Chapter II
The Strongest: Friends
"Oi, oi, oi! This is so unfair! What was the old monkey thinking?" Naruto sulked looking at his new Konoha headband. "I hoped I would stay a Jonin like when Kakashi was a kid,"
"Hahaha! Litlle Naruto, the big bad ANBU, who calls himself the strongest is a Genin again!" A female voice cut in, not able to stop her giggling. Naruto looked at the person next to him and a tick mark appeared on his forehead.
"Stop laughing! This isn't funny, how are people supposed to respect me now?" The blond asked with a dark cloud over his head. "Besides, should I remind you who just failed their Jonin promotion, special Jonin Maki Zenin?" The lond asked with a grin and dodged the Kunai she flung at his head.
"Shut up! Not my fault I don't have some fancy bloodline like you, blondie!"
"Jealous much?" Naruto said with a snicker, causing his best friend to huff and turn away from him. The two were sitting in the Ichiraku Ramen stand, once a small restaurant now was one of the biggest and most visited place in Konoha after Naruto donated hefty summs of money to Teuchi and helped him develop the humble stand.
Naruto slurped some noodles and looked at the girl sitting next to him. She was five years older than him and a bit taller. Long dark-green haired pulled in a short ponytail with two bangs framing her head and few fringes of hair over her forehead and golden eyes with round glasses, Maki had an unique appearance, that many would call exotic. She was wearing a dark blue long-sleaved shirt with the standard Chunin flak-jacekt and a matching mid-thight skirt, along with white knee-high socks and typical blue Ninja sandals. She had her headband tiedly secured around her forehead and kept her weapons in seals on her wrists.
Naruto on the other hand was wearing a less standard outfit, consisting of a white button up shirt with the top buttons undone, black civilians pants and stylish black shoes. Together with his round sunglasses, one wouldn't every imagine him to be a Shinobi, but the Konoha headband lying next to his bowl said otherwise.
"What are you staring at?" She asked wierdly, noticing the blond kept him covered gaze on her for some time now.
"Was thinking," the blond muttered, causing her to raise an eyebrow.
"You think?"
"Why you!" The blond's eyebrow twitched and the chopstick in his hand broke. Maki smirked when she saw it was still so easy to get under the blonds skin, no matter how long they didn't see each other.
"So, what do you think of your future teammates?" Maki asked and took a few bites from her own Ramen. The blond shrugged and signaled Ayame, Teuchi's daughter, for a new pair of chopsticks.
"Well, the Uchiha is supposedly a Genius so I will get to stomp on his ego and the Hyuga girl is like any other Hyuga, stuck-up and always proper and all that, so it will be entertaining to tilt her some. As for Kakashi, it will be fun making his work harder and maybe get him to go all out in a spar or something, god knows he need some training after slacking off for so long," the blond said, accepting new eating utensil from the brunette and thanking her.
"That's all?" Maki asked and looked at the blond with a questioning look.
"I mean, I am not on their squad to become their friend or anything, just make sure that Kakashi trains them well and keep an eye out when we get outside Konoha. You know, with the war on the horizon and all that stuff, you never know what the other nations may try,"
"I see- WAIT WHAT!" Maki shouted, standing up, making everyone in the restaurant to look at her. She blushed slightly and apologized sitting down. She turned to Naruto and whispered hotly. "What do you mean with 'the war on the horizon'?" Naruto looked at her for a second before sighing. The blond lowered his sunglasses and looked her in the eyes.
"Exactly how it sounds, Maki. It is still nothing certain, but the other countries are mobilizing and the higher-up are making moves as well. Why do you think the Village is having skill revisions on every Shinobi? Why do all vets start training again? And the forced training regimes and academy standards getting higher?"
Maki sat frozen in her place, not wanting to belive her friend, but she knew that Naruto was serious. She saw it in his eyes, but still, the thought was petrifying. After the three wars and the many peace treaties and Kage meeting, the diplomatic relations and the stable peace time a war was coming? She snapped back to reality when Naruto placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed reassuring her with a small, but honest smile.
"This information is known only to the higher-up, Clan head, ANBU, and elite Jonin, so please don't spread it for now, ok?" She gulped and nodded, but a though still ran through her head.
"Then why are you telling me this?" The blond chuckled and placed his sunglasses back on.
"Why wouldn't I? You are, after all, my best friend and I want to make sure you will be prepared, no matter what comes, alright?" Maki couldn't do anything but nod mutely and when back to eating her Ramen, yet more thoughts on her mind.
She knew that her and Naruto were close friend, but didn't think he would breach protocol so blantlatly for her. A small smirk found it's way on her way face. 'Who am I kidding, it's Naruto, of course he doesn't care about protocol,' He was always like this ever since she met him first time during her Genin exams.
Flashback, fives years ago.
This was it, the day Maki and thirty-one other academy students would officialy become Genin and adults in the eyes of the Village. For her, it was a day she long awaited, no longer would she need to work in that small grocery shop to support herself, from today on she would become a proud Kunoichi of Leaf and would live of her missions and support for Shinobi who were in bad financial situations.
You see, Zenin Maki was an Orphan since birth, the last of her small Clan of Zenin. A Clan that sadly didn't have any assets or filled up coffers that she could life off. She was raised in an small Village orphanage just outside Konoha, that burnt down when she was four. Since then, she was sent to Konoha where an elderly man took pity on her and offered her a job in his store. It was not a good-paid job, but it was enough to allow her to life in the Village and join the academy.
From there on, she lived alone in the Hidden Leaf, hoping to one day become a Kunoichi so that her financial problems would go away. That was her plan until she got to know what a Shinobi did to earn money. At first, she thought of dropping the academy, but then she decided that one day she would earn enough money to open her own orphanage to help other children like herself, no matter what it would take.
Since then, whenever she was not working or in the academy, she spent every free moment of her life training in the Shinobi arts in hopes of achieving her dream. Upon realizing that the academy training would take her only so far, she decided to open the only thing she was left with in the orphanage. A detailed scroll written by her anscesors on the use of various weapons with the weapons sealed within the scroll.
Wielding weapons came to her naturally, no matter what weapon shea unsealed, her skills were praised by the academy instructors and any other Shinobi who bothered to take notice of her training. Now, after six years of sweat, tears and blood, she was the rookie fo the year with no competition from either girls or boys her age.
And so, this lead us to today, the day she waited she waited six years for. Anticipation and a rare feeling of nervousness ran trough her. It was a know fact that the Genin teams one was placed in was very important, both I the sense of who your comrades were, but also because of who your Sensei would be and what mission one would take.
She release a silent breath of excitement when she heard the door of the classroom open and saw her Sensei, Yamato walk in. However, the person next to the Chunin made her narrow her eyes. A blond shrimp, wearing a white shirt, blue shorts, black Shinobi sandals and round sunglasses waltzed into the classroom with his hands in pockets and an arrogant smirk on his face.
Kisuke, an impulsive boy who had a ran for the the title of second best in class stood up and pointed a finger at the blond. "Oi, Sensei, who is this midget behind you?" A grin formed on his face when his friend and a few others laughed at the joke. Even Maki had to admit to smirking slightly.
"Class, please clam down, this is-"
"Oi, I can introduce myself, old man," The blond said giving the Chunin a look that made him dislike the blond already. The teacher was about to reprimand the young boy before he remembered the words Hiruzen told him.
'Naruto-kun is very special and he doesn't like to be ordered or talked back. The ones who tried it... well, let's just say they are no longer in active Shinboi duty,'
Maki's eyes widened at the clear disrespect towards the Chunin and the lack of reaction from her very strict teacher. Naruto, on the other hand, didn't wait for the teacher's reaction before he spread his hands wide and said with a grin.
"I'm Uzumaki Naruto and one of you losers is going to be on a team with me," The class erupted in shouts of outrage at how the blond insulted them. Maki herself scowled at this arrogant shrimp but before anyone could say anything, Naruto's message reached the academy students.
Kisuke, being the always loud one narrowed his eyes at the blond and asked for the whole class. "What do you mean by 'one of us', you midget?" The blond frowned and turned his attention to his fellow blond.
"And who the hell are you?" Kisuke puffed out his chest and pointed at himself.
"I'm Urahara Kisuke, be sure to remember the name, one day I will become an elite Jonin," Naruto stared blankly, at least it appeared so because of his sunglasses before sighing.
"Tell me, Kisuke-chan, are you at least the rookie of the year?" The young blond taunted.
"N-No, that would be Maki-chan," The older blond said, pointing at the green-haired girl, who grittet her teeth when the blond didn't even acknowledge her presence, instead looked at Kisuke with a bored expression.
"Then, pray tell me, why someone like you dares to even talk to me?"
"Someone like me?" The blond asked in anger, balling his fists.
"Yeah, you know, someone like you, a weakling, someone not even worth my attention," The room fell in silence as Naruto took of his sunglasses and his endless eyes met everyone in the Class, making them freeze.
"All of you are so weak, so...," Naruto balled his fist a few times, looking for the right word. "So... usless, none of you are anywhere as strong as I hoped you would be," This left everyone wide-eyed and speechless. The blond put his sunglasses back and sighed in boredom. "Old man Hokage said I would be paired with the rookie of the year in a two-man cell with a Jonin as our Sensei, so meet me at the roof Maki-chan," The blond said mockingly before leaving the room with his hands in his pockets.
After he closed the door, everyone turned to their Sensei and bombarded him with questions as well as insult towards the blond. "What he said is true, Maki, you are going to be paired with him, so please meet up with your new team at the roof," Everyone gave the girl looks of pity and some encouraging words, mostly to kick the arrogant brat's ass and show him how wrong he is.
Through all this, the green-haired girl was seething with anger and a clenched fist at being dismissed so easily by someone so much younger than herself. Especially, after the years of training she put in refining her skills and getting stronger.
Flashback ends
Even after their... less than good start, the two somehow became able to work together and even something akin to friend. And while they might have spent only a year together on the same team, since the blond was promoted to Chunin by Hokage himself, they kept in touch. This caused their relationship to blossom and it was not so unexpected.
Both of them were loners, Maki because her cold outer attitude and focus on training and Naruto because of his shitty personality, god-complex and ego that was higher than the highest mountain in the lighting country.
But with time, the both of them became good comrades and friends, which caused improvement in both of them. She had dropped her cold personality, but still remained pretty guarded in front of people she didn't know well, while Naruto... well, he still had ego the size of Hokage monument and the god-complex but slowly his personality started imporving.
In the following years, when Naruto reached Jonin and she was promoted to Chunin after Chunin exams, Hiruzen saw how well the two worked together and how positively well they impacted each other and teamed them fairly often. But if Maki had to point out the moment which changed Naruto the most it would be-
"Earth to Maki, hello, hello!" The blond waved in front of her face. Maki snapped back to reality and swatted awayed the blond's hand from her face with a scowl.
"Can't even think without being interrupted these days," She muttered but the blond caught it and grinned.
"Ohh, you've been thinking how handsome and awesome I am? That's really sweet of yo-"
"I have been thinking about how big of an asshole you are and how bigger you ego is," She said with a smirk when the blond hung his head down and dark clouds rained above his head.
"That's sooo mean, Maki-chan~," The blond drawled out in a childish voice. She sighed and looked at the clock across her. 'Still have some time before I have to head back for mission briefing. I just hope Anko will not be late... again,' Maki thought with sweatdrop, thinking about her friend and turned to her Naruto.
"Any progress with your... how was it? Inverse Chakra technique?" The green-haired Special Jonin asked with an raised eyebrow and heard the blond click his tongue in annoyance. The young Uzumaki sighed and leaned back in his chair.
"It's called 'Reverse Chakra technique' and no. It's so... frustrating, like the word at the end of your tongue you can't remind yourself about," He explained with his head thrown back over the cushion. Maki nodded in sympathy, because while frustration over new techniques was nothing new for her, for Naruto, for whom everything he did came naturally and without effort, this was a new experience. A thought popped in her head as she looked at her friend.
"Maybe you need a push, you know. Something or more exactly someone to push you past your limits?"
"Yeah. I thought about that, but who? No one I meet on my missions is anywhere strong enough, old man Hokage and I can't go all out and Jirayia is who knows where writing his smut and even then he would need to go Sage mode and come at me with the intent to kill and you know he doesn't like either of those," The blond said with a resignatied sigh and looked back at his friend.
"Hmm, well, you never know, maybe you will find someone soon, you know, with all those D-ranked mission you will be taking," The last Zenin said with a smirk, making the blond pout at the fun she was poking at his new rank.
"Haha, very funny, hopefully you will get one day strong enough for me to get serious," He countered only for the green-haired girl to roll her eyes. 'Maybe, with a bit of luck I might find someone strong enough soon,'
A bit shorter than intended but I think this is a good place to stop the Chapter for now. I wanted to introduce Maki and show some more 'past' Naruto before meeting team seven as well as giving the blond some more depth, with how even though he is the strongest, there are still some things he has problems with.
For people who are wondering about pairings, I am still not sure, but I won't be either Hinata or Sakura I don't really like these two pairings. I hope that pairing will come naturally as I write and develop characters in the story.
Next Chapter will be team seven first meeting and I hope to write publish it before the end of the week, if I am unable to, then expect the Chapter somewhere around mid next week. If you have any questions regarding the story my PM's and review are always open.
I hope you like the chapter, if so, please leave a review, it really motivates to write more :)
Thanks for reading, see ya!