1Rock Lee
Chapter One
The slowly warming spring sun dawned on the smattered orange and white buildings and still slightly snow-covered streets of the hidden ninja village of the leaf; Konoha. The small town was built long ago in an old part of that world called "The Land of Fire", which ironically enough, was mainly covered in trees and experienced mild to cool weather for most of the year.
The Village was surrounded by a nigh-impenetrable forest full of hardy ancient trees, Some were older than the village itself, or so the town elders would tell the impatient youth of the town whenever they sat still long enough to listen.
Now the primary purpose of every citizen in that strange town was to support in some way, the decidedly oddly major part of it's population: That being: Ninjas.
Yes, it was a ninja village, one of about five to nine, the exact number was unknown to the general citizenry, The Leaf could be, and was by its prideful citizens, called the largest of all the hidden villages. However, the name "hidden" would lead one to believe that these town-training grounds for the young mercenaries of tomorrow would find it hard to do business that was the root of production of the villages resources and people, that being hired help for all manner of manned tasks. No, the villages were more considered hidden by virtue of what it would take to get to them with an invading force. Take for an example how The Leaf's main defence was the old forest that was as much a home to the trees as it was to the village's inhabitants. The trees in that forest were said to be some of the hardiest and most useful known to the world. Almost fireproof, unless you separated it into small wood fragments. Near as hard as steel and all. The only commonly known path through those woods was one thin winding road about three abreast wide. Taking that path was one of the only safe ways for clients and visitors to get to the village without some kind of guide, though there were outposts for taking down offers that didn't require a direct visit to the Village, and the winding nature of the path let the guards of the Leaf ample time to Take note of every little detail of everything that the travelers had on, or about them. Find out if they were useful or not.
And Kill them if they were deemed a threat.
Besides it's massive forest. The Hidden Leaf had one other major landmark. A mountain. A mountain that on it's mighty face contained the even more mightily detailed busts of the village's past four leaders, named the Hokage.
And it was on this mighty monument to the villages history and heroes that the town awoke to every single day. Some earlier than others of course. And as the sleepy inhabitants of Konoha watched the early spring light shine upon the honoured tribute to the great men of ages past that day, everyone who was clear-headed enough to properly process what they saw, was promptly struck dumb.
Somewhat messily painted in a dark green even higher than the high brows of the villages old leaders, were the simple yet painfully huge words:
"I Will Become A Ninja!"
Though there was an outcry from the populace about the defacing of the village's pride, no one through the day actually managed to find who had done it, and the men that were eventually assigned the literally mountainous task to clean it noted that, despite the messy handwriting, the unknown vandal seemed to have taken great care to not let a single drop of paint land on the carvings themselves. And besides that, before the end of the day the largely worded promise had been taken on as an inspiration to the youth of the village more then anything. But the cleaners had a job to do, and soon the green declaration was washed off and normal life, for a ninja village's definition of normal, continued.
In one of the more rundown areas of Konoha, a boy that was underdressed for the weather in old dirty and ill-fitting clothes sat on a large rock behind an old apartment building in the long shadow of the old crumbling structure. He had long black hair and very large eyebrows.
And he was crying.
Sniffing, the boy looked up at the view the back ally gave him of the now clean mountain of the Hokage and wrapped his arms around himself as he thought miserable thoughts. He then sniffed again and pulled out an old and noticeably nicked, though very finely polished, Kunai. And began shining it with a manner that might have seemed enthusiastic if the motions he was using didn't seem so mechanic. His face began to freeze up with the amount of water flowing down his face. The day, despite the mild heat of the sun, seemed like it was going to be a very cold one. So he sat there, shining and sharpening his small knife.
"Dynamic entry!"
Until he was startled off of his rock of depression by a shout loud enough to have contained concussive force. Turning quickly, he was surprised to find a smiling man among a large dust cloud in a green bodysuit with one of the green flack vests that marked him as an official ninja. He had very large eyebrows.
"What do you what with me?" The black-haired boy said, attempting to quickly wipe away the frost on his face. "I have never seen you before, what business do you have here?" He said somewhat angrily. The man had interrupted his normally very quiet life, and seen him crying. And besides that, not many people ever traveled to his part of town, and if they did, it usually didn't mean anything good.
In response to the boy's questioning, the man simply smiled an even larger smile. "I heard you were the one that did that writing on the Hokage mountain a few days ago." He said brightly.
The Black-haired boy sighed to himself and sniffed again. "Well you have become the first one to actually notice it." He felt for a moment that he would start crying again as he turned away from the man and began walking further into the cold shade of the building. "I knew it was a foolish idea to be so brazen in my actions" He said to himself, hoping that if he just ignored the man, he would leave him alone. All he had wanted to achieve was to make people notice him for something other than a failure for once, even if it was a nuisance, or a vandal. At least then, they would see that he could be considered a threat. Instead, everyone had forgotten about his act within a few hours, and the only person to confront him about it was a smiling manic that would either arrest him or annoy him for the rest of the day.
"So you did do it then." The man said, nodding to himself.
'Here it comes', the boy thought.
"Now that, is what I wanna see!"
He stopped.
The warm, sweet smell of melting snow and early spring flowed over the two in a sudden breeze as the hour struck noon and the warm sun shined over them, dispelling most of the cold shade and setting a light directly over the two boys as they stared at each other. One with wide eyed shock, and the other with an almost crazed look of excitement.
"What did you say?" The boy said, disbelief in his voice.
"I think that declaring your dream to the entire village regardless of what will happen is one of the most impressive things anyone could ever do." The man stopped to think. "In fact, I think I'd do the same thing if I were you!" He practically bellowed. He was gifted with quite the large voice.
The older boy could feel his eyes welling up again. What was going on? This was not even close to the last thing he had expected to happen when someone tracked him down.
"Why are you saying that? Who are you?" He asked, his voice cracking.
The man's smile seemed to cover most of his face at this point. "My name is Might Guy. And I'm saying that because I think that you can become a great ninja. What's your name?" He said with total confidence in every word
The older boy was too shocked to think properly, the dam that held back his waterfalls was about to burst. He had never heard anyone say anything like that before. So he just answered the man's question.
"My Name is Rock Lee. Why are you talking like this to me?" He said. The bright sun was making it hard not to blink and let everything flow.
Guy walked up to the young boy and reached out his hand.
"I want to see you become a great ninja Lee." He motioned to the old knife in the young boy's hands. "That kunai you have, I notice it's made of some cheep steel. It's gotten so many cracks and nicks." Lee was about to protest before Guy held up his hand. "But I've seen far more high quality metal break for so much less." His smile grew smaller, but warmer. "I once saw a young man standing in front of a tree with a single kunai at the beginning of the day. There was a single target on that tree, and despite the fact that the boy kept missing the center, every single time he did he'd just run over, pull it out and try again."
Lee froze as he remembered a day not too long ago when he'd noticed a man in green running on his hands through the village.
"At the time I hadn't thought much of him, just another young ninja in training. But by the evening when I had passed that same tree again, that same boy was still trying to hit that target dead center. Now this initially made me approach him out of pure pity, just to show him how to throw the dang thing right. But you know what I found before I got to him? Though the target had not even once been pierced in the center, I found that the entire tree was completely peppered with holes. Every single square inch of that bark was covered in well over a hundred thousand holes. All from one cheep knife, thrown more times then I could count." Guy had an amazing energy to his every movement and word, Lee was finding himself completely bowled over in a way he had never experienced, he couldn't bring himself to look at the man.
The man in green continued. "And I thought to myself, 'that boy doesn't need me to teach him. He's already found his way.' So I left him. But though he remained in my mind I never saw him after that day," He seemed slightly sad. "I eventually noticed that he had stopped coming to that tree, so I asked around for him. I could never find any family that claimed him as their own, no ninja clan that had recognised my discriptions. Until one day, on the first day of the beginning of a beautiful spring. Some brave soul declared his ambition to the entire world without making a single mark on the faces of the men he no doubt admired. And as I had some time off that week, I took the low priority mission of finding out who had done the act. But no matter who I asked, no one knew who the vandal could be." He paused and looked at the young man before him. If Lee had looked on the verge of tears before, then now his tear ducts looked ready to burst.
Might Guy continued his story. "Of course, there were a couple of people that laid the blame on a certain youth in the care of the Hokage, but I dismissed those accusations of speculation." He laughed. "In the end I was forced to ask the children of the village who they thought had done it. And believe it or not, I finally got an interesting answer. They told me to go down to an old apartment building with only one boy living inside it." He walked closer to the boy and grew slightly quiet. "So imagine my surprise when, once I got there, all I could see was a youth that had lost his way. So Lee, what do you think I did when I saw that that young man's flames were burring out long before they had any chance to really shine?" He placed his hand on the boy's small shoulder and waited for a response.
Rock Lee looked up with an expression that seemed to be some mix of sadness, relief, and profound happiness. At least, that's what Guy thought. It was very hard to see through the veritable waterfall on the boy's face.
Through a garbled, choking voice, Lee replied. "What did you do?" He asked.
Guy smiled his largest smile yet. "I shook him out of his depression with these simple words: 'Lee, I want to see you become the greatest ninja anyone's ever seen.' What do you think of that? Do you think the boy would become my student?" He asked.
Lee just looked away again. "You could have said that in far fewer words." He choked out, before wiping his eyes with his dirty sleeve and looking back up as he added: "Guy Sensei"
Guy laughed his loudest laugh yet and sprang backwards onto his hands, before shouting at his new student to follow him as he was before tearing off at a speed that should have been unachievable for his method of transit.
Lee Smiled for what felt like the first time in years, and, tucking his kunai into his pocket, ran away from the dreary building without a single look back.
And as he ran, he thought deeply to no one in particular.
"Now I will show you, I will climb that mountain! I Will Become a Ninja!"
Author's words:
Well there you go, chapter one of one the other stories I said I was working on a while ago. Now I know Naruto isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I believe that I've got something here. And For fans of Prof. Pirate, don't worry, He's still going to be my main focus. In fact, I've been writing the next chapter while I was working on this one!
Anyhoo, here's hoping you all enjoyed this one. I'm not too sure on how to write Naruto stuff, I was always more of a One Piece guy, so any good advice would be massively appreciated.
'Til the next one:
B. R. III.