7Hey everyone, Sieben here. I have decided after much work with some friends to try my hand at a Naruto fiction. There has been almost six months of planning put into this story idea, and I am not gonna toss it away without at least giving it a shot. This is a try at writing something more, realistic, yet just as much fantasy as Kishimoto's original.
General Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. That is the property of Masashi Kishimoto, and will likely remain that way with how well the series is doing. This work does not, and will not, under any circumstance, generate any proceeds to the author, and is intended for entertainment purposes only. I can only claim the rights to the idea of the characters in the Takashiro clan, especially Takashiro Shin, who is a creation of nearly a years worth of painstaking work. If you want details on his character, or wish to use him, I want to know before you do so.
Artistic License Disclaimer: The purpose of fan-written fiction is to provide the fans an opportunity to exercise their creativity, and this work will reflect a great deal of that, while staying as true to the original spirit of the Naruto series as possible. There will be semi-significant changes, and I will not remove them as they are story critical. This is an alternate events work, not an alternate universe or alternate reality. This story will stay strictly within the Ninja World.
Violence Warning: The idea that the Ninja World has no violence was one that needs to disappear from everyone's thoughts. The level of graphic will reflect the seriousness of the conflict at the time.
Terminology: I may use an unfamiliar approach with the terminology, but I am using an approach that I have built up with the aid of several personal friends. It contains a mix of English and Japanese, so if you don't know what a word or term refers to, ask me in a PM or leave your question in a review.
With those taken care of, I direct you to the first chapter of "The Way of a Shinobi."
Chapter 1: The Genesis of a Team
Takashiro Shin watched the three students that were to be his potential team with exasperation. They were hardly friendly to one another, in fact, one may go as far as to say that the raven haired boy was put off by the mere presence of the pinkette, who,in turn, was barely less than openly hostile towards the blonde troublemaker. The blonde seemed to be hoping for nothing more than attention, if Shin's past experience with the boy was anything to go by.
Deciding it was time to quit mimicking a certain Scarecrow, Shin slid the door open silently, while none of the three were paying attention, and slipped into the room. Leaning his back against the open door, he cleared his throat, and was rewarded with the sight of the heads of all three of his students whipping around so fast, Shin could have sworn that he heard the raven's neck crack.
He looked at them impassively. "Team 7?" At their nods, he continued, "Let's head up to the roof. If you aren't there in five minutes, I'm returning all three of you to the academy for another year of remedial classes." With that said, he jumped out the window, disappearing from their view.
-4 Minutes Later-
With all three on the roof standing before him, Shin proceeded to introduce himself in the 'traditional' Jonin fashion. "Well, since you all managed to make it here, let's start with introductions. Pinky, you first."
"Huh? What are we supposed to say?" the pinkette asked, confusion clearly showing on her features.
"Name, things you like, things you hate, dreams, ambitions, hobbies. Things like that," Shin explained. "Here, since you seem to need an example, I'll go first. I am Takashiro Shin. I like cats, tea, sushi, most types of fish, and swimming. Things I dislike... the only one I'm giving you is that I hate being late without cause. Anything else, you'll have to figure out on your own time. My hobbies are sketching and spending time with my wife and daughter. Dreams, already accomplished mine, so I see no point in telling you what they were."
He pointed a finger at the pinkette, "You're up."
"I am Haruno Sakura. My favorite thing is… well it's not a thing, it's a person. A boy… and that boy is… Uh… let's move on to my dream." Shin could have sworn to never have seen a human turn that shade of red before, and not be lying. "I hate…" Sakura paused for a breath, "Naruto!"
The explosion of dark energy that came out with the proclamation of the blonde's name caused Shin to visibly cringe, Naruto's jaw to meet the floor, and Sasuke, surprisingly, to pale considerably.
"Enough. I think we get it Haruno-san," Shin forced out. The atmosphere reverted quite quickly to a normal, lively feeling, causing the two boys to sigh in relief. "You're next, raven."
"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. There are plenty of things I hate, but I don't see how it matters, considering there is almost nothing I do like. It seems pointless to talk about 'dreams'... That's just a word… But what I do have is determination. I plan to restore my clan. And there is someone I have sworn to kill."
Shin made a mental note to dump the Uchiha with Kakashi as soon as he was able, and to leave Kakashi with instructions on taking care of the mentally unstable boy. Unfortunately, that'd probably have to wait until he managed to have them ready for the Chunin exams. Kakashi wasn't known for helping with others' students.
"And the last one. Shoot," Shin grumbled, sincerely hoping that he'd not have three brats with mental issues that he'd need to fix first.
The blonde, Naruto according to Sakura, adjusted his forehead protector slightly. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto! What I like is instant cup ramen! What I like even better is when Iruka-sensei treats me to ramen at the Ichiraku Noodle Bar! What I hate is the three minute wait after I put in the boiling water. My dream is to one day," Naruto paused for a breath, "be a greater shinobi than Hokage-sama! And then the villagers will have to acknowledge my existence at last!"
Unnoticed by the three graduates, Shin sighed in relief. Fixing the blonde's need for attention would be very simple in comparison to the issues of the other two. His own daughter required more attention than the Uzumaki boy seemed to need.
"Now that we have gotten that out of the way, I want the three of you to prepare for a survival exercise tomorrow. Meet at Training Field 7 one hour after dawn. I have a test for you three, that will determine how the rest of your career as shinobi will carry out. Do not be late, or I will personally ensure that you will never again have a chance become a full shinobi. If you feel you cannot take that risk, come to the training field at sunset to inform me, and you will be sent back to the academy where you will be assigned to another team on the next rotation."
Handing each of his three charges a slip of paper with instructions on what to bring for the exercise, Shin added one more thing to what he would tell them. "Oh, and if you eat breakfast tomorrow morning, don't be surprised to see it come back out later. It's your choice whether or not you decide to eat. Dismissed."
-50 minutes after dawn, the following morning-
Naruto's arrival was earlier than Shin had been expecting. The boy was clearly excited, and Shin doubted that he had slept much. Sakura arrived more or less at the same time as the Uchiha, right on time.
Sasuke looked up at the soft click of his silver-haired sensei's booted foot landing on one of the three wooden posts at the Training Field. "Good morning, Takashiro-san," he greeted his sensei.
Sakura was seeing hearts, but she managed to greet her sensei in the same fashion without embarrassing herself by stuttering in front of Sasuke.
Naruto, on the other hand, was anything but subdued with his greeting. "Good morning, Shin-sensei! We're here, so what's the test? I'll beat anything you throw at me!"
"I'm afraid it won't be so easy, Naruto. I'll explain that when I get to it though." Dropping off the post, he placed an alarm clock on the center of the three stumps. "I have set this for noon. You have until then to get these from me," he continued, holding up two small bells. "Anyone of the three of you who do not have a bell by the time this exercise is over," Shin paused again, and took out three bento lunches, before resuming with a grin, "won't get a lunch. Instead, you will be tied to one of these stumps and will watch while your comrades who managed to get a bell and I eat our lunch in front of you."
Shin decided to mollify the terrified look on Naruto's face. "Now, you'll get to eat, you just won't get a lunch. I'm not so cruel as to starve potential students."
Sakura's stomach growled softly, but only she and Shin noticed it. He grinned. "You have until 10:30 to make any preparations you want to, but you may not leave the Training Field 7 boundaries for any reason, or you will be disqualified and sent straight back to the academy. Don't even think about trying to take the lunches before noon. There's a nasty surprise for anyone that tries," he said, eyeing Naruto in particular.
"What happens at 10:30, sensei?" Sakura asked, confused. "What are we supposed to do then?"
"At 10:30, you have to use whatever you have set up and whatever skills you have, to steal these bells from me, and then keep them until time is up. Oh, and just so you know, this test has a 66% failure rate. Get going, and at 10:30, I'm coming to find you, so you'd best be ready to fight me with the intent to kill me, if you even want a chance at the bells."
The three graduates fled off into the trees, and Shin settled in to wait.
-Later-
10:30. The time when they had to start trying to get the bells from their sensei. Naruto grinned excitedly, and lept out of the trees to try to get the bells from Shin-sensei. "Hey, sensei! Right now, you and me, fair and square! I'm getting those bells!" Naruto shouted out, announcing his presence like anything except a ninja.
Shin sighed. "You know, here I was, hoping you'd at least be a little more normal. There goes that hope, so I might as well get this over with. Shinobi battle skills lesson one, Taijutsu."
For Sakura and Sasuke, Naruto's attempt at the bells told them only one thing about their sensei. Takashiro Shin was fast. Very fast. Sasuke barely even saw Shin-sensei move to block Naruto's first six attacks.
Before Naruto's fist could connect for his seventh attempt, Shin was quite suddenly crouched behind him, with his hands in the Tiger seal.
"Showing your back so many times. You have very poor technique for a ninja, especially one with the Uzumaki name."
"Huh?" Naruto's confusion was the only thing that kept him from running away from his sensei's aura of certain, humiliating doom.
"Naruto! Get out of there! You'll be killed!" Sakura screamed at him from the bushes where she was hidden.
"What?" He started to turn around in a panic, but his sensei's low voice stopped him cold.
"Too late. I'm going to deal with you in a manner I'm sure she'd be proud of, boy," Shin chuckled darkly. "Uzumaki Secret Technique: One Thousand Years of Devastation!"
Sasuke would forever remember this incident as an unspeakable horror. Sensei's fingers slammed into Naruto's lower back, launching him along the ground and into the river with a tremendous flash of light. The ground that Naruto had skidded on was scorched black and smoking slightly.
However, despite Sasuke's attentiveness, only Sakura noticed that the ground where Naruto had been standing was now a small circle of smooth glass.
To say that Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke were surprised when eight Narutos came flying out of the river to attack their sensei would be giving them too much credit. It wasn't until there were only six of Naruto remaining that either of them became aware that he was still in the fight.
That was the moment when Shin had switched with one of Naruto's clones, which took the blow instead. The confusion for Naruto, and all five of his clones, was obvious. Each one thought one of the others was sensei using a henge technique, until one of them had the bright idea to dispel all the clones, revealing that all of them had been clones except for one, which had been the original Naruto.
Naruto saw one of the bells on the ground under a tree, and true to fashion, he went for it. His hand never even touched the bell as he was lifted up into the air, both ankles bound by a rope trap.
Shin walked up and picked the bell up off the ground, chuckling. "You let your guard down and didn't look for what could be hidden in plain sight. For someone who loves pranks, you sure are terrible at avoiding them." The sharp whistling of something flying through the air towards him caused Shin to blink in surprise, as he turned to see what exactly he was being attacked with.
Several kunai and shuriken flew into Shin's substitute log, and Sasuke cursed silently at having carelessly given away his position, and fled to relocate himself in a new hidden vantage point.
-x-x-x-
The next one Shin encountered was Sakura, who fell to a single, and very simple Genjutsu. To say he was disappointed with the girl was fairly accurate, as he left to find his third student.
He was surprised to see Sasuke standing with his back against a tree, with no evidence of any traps, unlike the few Sakura had set up, and poorly at that.
"Save your boasting for when you get a bell, kid. I don't want to hear it," Shin forestalled Sasuke's retort. "Shinobi battle skills lesson three, Ninjutsu. Fire Style: Fireball." Kicking off with a low-powered fireball, Shin was not expecting Sasuke to respond with his own, stronger fireball. The two attacks met in the middle, Sasuke's larger fireball overpowering his, and continuing on to hit Shin.
Or, it would have, had he still been there. Sasuke looked around frantically for his sensei, only for a shadow to cause him to turn around, right into Shin's Lightning Style: Shocking Touch.
Shin grimaced slightly as Sasuke spasmed on the ground in pain. They still had half an hour, and if they weren't able to reconvene before time was up, he'd have to give them another chance, having them explain what they did wrong.
Shin really hoped they didn't fail that too. He didn't want to have to explain to Hokage-sama why he'd failed a weighted team, because that would mean Sasuke would be going into a special program, and be put on a team of people who were on a higher level than Sasuke would likely be able to handle.
-Later, ten minutes past noon-
In the end, it was Naruto who ended up tied to the stump out of the three. Sasuke had not recovered from running his face into Shin's lightning technique until just after time had run out. Sakura had woken from the genjutsu and cut Naruto down from the third layer of rope traps, and convinced Naruto to help her find Sasuke, so that she could try something.
Shin wasn't going to put Sasuke at fault for not being able to recover from the jutsu in time. And Naruto had been vehemently against helping Sasuke until Sakura drove her slap across his face hard enough that Shin felt his own neck seize in sympathy. That had been when the bell went off to signal noon.
In the end, they had passed, but he waited until they had eaten, before telling them the good news.
"Sensei," Sakura asked timidly, "what would have happened had we failed?"
"Trust me, girl, you're better off not knowing. It's not easy to pass the second time. If anything, it's even harder," Shin's voice was deeply laden with concern, sorrow, and regret. "I have had to fail two teams. It is not a good feeling, knowing that you have to crush their dreams, and send them back to a place that they were so glad to escape from."
Sasuke's face was totally white when their sensei finished, and he swallowed audibly.
"This stone you see, behind me, bears the names of all those who were either Killed In Action, or are Missing In Action. The second is simply a way of saying that they are probably dead, but there is no proof of death. Each one of these people is a true hero, and this memorial stone is how we remember them," Shin continued. "Those who I had to fail, both teams, were second tries. All of them died on missions turned bad, and I knew that they hadn't been ready to take on the world, but they still tried again. This world is not for the naive child, but for the learned shinobi. You will see death, and at some time, you will have to make a kill. It is the task of the Jonin-sensei to prepare Genin for that time, and to be there for them when they need help."
He cleared his throat to silence Naruto before he could interrupt the speech. "Therefore, as the Jonin-sensei of Team 7, I am proud to say that all three of you have successfully attained the rank of Genin of Konoha. I will be scheduling time for each of you individually, as well as time for the entire team to train together, in teamwork and tactics, and perhaps most importantly, time set aside for missions. It is the Genin's responsibility to perform these missions, not mine. I am there to help if you have questions, and to give advice."
Sighing, he stood up and untied Naruto from the stump. "I have to go tell Hokage-sama the good news, so I suggest the three of you head to the hospital to have them check over Sasuke's condition, then go somewhere and get to know each other, because I want you to be able to act with the knowledge that your team will be able to back you up with whatever you do. Division will kill you faster than another shinobi could ever hope to. Team dismissed." With a wave, Shin disappeared in a swirl of leaves.
That ends the first chapter of "The Way of a Shinobi." Leave a review, tell me what you liked or didn't like, or what you would like explained in more detail. Takashiro Shin's appearance will be detailed more in the next chapter, aside from what I have touched on here. Kakashi will make an appearance next chapter, and no, he does not have a passing team. I am using an original character as their sensei so that I can write a story without losing sight of where I want to take this. There are so many stories that have started off aiming high, but never got there because the authors lost sight of their goals.
Any Jutsu or Techniques that you want explained in more detail than in the story, I hate to say that you're going to have to wait until I get around to creating the sub-lists for those. They will be posted in notes after the chapters, starting about chapter 3. I doubt I'll have time to do it sooner.
To all those who are waiting for an update on Chronicles of Clan Northern Harrier, it is still in the rewriting stage, and will probably be that way for a while. It's a difficult idea, and finding solid resources is a pain. So either I take major artistic license with it, and ruin the story for me, or I wait until I can find some reliable resource material. If someone else wants to pick that up, just let me know and I can pass my notes and ideas on to you.
One final note before I let you go. I have posted a challenge on my page. It's open to anyone that wants to try, and all stories will be accepted. The criteria are only for stories that will be featured on my profile. Take a shot, and see how it turns out.
Happy hunting. Sieben, out.