Ramen Doodles
By Andrew J. Talon
Disclaimer: I do not and probably never will own Naruto or any other copyrighted works mentioned in this story. I am not writing this for profit.
Author's Note: When I have writer's block, I often write a lot of random snippets of ideas, omakes, and continuations of other author's ideas that kind of petered out. As I'm afflicted with a bit of writer's block regarding Key Through the Heart (again), I've decided I'm not going to leave you guys in the lurch. Therefore, enjoy some writing I've been doing over at The Fanfiction Forum.
Here's some more of the Star Trek 2009/Naruto fusion idea, which MandalorianJedi wrote a significant part of. Enjoy!
As Naruto climbed up the ladder well, he realized his gravest mistake. Due to his Academic Review Board, and his subsequent grounding, he was not as familiar with the ship as he should be, given the fact that he was supposed to be leading the mission while under the watchful eye of his former teacher and newly promoted Captain, Iruka Umino. As such, part of the plan was for Sakura to guide him to wherever the Captain would be at any given time. Unfortunately, he had abandoned her in sick bay and would likely not be happy to see him at this very moment.
Still, he'd memorized the decks and the major departments. So, unless he was really screwed up in the head, the messhall should be right on this deck.
Thinking about the mess hall got him thinking about something else, or rather got him thinking with something else, namely his stomach, as he suddenly got the strangest craving for Ramen. It was strange for him because he never really liked Ramen all that much and now he felt as if he could put down nearly a dozen bowls in a single sitting.
So, he headed down the corridor for the messhall, keeping an eye on the section signs above the doors.
He was nearly to the double doors when a pair of security officers rounded the corner ahead. Naruto, thinking quickly, tapped the control panel for the door next to the mess and slipped in.
His senses were greeted with the cacophony of a kitchen in full swing, the full mess crew (all attractive young women, part of his mind noted) scurrying about.
Naruto's senses were sharper than ever on this day, however, as amongst the busy mess staff, he felt rather than saw or heard the foreign presence within the room. And while the presence didn't seem to have noticed him yet, it was heading in his direction. Out of reflex, more than anything else, his hands made a sign.
POOF!
"All I'm saying, Lieutenant, is that I understand you want to do a good job, but this is taking things a bit too far," an older brunette with a white cloth tied around her head was telling Sasuke. The woman he instantly recognized, even though part of his mind insisted they had never met before.
"And I am saying, Miss Ichiraku, that proper procedures are to be followed for all our provisions," Sasuke replied. He suddenly paused when he noticed one of the kitchen staff staring blankly at him and the Head Culinary Specialist. His eyes narrowed slightly, something was off about her, but he couldn't quite place it...
Ayame stared right at the staffer... And smiled.
"Now Naru-chan, I know he's very well groomed, but don't stare! He will only break your heart," she gently admonished.
Naruto sputtered out all sorts of denials while blushing profusely in embarrassment.
"Sorry, Cadet Lt. Uchiha, but I can't deal with this right now. Naruko is new, could you come back when we're less busy?" asked the pretty brunette. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard something, like an old memory, telling him her name was Ayame.
Sasuke looked at the girl in suspicion before finally acquiescing to Ayame's request. "Fine, I shall return at 2000 for a formal inspection of all Culinary Spaces, Equipment and Provisions."
"I will be ready, Cadet Lieutenant," Ayame said. She produced a tomato, and presented it to him. "Don't worry, I have run it through the spectrometer. It's perfectly safe."
He looked at her shrewdly for a moment before accepting the tomato. "Thank you." he said graciously, or as graciously as any other Vulcan would, before pushing his way past the blonde girl in the cooks uniform, blonde pigtails and whisker like birthmarks.
He existed through the back door, which shut with a hiss. Ayame moved up to Naruto, a knowing smile on her face.
"I was wondering when you would figure that one out," Ayame murmured. "Naruto..." She smirked playfully.
"Though you seem to have toned the bust and hips down a bit."
Naruto, or Naruko, as he was now being called, blushed inspite of him/herself.
POOF!
Naruto was pleased to see that he was back to his normal self.
No other members of the kitchen staff noticed, continuing to go about their Naruto found very unusual. He had the sneaking suspicion this woman had a hand in it, somehow.
"Ayame... Right?" Naruto addressed the young woman uncertainly. "Do you know what the heck is going on?"
Ayame smiled, and reached out to grasp his arm.
"Not here," she replied. "Follow me." She then proceeded to drag him into a nearby storeroom. Once inside, she took a deep breath and sighed.
"To be honest... I'm as confused by this as you are. I have never met you before, Naruto Uzumaki... But I know you. I know your favorite color is orange, you love ramen, you have always dreamed of becoming a great leader, who can protect those precious to him. I can sense something is amiss. I should know you, but I don't, and I can't quite place why," Ayame told him. "It's almost as if this, all of this, shouldn't be happening. Like it's... Wrong somehow..."
"Wrong?" Naruto asked. "So... What? I'm supposed to be capable of turning into boxes and hot girls on command?"
"And much more, Naruto," Ayame said. "Perhaps... It would know more than I do."
She gave him a hard look.
"But I wouldn't trust it. And neither should you."
Naruto quirked an eyebrow at the woman in a similar fashion to how he'd seen Itachi, Sasuke and Neji whenever they were puzzled by something.
Ayame sighed, and reached up to cup his cheeks. "So you do not know about that then... I'm not surprised. You didn't learn about it for a very long time..."
"I... I don't understand..." said Naruto confusedly, a slight blush peppering his cheeks due to the intimacy of her gentle, caressing touch.
"Neither do I," Ayame replied. "But I know... I always knew, but I don't know if I always knew before I met you."
She smiled apologetically. "There's only one way I can think of to explain this."
She let him go and walked over to a cabinet. She opened it, and produced a phaser.
"A-Ayame-chan...?" He wasn't sure that he liked where this was going. Not one bit.
"Don't worry, Naruto-kun," she said in a voice filled with warmth, affectionate and sensual. "I love you... So you should know," she set the phaser to kill, "I only do this out of that love."
"Now, now... Can't we talk this over..." Naruto tried desperately to reason with the seemingly deranged woman. "There are other ways to show your love..." He barely kept himself from blushing as in his mind's eye he could almost picture himself and the woman before him with the deadly weapon pointed at him performing some of those different ways with one another.
He spared a quick glance at the door, but he knew he'd never make it out of the room in time.
"Don't worry Naruto," Ayame said soothingly. "It'll be all right... It won't let you die. So... See you in a few." She fired, the beam connecting right with Naruto; dead center of his chest.
Naruto's eyes widened in an almost comical fashion. Despite knowing his death was imminent, it still took him by surprise. The last thing Naruto saw as his world faded into nothingness was the devastated look on Ayame's face, her warm tears hitting his rapidly cooling face as he slipped away into oblivion...
Which looked, strangely enough, like a dark, rusted sewer.
"She... She shot me!" Naruto exclaimed in shock as his mind tried to process what had happened.
"As usual, a master of the obvious, brat," growled a low voice behind him. He turned, and found himself staring through a gigantic steel gate, the doors held shut by a piece of paper with glowing symbols upon it.
Naruto was hit with an unexplainable sense of nostalgia and fury.
"I don't know who, or what, you are, and I don't give a damn," Naruto said angrily. "But I want some answers and I want them now!"
Out of the darkness beyond the gate, a woman appeared. Tall and beautiful, her long red hair cascaded down her back, her figure barely concealed by a long flowing kimono. Her eyes were blood red and slitted, and her cheeks bore whisker-like birthmarks identical to his own.
"It's been a long time, brat..." she greeted with malice.
"... Kyuubi," Naruto growled. "You goddamned fox bastard... Bitch... Whatever!"
"So you do remember," she said with a slight smirk, "Or at least, in part."
Kyuubi closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating on something.
"Yes... It's there, but still fragmented..."
"What the hell is going on?!" Naruto demanded, running right up to the gate. He slammed a fist against it. "What the hell did you do?!"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?!"
"I have done nothing," she replied, much to Naruto's confusion. "Already, you are in the middle of a dangerous game. If you can not force your feeble mind remember that which you have done, all will be lost. Time is no longer a luxury that exists for you."
She then turned her back on him, infuriating him further.
"What's that supposed to mean?! I've got two sets of memories in my head right now, and you know something about it! So TELL ME!"
"Figure it out yourself," Kyuubi ordered him. "Leave me. You are not ready."
With that, she sat down in a lotus position.
"Hey, don't ignore me you stupid bitch!" Naruto snarled. Suddenly the sewer was engulfed in sickly red chakra that was surprisingly full of hatred and malice. His confusing memories though came in handy, and he stood his ground, undaunted.
"TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW!" Naruto roared.
However, he was only met with silence.
And then without warning, he was assaulted by several images. Most were indecipherable, too jumbled to be interpreted properly. Others were clear, yet they faded as quickly as they appeared. He was assaulted with several images of his friends, though they looked far different than they did in the present time.
The memories blended together, a confused mess that darkened slowly together into forms around him. He blinked, and looked around his new surroundings.
Wherever he was, he definitely wasn't on the Konoha anymore... Yet, though he knew in his mind. this place, wherever it was, wasn't the Konoha, he was certain in his heart that it was Konoha.
And as suddenly as it appeared, the landscape changed. It became a fiery maelstrom of chaos and everything seemed to be washed away. Once more he saw flashes. Kyuubi, Pein, Sasuke, Madara... They were familiar and yet foreign to him... And once more he knew nothingness.
When he became cognizant once more, Naruto found himself surrounded by a veil of impenetrable darkness. He could hear voices crying out.
"Naruto... Bring Sasuke back..."
'Sakura..'
"How could you understand losing something YOU NEVER HAD TO BEGIN WITH?!"
'Sasuke...'
Naruto... I have watched you... And I… I love you…'
'Hinata...'
'You are within range of my divination!
'Neji...'
And so the process repeated itself over and over again. And even so, Naruto could not comprehend it. A whole life, a whole world intimately familiar... But so very alien.
Once more scenes assaulted him, though these were far more familiar.
His first trip to Vulcan, meeting Itachi and Sasuke.
His mother, always smiling for him but that sadness in her eyes when she looked at the stars.
His first romantic tryst with a then innocent, but very willing Ino.
The beginning of his friendship with Sakura, so nervous, so haughty but so caring underneath her tough exterior…
His entrance into the Starfleet Academy, meeting Commander Umino, Lt. Commander Hyuuga and Hinata.
And then he was there... A place he had only seen in photographs. People he knew, friends of the family, all younger and at various stations on the starship bridge around him.
Yet through the viewscreen he could swear he saw the forest stretching out beyond them, suddenly dark and ominous.
He could hear an evil laugh echoing all around him. It seemed to come from everywhere with no obvious source. The crew did not seem to react to the laughter, but a sudden tension settled over them.
"What have we got?" His heart froze in his chest at the voice, and he turned to see the source. A tall blonde man, standing behind the helmsman as they looked out into the abyss.
His bright blue eyes narrowed in confusion.
'Can't be…'
"Nothing sir... There's too much interference," one of the officers reported. "The distress beacon is still broadcasting..."
"Something isn't right here..." the blonde stated. "All hands, Yellow Alert!"
'It can't be…'
"Minato, I'm picking up something odd..." said another voice, one that Naruto was intimately familiar with. His mother, belly large and rounded by a child.
The ship shook, rattling as though struck by a god's hammer. Outside, the forest was filled with flame and death, the hull shattering under some unholy wrath.
"Shields up! Red Alert!" shouted Minato, "Return fire and take evasive action!"
It was already too late.
It was a fox, a nightmarish monster raking the ship with it's claws and terrible tails, that struck again and again. The gashes in the hull penetrated deep, causing much structural devastation. Phaser fire shot ineffectually into it's hide, and undaunted it continued to toy with the ship, batting it around as a lion played with a mouse. Photon torpedoes seemed to merely annoy it, only making its' attacks even more fierce than before. His father's jaw tightened as decks ahead were opened to space, his crew sucked out and cast into the abyss.
"SIR! Decks 5 through 12 breached, sections A through G! Warp drive is gone!" One officer reported amidst the chaos.
The fox leered at the tiny ship, it's malice heavy even across the emptiness of space.
Suddenly, one of the other crewmembers on the bridge let out a cry of pain.
"Kushina!" shouted Minato.
"The... The baby..." she rasped.
"Captain! We can't take any more-!"
It seemed as though the fox would shatter the tiny vessel, it's claws raised to bring down the killing blow, the chaos and fear and rage within the ship building to a crescendo that would take the lives of everyone within.
Then... It stopped.
The breaths of the crew were the loudest sounds on the bridge, as the fox paused, hesitating.
"Captain... We're... We're being hailed!" shouted one of the other bridge crewmembers. However, Minto wasn't listening, his entire focus was on his fiancée, who seemed to be in the beginning stages of labor.
"Sir!" The commsop repeated urgently.
"... Get a medic up here, fast," Minato said, trying to keep the conflict out of his voice.
"Open the channel..."
A man wrapped in darkness appeared on the viewscreen. His face was sharp, nose curved, giving him the air of a predatory bird. Minato's hand was in Kushina's strong grip as he addressed the attacking entity, while waiting for someone to take his wife and unborn child to someplace else. Anywhere else, as the sheer menace of the figure washed over them.
"This is Minato Namikaze, Captain of the USS Hiraishin of the United Federation of Planets. Why have you attacked us?"
"Minato... It's been a while..."
His voice was cold, and his face heavily obscured in the darkness, save for the single, red eye that looked upon them with malicious glee.
Minato's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?" he demanded.
His adversary merely let out an amused chuckle.
"I see you have done well for yourself... You always do find a way to climb to the top, don't you? Brave new world... Same old players. Oh, and dear Kushina! I was hoping to see you too. Still looking as radiant as ever, even in the midst of battle."
His eye narrowed. "Did I just push you into labor? Good! Then all three of us can have a nice little reunion..." He gasped in faux apology. "Oh, I mean, all four of us. We can't forget about little Naruto now, can we?"
Naruto's blood ran cold. He knew this man... It screamed at him, this familiarity. Once more the mysterious feeling returned and once more a word was whispered to him from far away.
Uchiha...
"Minato, here is what is going to happen," the man continued. "You will bring your little family to me. If you do... I may spare your crew and your charming little vessel."
Minato's mind worked quickly, Naruto could see it in his eyes. When he spoke, it was with forced calm.
"Our ship is crippled... It can't go anywhere. I can't leave my crew out here like this."
"Join me, and bring your precious family along, if you wished to see your crew spared from their inevitable fate," their attacker replied graciously. "I have waited so long and have come all this way. The least you can do is drop by for a pleasant little chat"
Minato held Kushina's hand. "I need a few hours to make the necessary arrangements," he said.
"Oh you can do better than that," the deranged man replied cheerfully in a sing song voice. "How about one. Hour?"
Minato slowly nodded. "That… Will suffice."
"Good!"
"Thank you," Minato said stiffly.
"Oh, it is the least I could do! And besides... What's one hour? We have so much to catch up on, all of us!" The channel closed.
"Sir," a silver-haired young man began. "You can't do this!"
"We're not giving up just yet, Lt. Hatake," Minato said quietly. "Kushina... Kushina, I know it hurts, but I need you to focus. All right?" He looked into his fiance's eyes. "What can you tell me about that ship?"
"It's far more advanced than anything we've ever encountered..." she replied through clenched teeth. "It's primary power source, weapons, shields... It's all powered by Chakra..."
"What kind?"
"I... I'm not sure... It's unlike anything we've encountered..." Kushina answered in exasperation. "Whatever it is, it's far more potent than the chakra found within humans and nature, and it seems as if his power supply is infinite."
Minato looked at the screen himself for a few minutes. A former science officer himself, he was seeing every detail, analyzing every variable.
"There's... There's something else..." She managed in between short, deep breaths.
"What?"
"The strange chakra... It appears to be... Alive," Kushina told them. "As if the ship was housing an entity composed almost completely of chakra..."
"How is that possible?" Wondered one crewmember.
"It shouldn't be," replied Lt. Hatake, "Chakra constructs are highly volatile and notoriously difficult to create. Maintaining one for any length of time is impossible, yet somehow he's managed it..."
"No, he's not just maintaining it, Kakashi," added Minato, "He's controlling it. Which might give us a way out of this," he finished thoughtfully.
"How?" asked Kakashi. Minato's azure eyes met Kushina's emerald ones. Her eyes widened in realization of what he had planned.
"... Lieutenant, get this ship ready for full evacuation. Kushina? I'm going to need every scrap of information you can get me on that thing. Is the main deflector still working?"
"Barely sir," an engineer replied, "but what are you-?"
"No time to explain, move, now!" Minato ordered.
"You... You can't seriously be thinking... It'll kill you!" Kushina hissed in a low voice that only the two of them could hear.
Minato smiled in that charmingly infuriating manner Naruto knew his mother had loved and hated with equal vigor. "Punishment for killing a superior officer is death by spacing, Kushina. I don't think that'd be too good for the baby, myself..."
The crew was moving around them, as his orders were relayed around the ship. The medics finally arrived.
"I think you're going to have to induce labor," Minato said. "We don't have a lot of time."
"Ah, yes sir," one of the medics replied.
The ship became busy, so very busy, anxiety tempered by professionalism driving them forward. Naruto saw it all, his mother moved down to the flight bay even as his infant self was struggling to be born, his father working furiously on calculations and sealwork he both knew and hadn't the faintest idea of.
Seals... It was an unrefined science that dealt specifically with chakra manipulation. Naruto hadn't bothered learning about them as it seemed like a rather useless skill to have. It was all theory and seemed to be a lot more like magic than an actual science.
However, as Naruto looked down as his father's calculations, both understanding and yet not comprehending them at all, he knew this was stuff far beyond what the Federation currently had.
An hour became five minutes, and the ship was packed up and ready to go. Amidst the anxious noise of the crew, a baby's cry pierced through the stuffy air on the bridge. His parents looked down upon him with pure love, as his tiny hands waved up, his eyes shut tightly as he wailed.
Somehow, instinctively, he knew what was gong to happen next.
"Here we go," Minato said softly, pressing a device to his infant son's belly. A seal appeared on his skin, flaring into existence in a flash of light.
"Sir, the hour is nearly up, what are your orders?" asked Lt. Hatake.
"... Get my wife to the shuttle, and get everyone out of here. I'll beam the boy to your shuttle, and stay behind to make sure he doesn't follow you," Minato said.
"Sir?" Kakashi asked uneasily.
"You heard me. Abandon ship," ordered Minato forcefully.
"You can't do this," Kushina said. "I-I won't let you..."
"Kushina..." Minato whispered softly. "Thank you..."
Kushina's eye's widened slightly before they began to droop.
"Min... Mina... to... Y-You bastard..."
"I love you too," the captain said softly.
Looking down at his fiancée's now unconscious body, he had a slight smile on his face. However, it held none of the warmth or compassion that was usually found on his features. It was resolution that now adorned his face. Resolution and resolve.
The communications console beeped. Minato reached over and touched it.
He spared one last glance at his wife-to-be as she was being carted of the bridge.
He then touched a control on the console.
"Time's up, Minato," the man said cheerfully, his visage grinning on the screen. "I've kept my end of the bargain, being a good boy and all. How about you?"
"Here it comes," Minato said softly. The programs he had created kicked in, and the icon of a toad with a sword appeared on the screen.
The Hiraishin's main deflector activated, sending a beam lashing out across the gap of space to strike the enemy vessel. A fox roared, and the forest was bathed in ethereal light. Having been separated from the ship, the fox had to quickly find some other way of being contained as the cold vacuum of space threatened to rip it to pieces. It immediately went after the first thing it saw, the USS Hiraishin.
Drawn through the deflector array, the terrible energies of the entity were channeled through the ship, directed and focused into a new vessel. Panels exploded and various pipes ruptured as the Hiraishin continued to act as a conductor of the Chakra Construct.
But none of this destructive energy harmed the baby Naruto, who wailed in fear, not pain, as the Kyuubi was locked away inside of him.
With a shaky breath, Minato keyed in the last part of his program.
"Youuuu… Minato… MINATO! I'LL-" The screen went black, cutting off the enemy's screams. The Hiraishin's remaining power was fed into the vessel's impulse drive, and the battered ship accelerated towards it's much larger foe.
Minato's focus only left the enemy ship for a brief second, and Naruto could swear he heard his father's thoughts. 'Naruto… Kushina… Please forgive me.'
Naruto vanished in a transporter beam, reappearing on one of the packed shuttles awaiting the order to depart in the vessel's hangar. Kakashi carefully gathered the screaming baby into his arms, and held him tightly.
"Get us out of here. All shuttles now, now, now," he ordered.
Hiraishin's entire airwing evacuated, dozens of shuttles flying out of the starship's shuttle bay.
At the same moment, the starship's phaser batteries opened fire and her remaining photon torpedoes were launched into it's adversary.
Already, Naruto could see other chakra entities-Other Bijuu-fleeing the ship, leaving its power drained. But, the warship was not defenseless. One of the fleeing bijuu tore right through the Hiraishin, giving the unknown ship the opening it needed.
Its weapons razed the vessel, turning it into a burning wreck as radiating plasma and atmosphere vented from every breach. Without it's power sources, the ship lay bare in front of Naruto-No monster no longer, no demon-Just an enemy.
However, the fleeing shuttles were still no match for it, and even if they were, the ship was well hidden by the explosion of the Hiraishin as it made its' retreat back into unknown space, the radiated debris hiding it from their sensors.
Naruto watched every moment from the bridge, from the forest, from the retreating shuttles...
His father's stoic visage, carried even into death as his ship was consumed by the collision.
The enraged screams of the enemy commander.
The cries of his infant self who was inconsolable in the arms of Lt. Hatake.
And his mother, in a fitful, sedative induced state, as though having a nightmare about the reality occuring around her.
He bowed his head, finding himself staring at the rusty floor of the Kyuubi's prison.
"Wh-What... The hell... Was that..." Naruto asked while gasping for air, his face covered in sweat.
"I'd call it your past. What, didn't you recognize it?" The Kyuubi asked coldly.
"Smart ass..." Naruto growled. "What... How did that happen... And the other stuff... What was all that stuff..."
The Kyuubi shot him a contemptuous look. "You have a brain, as underdeveloped as it is. You have all the information you need from two lifetimes."
The demon's eyes narrowed mockingly.
"You figure it out. For now..." Naruto felt the red chakra sieze him, the familiar sensation of being forced back into consciousness filling him.
Naruto closed his eyes against the onslaught of red chakra, only to find himself laying down on the floor, a not uncomfortable weight on his chest, despite the soreness from the phaser burn, and a slightly stiff body. As he became more and more aware of his surroundings, he could hear the sobbing of a young woman. In that instant, he wanted to do nothing more than to comfort her, to make her not sad. Unfortunately for him, his body still wasn't quite responding as he wanted it to.
'Take this gift... Your life... Try not to waste it so readily this time,' the Kyuubi hissed in the back of his mind.
"Fox... Bitch…" Naruto mumbled.
"N-Naruto?" Ayame asked shakily.
"Hey..." Naruto replied. He tried to smile, he really did, but he was barely capable of moving on his own at the moment, though he was beginning to regain it little by little.
"You... shot me..."
"Sorry," Ayame said softly. "I-I wouldn't have done it if I didn't think you'd be okay... Did... Did it help?"
"It kind of explains some things... But I have a lot more questions now, than answers..." Naruto told her.
Ayame sniffled, and smiled at him. "W-Well... Something good came out of it then..." She hugged him tightly, and gave him a brief kiss. "Mwah!" She grinned and giggled.
"You know, if you wanted a kiss that badly, you could have just asked," Naruto joked as he was badly to sit up on his own with a bit of help from Ayame.
"Mou, that takes all the fun out of it," Ayame pouted.
Naruto chuckled as he absently rubbed the area where she shot him. What he found, or father didn't find, rather startled him.
There wasn't a single blemish, no scarring or even the slightest hint of burnt skin. Sure, his shirt was ruined but that was all.
Ayame smiled. "Knew it..."
"Strange... I've always healed fast, but nothing like this..." Naruto noted.
"Well... You didn't get shot with a phaser before," Ayame said.
A thought immediately hit Naruto like aforementioned phaser blast. The Konoha's internal sensors should have picked it up.
"Shit... I need to get out of here!"
He leaped to his feet and hit the door control.
Which opened, revealing the face of the one man Naruto was hoping to avoid.
Sasuke!
Yeah, it's a bit more weird here but hopefully it's still pretty good. Though I'll leave that up to you.