Title: Naruto: Dual Chronicles
Rating: T (PG-13) for violence, language, and sexual themes.
Summary: It's the story of Naruto that you all know, except one small detail: he has a twin. His sister joins him on his adventures and has some of her own! An adventure with a bit of romance and a lot of funny!
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto (either manga or anime!); the wonderful Masashi Kishimoto-sensei owns all rights. However, the plot and Namiko Uzumaki are mine!
Chapter 3: Before It's Official…
While Naruto was off with his new teammates meeting their sensei, Namiko headed to meet her own team. 'Why am I so nervous? I've been in the same class as Hinata-chan and Inuzuka-san since we were six years old. Maybe it's because I'm not relying on my book knowledge anymore. I'll have to actually consistently perform well outside the classroom.' Namiko sighed and saw Hinata standing ahead of her with a boy with a fur jacket and a small dog, whom Namiko recognized as Inuzuka Kiba. 'I probably should call him Kiba-kun; Hinata-chan is right, no need to be quite so formal with teammates.'
"Namiko-chan, did you find Na-Na-Naruto-kun?" Hinata asked bashfully, tucking her head.
Namiko smiled back, biting back a giggle. "I did. I honestly feel bad for his teammates because they won't have me to keep him in line. He's already caused chaos and it's only day one!"
Just as Kiba was about to speak, the three genin heard someone clear their throat and they all turned around to see a beautiful jounin with thick, wild dark brown hair and crimson eyes. "Hello Team 8, I'm your sensei, Yuuhi Kurenai. Why don't we all sit down and introduce ourselves? Tell me your age, birthday, favorite food, what you like to do, and why you wanted to be a shinobi."
All four shinobi sat down, and Kurenai continued, "I'll start. You three can just call me Kurenai-sensei. I'm twenty-seven years old and my birthday is June 11. I'm obviously a jounin, and I specialize in genjutsu. I like takowasa, but I'm not a fan of sweets. In my free time, I tend to go drinking with old friends. I grew up in a shinobi family, so I've always wanted to be one too. Hinata? Tell us about you."
Hinata's eyes widened, and she froze for a moment. 'Why me first? Okay, Kurenai-sensei, I know you've been wanting me to step out of my comfort zone, so here goes.' Hinata closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before speaking, "M-m-my name is Hyuuga Hinata. I'm twelve years old and my birthday is December 27. I have a little sister named Hanabi who is five years younger than me. I like cinnamon rolls and zenzai, but I don't like seafood much. I spend most of my free time training. I want to be a shinobi because I want to prove to my family that I can be strong too."
"Good job." Kurenai smiled warmly at the girl. "Okay, now you," she said gesturing to Kiba.
"Who me?" Kiba questioned and Kurenai motioned for him to continue. He smiled brightly. "I'm Inuzuka Kiba, and this here is my ninken, Akamaru," he pointed to a small white dog sitting on his head, "I'm twelve years old and Akamaru is three years old. We both share a birthday, July 7! He's my best friend. I have an older sister, Hana. I like meat a lot, basically anything chewy. My free time is spent with Akamaru; we go on walks and train together all the time! And I wanted to become a ninja so I could become Hokage!"
"And last but not least," Kurenai said, looking at Namiko with a smile.
Namiko paused and looked at the three shinobi before her before starting, "I'm Uzumaki Namiko. I'm twelve years old and my birthday is October 10. Of course, you know Naruto is my twin older brother …"
"Wait, I thought twins were the same?" interrupted Kiba.
Namiko blinked at the question and then answered. "No, some twins are identical meaning they tend to look the same and they're the same sex, but Naruto and I are fraternal twins. Fraternal twins can be as different from each other as day and night."
"Kiba, try not to interrupt others when talking. Continue please, Namiko," Kurenai urged and Kiba blushed lightly from embarrassment.
"Right," Namiko started again, "my favorite foods are gyoza and strawberry mochi, and I eat almost anything, but I don't like matcha. When I have time to myself, I like to read books or draw, and I like being outside just watching nature. I wanted to be a shinobi so I can help support Naruto and also be more independent."
Kurenai smiled as she stood up. "Okay, now that we know a little more about each other, we are going to test out your skills and if you're all good enough, I'll accept you as my official team. Understood?"
Everyone nodded as they stood, and Kiba asked, "What's the test?"
"I'm getting to that," Kurenai waved her hand dismissively and chuckled, "you're definitely an impatient one, Kiba. Anyways, I specifically asked for you three for a reason. Can anyone figure out why?"
The three genin looked at each other for a few moments and shrugged when they didn't see a connection.
Kurenai nodded once, "The three of you showed great promise as a tracking and espionage team. Hinata has the Byakugan which helps her see large distances and through objects, as well as see chakra. Kiba, you and Akamaru do well with tracking through scent. And Namiko, you showed lots of promise when it came to chakra sensing. Put all three of you together, and I think you'll be one of the top tracking squads out there.
"I've hidden three objects on this large training ground. Hinata, you're trying to find a red senbon. Kiba, you're looking for a kunai with a blue band. Namiko, I want you to find a white flower that I've imbedded with my chakra. You will all have to push through and use your strengths while I will be trying to stop you from finding the objects. If you find someone else's object, leave it alone. Got it? Good. Now search! You have two hours or you fail."
Kiba smirked and took off running into the trees with Akamaru close behind. Hinata activated her Byakugan and started walking through the brush, looking closely for her senbon.
Namiko stood still, panicked. 'How am I supposed to find this? I can sense chakra in a person, but a flower? I'll never find this. I'm going to fail!'
Kurenai drew a kunai. "Namiko, it's important to remember that you won't be always able to be still when you track. So maybe I need to give you a little motivation…" With that, the genjutsu user lunged forward towards the redhead, successfully knocking her out of her daydream.
Namiko yelped in surprise then withdrew a kunai and fought back, blocking Kurenai's attacks, but unable to be on the offensive. Namiko tried to formulate a plan while dodging her sensei, 'Okay, Namiko, focus on Kurenai-sensei's chakra. Memorize her chakra signature. Burn its feeling permanently into your mind. Got it! Now…where is that flower? Wait, first I need to get away from Kurenai-sensei so I can actually search.' Namiko pushed back far enough after their last hits between kunai, turned and ran into the woods to get away from Kurenai to collect herself and search for the flower.
Namiko had bolted so fast away from Kurenai, she seemed to almost dissolve into thin air. 'I should have known she'd be fast. Just like her father. No surprise there at all…' thought Kurenai as she looked towards the place the young girl was last seen, 'Not bad, Namiko, not bad at all.'
Hinata wandered slowly through the bushes, scanning with her Byakugan carefully. 'I don't see a senbon anywhere. How am I supposed to find something so small? This is like trying to find a needle in a haystack!'
She sighed and sat down in the thick grass to collect herself, deactivating her Byakugan. 'I know Kurenai-sensei wants to push us, but how am I going to find this? I don't think I can pinpoint a chakra signature that small, and that's assuming she did put chakra on the senbon.'
Hinata took a deep breath and stood, reactivating her Byakugan. 'I know what Kurenai-sensei's chakra signature looks like, so I just have to look for signs of her chakra, right?' She scanned the wooded area, and then noticed a familiar chakra about a hundred meters away from her in what seemed to be an open field.
Hinata smiled and ran towards the signature, but as she neared it, she was disappointed to find that the signature wasn't on a senbon, but on a white flower. A white flower that was all alone.
'This must be what Namiko-chan is supposed to find, but we're not supposed to touch it. I want to help her though,' she thought as she knelt near the flower, 'What do I do now?'
Namiko climbed up a tree to get a better view of the training grounds around her. 'Maybe up here I can get a more wide-spread sense of where that flower is,' she thought, closing her eyes for a moment in concentration, 'Okay, I sense Kurenai-sensei's chakra strongest over there, which is where I came from. Now to look for the same signature elsewhere. …wait…why do I sense three smaller chakra signatures of hers. Shouldn't there only be one? Unless…she put her chakra signature on all three of the objects we were to find in order to confuse us.'
Namiko let out an audible groan, took a breath and focused again, 'Which direction should I go? I sense Hinata-chan's signature over to the right near one of the signatures which means she probably found that senbon, and Kiba-kun's signature is coming up close on another of Kurenai-sensei's signatures behind me, probably because he and Akamaru can smell his object. That leaves the signature to my left as the most likely choice. Here we go…'
With that, she leapt out of the tree towards the lone copy of Kurenai's chakra.
Kiba and Akamaru raced toward the scent of iron. "Akamaru, slow down, it should be right around here," Kiba said, slowing down to a walk. He didn't see the kunai lying around like he thought he would, but he saw a red gleam in the grass. He bent down to pick it up and noticed it was a red senbon.
He took a heavy sniff of it, "It's covered in blood. More specifically, Kurenai-sensei's blood. This is what Hinata is supposed to find. I guess we should just take it to her, right Akamaru?" The small dog yipped in agreement and the two took off towards Hinata's scent.
Namiko arrived where she'd sensed the lone chakra signature. She looked around and saw a kunai stuck in a tree, just a little higher than eye level, with a blue band on it.
Namiko sighed. 'Of course it would be my luck that it's not mine that I find. I would take it to him, but we're not supposed to touch another's object. I could just tell him where it is though!'
She took off running towards where Hinata was, since it seemed like Kiba was headed toward the Hyuuga as well. She arrived at Hinata the same time as Kiba. "Hey Kiba-kun, I found your kunai!" Namiko said with a smile.
Kiba looked a little dumbfounded. "Why didn't you bring it with you?"
"Because if we found someone else's object, we weren't supposed to take it. What's that?" she asked, pointing to his closed hand.
Kiba grinned sheepishly. "Oops…uh, here, Hinata…" he held out the senbon, not making eye contact with either girl.
Namiko face palmed. 'Oh my gosh, that's such a Naruto move. Not listening to instructions at all.'
"Ki-Kiba-kun, thank you for finding my object." asked Hinata, taking the senbon from him and pointed behind him, "Namiko-chan, I believe the flower you're looking for is right over there."
"Thanks, Hinata-chan," Namiko walked over and picked the flower that was radiating Kurenai's chakra signature, thinking for a moment, "At this point, we've probably failed, but we might as well complete the mission even if we didn't do it the 'right' way. Kiba-kun, the kunai is right where I found it. I can show you the way."
Kiba nodded once. "Lead the way."
The three shinobi ran to where Namiko had found the kunai, only to see Kurenai standing right next to it. "I see someone didn't listen to the instructions all the way." Kurenai crossed her arms over her chest.
Kiba hung his head. "Sorry, sensei. Does this mean we fail?"
Kurenai smiled, "No, exactly the opposite. You found all three objects in record time, just under five minutes. I wanted to see if you three would work together to solve your problems, especially since I purposely tried to confuse you three."
"I knew it," Kiba said, straightening up. "I picked up your scent, but I didn't realize the scent was from your blood at first. You used it to coat the senbon and make me go after that and throw me off."
Kurenai winked. "Exactly. However, you three have passed the test, making us an official team."
The three new teammates smiled at each other. Kiba threw his arms around his two young teammates. "This is going to be a beautiful relationship!"
Namiko shoved his hand off her shoulder, rolling her eyes, while Hinata just side-stepped causing him to fall to the ground. Everyone laughed except Kiba, who was busy picking himself off the ground with a nice shade of pink dusting his cheeks.
'I think this will be a great friendship indeed,' thought Namiko as she glanced around, 'Maybe not being with Naruto won't be so bad after all…'
"Then Sasuke actually shared his lunch with me, and Kakashi-sensei suddenly popped out of nowhere and said we passed! He told us not to share or we failed, and then only passed us because we shared…I don't understand him at all! He's so confusing!" whined Naruto to his sister later that evening.
Namiko turned around from where she was cooking at the stove, her long hair pulled back in a scrunchie. "Sounds a lot like what Kurenai-sensei did with us."
"I wish we were on the same team," said Naruto quietly, sitting at the table.
She set down some tamagoyaki and rice, turning back to grab the pot of curry she had made. "Me too, but I don't think is a bad thing necessarily. We are growing up, well, I am anyways."
Naruto stuck out his tongue at her, and she giggled in response. "Nii-chan, we can't be glued to each other forever. No matter how much we have depended on each other in the past, we need to learn to do things by ourselves too."
"I know," started Naruto, serving himself some curry, "it's just hard when we have only ever had each other. I don't like not being around to protect you. You're my baby sister and you're all I have left." His eyes lowered, refusing to meet her eyes.
Namiko laid her hand on his shoulder. "You don't have to protect me all the time; I'm a ninja too. Plus, I've got to stick around to support you when you become Hokage, right?" she said with a wink.
He immediately brightened up. "You're damn right I'll be Hokage!"
'This is why I love him, he's forever the optimist. Too bad we live in such a broken world that I can never guarantee I'll always be there for him.' Namiko hid her dark thoughts behind a smile.
A/N: Chapter 3 down! I wanted to give you all a peek at what everyone else was probably doing and fill in the blank spaces instead of focusing solely on Naruto. So, you'll see more Team 8 stuff than Team 7, at least for now. The closer we get to the time skip, things will change and deviate more from the original storyline.
I wanted to try and fix some plot holes that the original series had and other weird things, like "why does no one know that Naruto had Kurama in him?" and "Why did Kakashi never mention that Minato was Naruto's dad?" Because basically this is my way of fixing some of those questions/problems. If you have a particular issue with the original series you want me to address, throw it out to me!
