Disclaimer: None of the below is mine.
AN: Well, decided to make a new story that will hopefully be more crack/funny than anything. Going by my track record that'll probably change but let's see how long that'll take.
A walk back home from the Academy changes everything when a certain Shinobi decides enough is enough.
A spiky haired blonde child was, as was depressingly common for him, alone.
After a failed attempt to ditch his Academy lessons for the day and after Iruka-sensei had finished with his latest lecture on the importance of them, he had said goodbye to Kiba, Shikamaru, and Choji when their parents had shown up to take them away.
He didn't like thinking of them like this, but he was envious of what they had. He saw Shikamaru get pulled away by his mom by his ear, saw Kiba literally dragged off by his mom and sister for ditching, saw Choji get a lecture from his dad, he felt nothing good knowing he was just going back to an empty apartment. Sure, he had the Hokage to talk to, Iruka-sensei had half lectured him and half just talked to him over his skipping, and he always could go see Teuchi and Ayame at Ramen Ichiraku but it just wasn't the same.
As much as he had people close to him, they weren't parents. He couldn't call them Mom and Dad, know that they would always be there for him like he had seen for the other kids.
He…
"I'm just making myself sad…" One of his hands moved up to the green goggles he wore, adjusted them. He rubbed at his watering eyes. "I'm the next Hokage…I can't just start crying because of stuff like this…" He was muttering to himself as he began the walk home.
He was Naruto Uzumaki, the Hidden Leaf's next Hokage! Once he was Hokage, nobody would ignore him because people had to know who the Hokage was.
He sniffled. Definitely not because he was sad. He was just clearing his nose from other stuff. He got some dirt and stuff in it when he was running from Iruka-sensei. That was it. Same with his eyes. He must have gotten some dirt in them too since he had to rub them again.
He wasn't crying though.
"I'm gonna be Hokage. Believe it." He didn't shout it, was saying it more to himself than anyone else.
Not like people really paid attention to him that much. It was more like all the grown ups just went out of their way to treat him like he wasn't there unless he was pulling off an awesome prank. Since he was the future Hokage, he had to make sure people knew he was around, knew that he would be able to know everything like Old Man Hokage. That obviously included the best pranks and the best spots to do them at.
He wiped at his eyes again.
He continued on his way.
"I'm not gonna be sad about that stuff…I'm the next Hokage…" He was repeating himself, treating it almost like a mantra.
Anyone who looked at the blonde didn't need much to tell how much his situation got to him. The slump in his shoulders, the way the normally exuberant blonde was more occupied with the ground at his feet, the fact that he seemed more occupied with kicking at a stray rock on the road every now and then than anything else.
He couldn't deny how upset he was no matter what he said to himself, how he tried to make the situation better by thinking of his dream.
Most simply ignored the blonde, continued on their way. They were content to act as if he didn't exist, as if by ignoring his presence that he would go away sooner rather than later. The strategy had been employed for years now, had become just another part of life for most of the adults of the village.
For most.
One man had seen enough of the blonde's despair.
He hadn't been able to see a lot but he had seen enough.
He even knew what it was like to be looked like as if you were lesser than another, judged by others for his failings again and again. He had been deemed a failure just like many of the blonde's fellow students considered him, had been told his dream of being a Shinobi was hopeless, that no matter the hard work and determination he showed he would never amount to anything.
He had proven such words wrong not because of himself, had the help of others.
Seeing the blonde now, seeing the despair so visible on him, he could so easily relate.
The blonde was, in a way, like him.
Except he didn't have a father to endlessly support him, to look to for guidance and light in the darkest of times.
The boy had been denied such a thing from the night of his birth, had been left orphaned on a night of tragedy many sought to blame him for.
He couldn't stand to let this continue any longer. If no one else would support this growing branch of the Hidden Leaf's next generation, he would.
If he was to call him the Hidden Leaf's Noble Green Beast than he must show it was not an empty title!
"GREETINGS NARUTO UZUMAKI!" At the loud shout, Naruto nearly jumped out of his sandaled, ended up on his butt as he met a sudden wall of green in front of him. Blue eyes could only look up at the smiling Shinobi in front of him. "I, Konoha's very own Sublime Green Beast, couldn't help but hear your words!"
"…What?" All the blonde could really see were the absolute units calling themselves eyebrows on the man's face. He half expected them to have a mouth, start talking with the same loud voice as the man in front of him was.
"No need to be confused!" The Shinobi noticed he wasn't getting up and saw dropped down to be more on his level, his smile never dimming. "I simply want to offer you something Naruto Uzumaki!"
"…Gramps told me not to talk to strangers…" Naruto didn't know if that rule applied right now.
The guy in front of him was sort of familiar. He knew he was a Shinobi, had seen him going back and forth from the Hokage Office either when he was ditching class or when Iruka-sensei was dragging him in for ditching. He didn't know his name but he could at least kind of recognize him.
"My apologies!" The Shinobi rose back to his full height, jabbed his thumb into the Flak Jacket he wore opened over his green jumpsuit. "My name is Might Guy, Jonin of the Hidden Leaf and a fellow apprentice of the school of hard work!"
Now Naruto was just confused, at least got up off the ground so he could stand up and be confused instead of just laying down.
He at least recognized the name.
It wasn't from the best circumstances but he recognized it.
"You're that guy everybody calls crazy!" He pointed a finger at him.
"Indeed I am! I'm crazy when it comes to hard work! When it comes to determination, standing back up no matter how many times I fall down, I am crazy!" Guy seemed to wear such words with pride, take such comments in stride. "If that makes me crazy, I'll happily accept it!"
"…Man, you really are crazy." Naruto couldn't deny that he was kind of curious about what the crazy man with the crazy eyebrows wanted. "So what do you want?" He folded his arms behind his head, squinted up at him courtesy of the sun setting behind him.
"I'm glad you asked!" Might Guy's smile didn't dim but, in a way, his demeanor became more serious, more earnest. "I've seen enough to know you're considered a failure like I was, a no talent kid destined to fail again and again." His words made Naruto look away, made the blonde shrink a little.
Sure, he had heard it all before, had heard it from other kids all the time inside and outside of the Academy, but never from a Shinobi like Might Guy.
"I've been there, just like you. I failed the Entrance Exam, had to work hard to get in and even harder to keep pace, had to work harder no matter how often I failed again and again. Yet I continued to pick myself up, continued to train day in and day out until I succeeded. Just like you try again and again." It wasn't the words of the Shinobi that made Naruto look up at him. It was how he said them, the honesty in them.
He wasn't just saying stuff, wasn't just telling him he had failed to make him feel better.
He had experienced it just as much as Naruto himself had, perhaps even more.
"The only difference between the two of us is that I had my father to guide me." At the reminder of what he had lacked all his life, Naruto's expression that had dared to be hopeful fell. Guy noticed.
He once more dropped down to the child's level, made the child look at him, see the earnest expression on his face.
"It is a fact of life that no one who has achieved greatness achieved such a thing on their own. It is undeniable that someone must be there as the teacher to pass on knowledge to the student, to coax the flames of youth that lie within into a mighty blaze. That is why I want to help you Naruto Uzumaki." Might Guy made his offer with those words, held out his hand.
Blue eyes could only stare at the offered hand.
That someone was willing to help him, that someone could be so earnest about it, was a shocker to him.
Iruka-sensei offered to help him but that was because he was a teacher. He offered to help everyone.
No one had ever really offered to help him before because they wanted to. It was always more because they had to.
Before Iruka-sensei had showed he was different from the other teachers, he had thought no one ever would help him because they wanted to.
He stared at the offered hand, what it meant.
He reached out and took it.
He smiled.
"You got a deal Eyebrow-sensei!"
"Excellent!" Guy perhaps shook Naruto's hand with too much exuberance, nearly knocked the child off his feet as he rose back to his full height. "Then we can begin immediately!"
"What?"
And so Naruto Uzumaki started his tutelage under Might Guy!
Sometimes practice just won't change anything.
"Snake." Fingers interlocked, left thumb carefully placed on the outside.
"Ram." Hands joined vertically, thumbs tucked in, left ring and little finger placed on top.
"Monkey." Hands flat together with right over left, thumbs placed flat over little fingers.
"Boar." Hands straight down, near but not quite ninety degrees bend at the wrist, all fingers flat and curled inward.
"Horse." Elbows out, index fingers forming a triangle, remaining fingers staggered with right on top of left, thumbs slightly bent on the side of the hand.
"Tiger." Index and thumb straight up, remaining fingers interlocked. Start on the left middle finger to end on the right pinkie.
"Snake. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger." The child on the docks verbalized each seal as he performed them. "Snake. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger." He repeated the process, as he had for the past hour. "Snake. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger."
The execution was flawless from long hours of practice. His form was perfect from those same long hours of practice.
"Snake. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger."
"Snake. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger."
"Snake. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger."
He repeated them again. He prepared the Chakra he intended to use for the technique, felt it swell.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball!" He called out the name of the attack and breathed out nothing.
He couldn't even manage sparks, smoke.
He stopped himself from doing something like crying.
His failure just meant he did something wrong again.
He could fix it.
He just needed to do it again. He needed to be perfect like he should've been last time.
Or the time before that.
Or the time before that.
Or the time before that.
Or yesterday.
Or last week.
Or last month.
Or three months ago.
Or six months ago.
He was just doing something wrong again.
His Tiger was clearly too slow.
His Ram obviously needed work.
His Horse was atrocious.
His Monkey was laughable.
His Snake was just as awful as his Horse.
His Tiger must've been off.
He just needed more practice. That was clearly the issue.
He set himself to repeat his Hand Seals in full, perform all twelve so he didn't get sloppy with any of the others. He could spend another hour out here on the pier. It was no problem for him to spend another two hours out here on the pier, it wasn't an issue for him to spend another three hours out at the pier. It didn't matter how long it took him to do this. He had to get this right, had to find whatever his mistake was and fix it.
"Snake. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger."
He breathed in, kneaded the Chakra like he had been taught.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!" His mistake was clearly not using the full name. It interrupted his Chakra flow, interrupted his breath to not say the whole thing. It set everything off, made him mess up such a simple technique as this.
He breathed out nothing but air.
He had just messed something up again.
It was obvious that he was doing something wrong.
He just needed to find it. He just needed to go back to the basics of the simple technique again.
"Snake. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger. Snake. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger. Snake. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger." He needed to work on his Hand Seals instead, had to find what he was doing wrong so he could fix it. He could move on to Nature Transformation once he mastered the Hand Seals, work on Shape Transformation once he mastered the Nature Transformation.
He just needed to take this one step at a time. He had been trying to rush things again. He was an idiot to try and rush things, nothing but stupid to try and rush things when he knew he still didn't have the basics down. He was being stupid like he always was, wasting everyone's time when he kept trying to rush things.
He shouldn't try again until he went over the others, until he was sure he could do this right.
He needed to go over all twelve Hand Seals like Itachi would have.
He should go in order. He was clearly confusing one for another, was disrupting the flow of Chakra for his technique. It would be such a simple mistake that he would keep repeating again and again. He should've known better than to think he memorized it.
He wasn't good enough to memorize a sequence that long yet. He had overestimated himself, tried to copy Itachi without putting the work in.
"Monkey." Hands flat together with right over left, thumbs placed flat over little fingers.
"Dragon." Thumbs bent with left over right, stagger fingers from right to left, extend little fingers and join at the tip.
"Rat." Left little and ring finger curled down into palm, right hand wrapped around index and middle, left thumb left exposed.
"Bird." Thumbs curled inward at the proper angle and touching, careful with the placement of the fingertips, middle fingers touching the opposite palm with left ahead of the right.
"Snake." Fingers interlocked, left thumb carefully placed on the outside.
"Ox." Left hand vertical, right hand horizontal, start with right little finger, left middle and ring laid on top of right hand.
"Dog." Left hand flat over right fist, careful of the angles.
"Horse." Elbows out, index fingers forming a triangle, remaining fingers staggered with right on top of left, thumbs slightly bent on the side of the hand.
"Tiger." Index and thumb straight up, remaining fingers interlocked. Start on the left middle finger to end on the right pinkie.
"Boar." Hands straight down, near but not quite ninety degrees bend at the wrist, all fingers flat and curled inward.
"Ram." Hands joined vertically, thumbs tucked in, left ring and little finger placed on top.
"Hare." Right on top of left, little finger against thumb, gently curl fingers.
He had clearly made a mistake somewhere.
"Monkey. Dragon. Rat. Bird. Snake. Ox. Dog. Horse. Tiger. Boar. Ram. Hare." This was his fault for trying to skip ahead, to skip the Hand Seals he had spent hours practicing on and letting himself get so sloppy. He should've known better, spent a few hours practicing them before trying the Great Fireball Technique.
"Monkey. Dragon. Rat. Bird. Snake. Ox. Dog. Horse. Tiger. Boar. Ram. Hare." Sasuke Uchiha continued to repeat the Hand Seals he had long since memorized, had perfected from tireless hours of training with his brother as his guide.
He refused to accept that he was sure a poor son, such a poor member of the Uchiha Clan, that he couldn't even produce a single flame.
He was better than this. He could do this.
He just needed to practice again. Practice until he got it right like his dad had told him, like his mom had told him, like everyone but Itachi had told him.
Practice. Practice. Practice.
He just needed to find what he was doing wrong and fix it.
There had to be a way to fix it.
"Snake. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger." He must've been using too little Chakra so he put all of his Chakra into this one, knew he had finally fixed his mistake.
He would do it this time. He wouldn't mess up again, he wouldn't get something wrong.
He would finally be a man in the eyes of his parents, the rest of his Clan.
He could feel it. He knew he had finally fixed it, had finally done it.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
He breathed out a blizzard.
Overcoming artist's block.
Dark eyes stared at the blank page in front of him.
His brush had been ready for a moment before this sudden bout of stagnation had struck. He had been staring at this blank page for hours now. He had set his brush down, let the ink flow back down into its source drop by drop. A part of him realized he would need to clean the brush later, would need to be thorough in preparing his equipment.
For now, he continued to stare down at the blank page in front of him.
"I don't understand the problem." He spoke to no one but himself, vocalized his thoughts instead of keeping them contained within. "I've never had this inability to draw before."
The assignment was abundantly clear, as simplified as any of his assignments for ROOT could ever be.
This inability should've been an impossibility.
His training had been designed to render such a thing impossible.
He was capable of completing his assigned drawing when impaired by drugs, poison, blood loss, traumatic head injuries, and any number of other things. He had been trained to draw, to make use of the Ninjutsu the Super Beast Imitating Draw under the most stressful of situations, the most severe of conditions. He should have already finished this assignment and continued with his interrupted rest, prepare himself for tomorrow.
Yet he was unable to do anything.
He could only continue to stare down at the blank page in front of him.
He considered putting the book away, return to it after a short rest, but he quickly cast aside the idea.
It would be useless.
Rest was not the issue.
The issue wasn't a physical one, wasn't the result of some injury or illness.
He knew it was emotional in nature.
Danzo Shimura had instructed him to construct a dossier on ROOT's newest crop of recruits, the children who would, if they survived their training, become victims of each other by the end of it. They would complete the training all other ROOT agents but he and Shin had completed, would become nothing but soulless machines for the will of Danzo Shimura, living tools for him to use and discard as he wished.
He was to be the leader of them all, instruct them in the ways of the organization, prepare them for the future of darkness they would live. Danzo had been clear in his orders, had offered no alternative, no other options but the one he himself had decided on.
A part of him understood what was happening to him, a part that not even Danzo's torturous training could destroy. A part buried so deep within him that it was hard to say he was consciously aware of its presence.
He was feeling emotions from this event, emotions he was supposed to have discarded as Danzo had commanded him to during his training.
"My incomplete training." It was not a question. It was a fact. Neither he nor Shin had managed to complete the training assigned to them as children, had been unable to battle the other as their training commanded.
Shin had been too ill to continue.
Shin had been deemed a failure of Danzo to dispose of.
He remembered protesting the decision, leveraging his skills for Shin's life, his successes for Shin's survival.
The memories were vague, hard to piece together, but he believed Danzo accepted the deal.
As long as he continued to perform at a level deemed superior to other agents, Shin would be able to live, would continue to receive care from ROOT facilities.
He had been cast out of the program, had been discarded as one would discard a broken tool, and his survival was dependent on him.
He could only continue to stare down at the blank pages in front of him.
He turned his eyes to the stack of pictures located at his side, the children he would be responsible for making up the stack.
His emotions weren't nullified, weren't discarded.
He had suppressed them.
He had suppressed them until this very moment.
He found he was incapable of suppressing them any further.
He reached down to the table, closed the blank book.
He rose from his seat, cast empty black eyes around the empty room around him.
With this failure, this inability to continue to suppress his emotions, his life would become meaningless. Danzo would see him discarded, would see Shin properly discarded as a useless asset if he no longer insured his cooperation during ROOT assignments.
He took in the barren walls, the bare bed, the mostly empty dresser.
He walked over to the picture book placed there.
The page he opened it to was memorized, was at the center of the book.
He and Shin standing together, holding hands. A sign of their friendship, a sign of their trust. Where the other pages had been filled with violence, their opponents during training, this one was pure of such taint.
It showed friends together with one another.
He stared at it.
His own painted face stared back, a smile he was unfamiliar with on it. The same painted smile covered Shin's face as well. The eyes on the paper looked more alive than his own, exhibited a humanity he had long come to accept he would lack in this life of empty shadows.
He stared down at the picture.
Something was in his chest.
Not fear. Fear wasn't an emotion he was without and he knew it well. This was different.
It wasn't grief either. It wasn't worry, anxiety. He had felt them when he thought about Shin, when he had been allowed brief visits to his friend.
It wasn't panic. He had become unable to feel panic. The fear that would bring it was replaced with cold rationale, with focus, once the emotion passed.
It was something he was so unfamiliar with, that he hadn't felt since the day he had decided to finish this picture book.
It was…
He didn't know what to call it.
It was as if a fire had been lit within him, would serve to fuel his accomplishment to reach a goal, to fulfill a mission. It was the ability to see a difficult assignment through to the end, to overcome whatever hurdle laid in front of him.
"What is this?" He was hesitant to allow a pale ungloved hand to touch his chest, allow it to feel his beating heart.
He wasn't under any physical strain at the moment, didn't understand why his chest felt so strange.
It shouldn't be possible for him to feel whatever this was.
It didn't make sense to him.
This feeling was so strange.
He stared at his hand.
It had moved from his chest but was no longer flat.
He had formed a fist.
"What is happening to me?" He stared at his hand as he felt something.
There was a desire within him.
There was a thing called determination in him, burning forth from the few embers of the soul one man had tried to break, had tried to cast into a mold of his own making.
There was suddenly a fury within him.
"No." He spoke the single word. He looked once more to the picture book, the sign of the fate he had once changed.
"This will be no different." He returned to the table.
He did not draw pictures to add to dossiers. He didn't draw to add to the soulless files ROOT maintained on all agents.
He refused to allow these children to suffer like he had, to serve as a broken testaments to the training of Danzo Shimura.
He drew the life he had seen in them instead, the life he would see remain in them no matter the cost to he himself.
If he could save Shin's life with his skills, with his devotion to ROOT, there was no reason he could not do the same for these children.
He would see to it that each of them were allowed the same life he had given Shin.
He would undertake whatever darkness Danzo commanded of him, bear whatever twisted burden placed on his shoulders without complaint.
But he wouldn't allow this.
Not again. Not when he had the chance to change it.
No. Not when he would change it.
He had done it before. He would do it again.