend himself from the onslaught of literally hundreds of clones. Shortly after the Traitors defeat, Iruka had presented Naruto with his own headband and pronounced him as a graduate of the Ninja Academy.
After several ANBU arrived in the clearing, Iruka had explained to them the boy had been innocent and they took Mizuki into custody to stand trial, while Iruka helped Naruto gather the pieces of his puppet, and reseal them into the scroll before going to the Hokage's office to return the scroll. When they walked into the room Naruto burst out laughing at the two bloody pieces of tissue sticking out of his nose. The Hokage waved off the Chunin's questions, and listened to their report on the incident.
"Well, Naruto, it seems that Konoha owes you a debt. There will of course be a reward for exposing, and then capturing the traitor." The Hokage reached blow his desk to retrieve a small pile containing several scrolls. "These are the scrolls you were to get after graduating. And these," she indicated the two on top. "were supposed to be given after you had engaged an enemy in a life or death battle for the first time with your puppets…assuming you survived of course."
The boy stared at the scrolls for a long time with bright eyes and a wide grin. He jumped from his seat, grabbed the scrolls from the desk, and was out the door before either of the adults could stop him. "THANKSOLDMAN,BYEIRUKA,YOUOWEMERAMENLATER,SEEYA!"
After deciphering what he had said the Hokage laughed, and Iruka mourned the future loss of this months pay to the boy's appetite.
"Now Iruka, about the team placements…"
Naruto sat on his bed, scrolls and the parts of his puppet were scattered throughout his room as he read and reread the scroll in his hands. This new set contained detailed accounts of the kinds of weapons that could be built into his puppet, and since he had to repair it anyway, he was going to completely redesign it. Naruto had determined that he would build his puppets to suit different situations. This he would use for combat. The other one would be better used as a distraction, as the Hokage had found out the previous night, to spectacular effect.
Flashback;
"Naruto? What are you doing?"
Naruto turned to face the ageing Hokage, holding not only the Forbidden Scroll of sealing, but also a smaller purple scroll, that he had taken off of a holder on his left thigh.
"Ehh… Sorry Old Man, but I need this." Before the Hokage could stop him, Naruto opened the small scroll and bit his thumb, after swiping the blood across the seal on the paper, the scene was filled with an explosion of smoke.
The Hokage watched, bewildered as the boy he considered his own grandson, appeared to be ready to attack him with one of his puppets. Once the smoke cleared however his reaction was considerably different.
The Third Hokage, almost swallowed his pipe as he was sent flying backwards, a large amount of blood spraying from his nose.
Naruto for his part took a moment to laugh and mentally cheer. His first puppet's design had met with resounding success. Between him and the downed old man stood the figure of a blonde teenage girl, wearing nothing but the most revealing underwear he could get his hands on. He resealed the puppet as he leapt out of the window with the scroll, not wanting to draw any more attention to himself than he already had.
End Flashback;
Naruto chucked to himself at the memory. It had caused him no end of trouble to aquire the materials needed to create him Kunoichi puppet. Even more than that, to find a suitable model to base it on. He had wandered around town for hours looking at various women. Normally Naruto would condemn someone doing this, however he consoled himself with the knowledge that he wasn't doing it for enjoyment, and only followed other Kunoichi. Finally he had found his model in the form of a Jounin with dark hair and red eyes. He studied her from every possible vantage point, committing her to his memory, until she caught him that is. He still had a slight bump on his head for that.
He then decided to change the puppets head somewhat. The last thing he wanted to think of is what she would do to him if she found out he had a half naked puppet of her at his disposal.
It didn't have any traps or weapons on it, mainly because the first scrolls only covered the cosmetic aspects of creating a puppet. Now though with the additional scrolls he was getting some very good ideas. He had asked the Hokage to place an order for some special blades to be made at a local weapons store. The old man had done so, gladly, only to inform him that in the future he could do so himself since the owner apparently didn't hate him and was intrigued by the prospect of the puppets.
Having picked them up from the shop on his way home, and placing another few orders for other parts with the reward money, he now sat fixing the blades to the puppets wrists in place of the kuni that had been there during his fight with Mizuke.
He had been working on restoring the puppet for most of the night when at last he came to the head. After examining the spot where Mizuke had stomped it into the ground he had determined that much of the face couldn't be repaired. However since he didn't have another head for the wooden figure, Naruto just decided to cover the gaping hole in its jaw with a black cloth he had picked up until he could come up with something else.
After he fixed it into place along with the dark colored, ragged hair that he had given it, he found that he rather liked the look of it. Satisfied, Naruto sat the puppet in the corner of the room and drifted off to sleep, his Leaf Headband clutched in his hand.
The next day found the blonde sitting in the classroom of the ninja academy, perhaps, he realized, for the last time. Iruka had come in, and read off the team assignments. Naruto was mildly disappointed that he had to put up with the class showoff, and the showoffs number one fan. For a while Naruto had actually had a crush on the pink haired girl. However time, and having his attention focused almost exclusively on his puppetry, had changed that. Especially after she had made the comment about his 'playing' with a 'doll' during class one day.
After they had waited for a few hours after the rest of the teams had gone off with their Jounin instructors, the leader of Team 7 finally arrived. His entry heralded by an eraser falling on his head.
Once the three had gathered on the roof of the academy, their new Sensei, Hatake Kakashi, began by asking for some information about them, to help their team get to know each other. Sakura had pointed out that he should go first, however all of the information he gave them was so cryptic, all they had learned about him was his name.
Sakura followed him by going into a fit of squealing and giggle every time she looked at their raven-haired teammate. The only thing she had made clear was her great dislike for Naruto.
Uchiha Sasuke went next by saying that he was basically an emo bastard who wanted to kill someone or something like that, at least that was all Naruto had gathered as he tinkered with the knee joint on a detached wooden leg.
When it was finally his turn, Naruto proclaimed, loudly, that he enjoyed training, ramen, working on his puppets, ramen, and…well…ramen. He didn't like the three minutes it took to make instant ramen, and people who called his puppets, dolls. His dreams were to become the greatest Puppeteer in the world and would be the greatest Hokage the village had ever seen.
It had come as a considerable shock to Kakashi that the boy wanted to become a Puppet user. Even he had only ever encountered a couple in is lifetime, and one had been when he was taking the Chunnin exams. He knew that those who practiced the art were becoming rarer and rarer, even in Suna where the style had originated. He made a mental note to inquire about it with the Hokage. Kakashi left shortly after, telling the three to meet him the next morning at the training grounds, and to skip breakfast if they didn't want to throw it all up.
Immediately after they were dismissed Sasuke went off to train with Sakura nipping at his heels. Naruto had run off in the direction of his apartment to continue restoring his damaged puppet.
He was running through the training grounds, taking a shortcut, when he heard the sharp sounds of metal impacting into solid objects. Veering off his intended course, Naruto came upon what must have been a team practice. He could see two similarly dressed ninja, both in an ugly green bodysuit, practicing Taijutsu. Both were utterly scary in their skill, while a short distance away, a girl in a pink shirt leapt into the air twirling a long scroll around herself. Naruto watched transfixed as hundreds of weapons suddenly streamed out of the scroll and flew strait at their third teammate, who miraculously managed to dodge all of them.
A tight smile spread across his face as Naruto slipped away from the strange team. Instead of continuing towards his home, the blonde now made his way towards the weapons shop. He had just figured out how he could fix his puppets head.
The man who ran he weapons shop was getting to like his new best customer the more he saw him. The boy had come in asking all manner of questions about throwing weapons. The man had shown him everything from Kunai, to oversized Shuriken. Finally the boy had settled on an impressive number of a surprising type of weapon.
The man even went as far as to help him with the finer details of getting the weapon to work like the kid wanted. After testing it out in the target range behind the mans shop, both thought that the results were nothing less than spectacular. The man invited Naruto to stay and practice with it as long as he wanted, but Naruto had other things on his mind right then. cough ramen cough
As an afterthought, the man asked the boy to wait for a moment and went into the store room. He came back a moment later with a rolled up black cloth. At the shop owners direction Naruto Stood his puppet upright and he threw the cloth around its shoulders. It's wooden frame was enveloped in thick black cloak, the man made a few adjustments, pinning the front closed so would completely cover the body when it wasn't in motion and raising a low hood over it's head of shaggy brown hair.
The effect left Naruto speechless. With the puppets newly painted red eyes, and the mask covering the lower part of its reconstructed face, it looked as though there were a living person under the overlong cloak.
The shop owner steadfastidly refused payment for the cloak, saying that it was his contribution to Konohas newest ninja art. One he hoped would see more practitioners in the future.
Naruto made a mental note to recommend the shop to as many people as he could to help his business, and left to see to some other 'business' that was making itself known with a low grumble.
Naruto was looking forward to his first team session, where he would; finally, show what his 'dolls' could do.
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AN:
Just some notes on Naruto's puppets.
Practice Marionette- a small wooden puppet. Picture an artist's sketch model.
Sexy Kunoichi- A female puppet, built to mimic human movement and appearance. Its wooden frame is covered with a material designed to mimic human flesh, which is normally used to test the effectiveness of various weapons and Jutsu. (Similar to ballistics gel) Replacement for Naruto's Sexy Jutsu, while not naked, it is wearing some revealing lingerie, which Naruto refuses to tell the source of. This puppet is NOT anatomically correct. (No, it is not a sex doll.) Used mainly as a distraction, and as a pervert trap.
