Abby Normal's (Mostly Naruto) Snippet Thread

[Abby Normal]

I realized after the valentines fiction contest that I should probably be posting my fanfic on SV and not just Ao3, but also. I am lazy and also very bad at remembering to do things, so I'm only now posting this

For now i'm just going to repost my submission for that contest here, but sometime this week I'll put in the work to get my stuff ported over from Ao3 without losing all the formatting. For now just know that there's two Naruto one shots, a Death Note one shot, and the first 3 chapters of a Bofuri fic over on Ao3.

Expect mostly Naruto and Bofuri stuff here, and for that matter expect at least a few to be thinly veiled means of sharing my headcanons/reworking of worldbuilding for Naruto

 

[Abby Normal]

Previously posted here. (Go read the other submissions in that thread btw!). I worked on this with my best friend JJ, who doesn't have an SV account. Originally this was going to be longer and have some scenes written mainly by them, but they ended up being busy and their muse was not cooperating, so I papered over those planned scenes to produce something by the contest deadline. I'd like to think it's still fun in this shortened version! Still, not getting posted on Ao3 until JJ's muse cooperates and they finish their parts

---

Currently Unnamed Naruto Nonsense​

Namikaze Minato stared at his empty glass as he contemplated his choices in life. Eventually he sighed and signaled the bartender for another. As he did so, a familiar voice called out from behind him, overlapping the ringing of the bell at the door.

"Strike out again, kid?"

Minato's melancholic look shifted to one of fond annoyance. "Really Mikoto? That joke again? I've been a ninja for over a decade, must you–"

Uchiha Mikoto interrupted him with a snort. "And your student has been a ninja for half his life, but I don't see you calling him a fully functioning adult." She slid onto the stool next to him at the bar, adding, "Now spill, how'd your latest attempt go?"

Minato opened his mouth, before pausing to thank the bartender as she set a glass in front of each of them. After taking a sip, he continued, "Well, it started off great, tactically and otherwise. T&I have three new guests, one of whom Himekawa managed to knock out as they were trying to destroy a bunch of scrolls. Ibiki's new hire was so happy she bought us all tickets to that new show this weekend."

Mikoto set her glass down. "Always great when rookies haven't had that sort of generosity worn out of them. So that's the good news on the tactical side, what's the rest before we get to the bad?"

"Well, the Striking Lightning Ultra–" Minato cut himself off at the killing intent coming from his right, before rewording. "Ah, my newest jutsu formula worked great. Caught the scout that tripped it without them noticing, then when it triggered a while after she made it back to camp it had half her team convinced she was betraying them."

"Your atrocious technique names aside, that's the one that locks up the target with lightning through their nerves while the transfer goes off, right? How'd that look like a betrayal?" Mikoto asked with a slight frown as she tried to remember the details.

Minato's face lit up, his voice filling with excitement. "That was the old version! Chouza helped me with this one actually. Not with the fuinjutsu mechanics of course, but he's great at ideas. When I was first getting it to work, I had issues with it causing spasms rather than just locking their muscles up, but he recommended I use that as a feature. So now it spasms their hands into a couple hand seals, and their face into a harsh snarl. Wouldn't hold up for long, even for people without eyes like yours, but it was enough to get the guards focused inward instead of looking for enemies outside, just long enough for us to rush in and drive them into Kushina's traps."

"She got to set up traps and see you field test a new seal? I can imagine the look on her face already," Mikoto interrupted, smiling at the mental image. "How did it go south from that?"

Minato groaned, moving his glasses–one half full, two empty–to the side so he could lay his head on the bar dramatically. "Well, like I said, we came out of that with three captures and nine bodies, and I had sensed out where their camp's bunker was, so Himekawa was able to break in and knock out their communication ninja before he could finish burning everything. Kushina and I were just getting started discussing the way her traps interacted with one of the enemy's jutsu when our attaché from Kusa took one look at some of the maps we captured, then told us about a nearby cove that one of the Serpent Clans had used as a supply cache. She was certain that the rest of the platoon we'd hit, and maybe more units beyond that, were stationed there and planning a new push."

Mikoto laughed darkly. "Heh, if only the Grass ninja were as good at killing Earth ninja as they were at killing the mood, maybe we wouldn't be fighting a war so close to our borders."

Minato sat up just long enough to clink glasses with her. Then, putting his head back down, he continued, "Even then, it was salvageable. Hell, the targets being at a cove meant she had a chance to use her Ultimate Exhaustion Infusion Array–"

Minato jerked his head to the side, cutting off his sentence to avoid having part of his head cut off. Glaring past the kunai now embedded where his nose had been a moment ago, he sighed before saying, "Fine. The thing she was talking about doing next time she got stationed on the Mist front, with the seals in the water." Minato waited for Mikoto to nod in confirmation before continuing. "So she was eager to see if she could use it here, and spent the first half of the run over making some adjustments to the scrolls. Luck was on our side, too; the supply cache was in a hollowed out spire of rock out at the edge of the cove, so she managed to get half of them caught in the buoys."

Mikoto gave a satisfied nod as Minato paused to take a long pull of his drink. "And after that it's all dealing with the stragglers while the ones in the box either wear themselves out trying to break out or try to wait it out without realizing it's draining their chakra."

"Hah!" Minato exclaimed. "That's what it should have been! But I flubbed my throw on the fifth anchor point for the–" Minato gave Mikoto a nervous glance "–Ah, for my supporting array. And then I was so busy stabilizing it and handling one of their chuunin who had slipped past the rest of the team…and I missed it."

Mikoto winced. "Oof…all that build up and you missed it?"

"I know!" Minato whined. "She's been looking forward to getting to test that seal for months, and then not only do I almost mess it up for her, but I'm distracted keeping some dumbass with a shitty water jutsu from disrupting things before the outer barrier solidifies so I don't even get to see the look on her face when she realized it had worked!"

Mikoto caught the bartender's attention before gesturing at the four empty glasses in front of her and her friend. After contemplating for a second, she asked, "Well, that seal isn't exactly a one and done thing, right? You at least got to watch her enjoy it as the bastards ran out of stamina and slipped into the water one last time each, right?"

"Kind of? It was really awkward…" Minato's dejection was palpable. "Our attaché was really interested. At first I thought she was trying to get some secrets on seals out of us but she was clearly more interested in what Kushina had done rather than how. Damn woman was waxing lyrical about it being an innovative way to instill the proper despair into your enemy and how displaying it for your allies to appreciate was almost as important as making sure your foes knew what you were willing to do. There's enough competition for Kushina without some wannabe snake trying to suck up to her!"

Mikoto snorted bitterly. "Hell, I wish I could be better competition half the time… We haven't been in the village at the same time since I got back from my last fuck up trying to impress her, have we? Let me share in the self-recrimination this time. You were off on the Mist front with your team, and Kushina and I–" She cut herself off with a wince at the sound of the bartender yanking her kunai out from its temporary home in the counter.

Minato gave a nervous laugh, not quite managing to meet the bartender's silent glare. After a tense few seconds, the bartender sighed, set down their new drinks, and headed to the back, pocketing her new kunai as she did.

Glancing down at the once more flawless bar surface, Mikoto sighed. "Well, at least that repair seal you made a few months back still works. A new kunai's a lot cheaper than the fines she used to hand out, after all."

"And making that seal was a heck of a lot easier than finding another bar that would put up with us, so win-win if you ask me." Minato said with a guileless smile. "Speaking of both winning and making seals, I've got a Jutsu Development Society meeting soon, so you might need to give me the 'Uchiha' version if we want time to commiserate about it."

Mikoto nodded, meeting Minato's eyes and focusing chakra to her own. Focusing on a mission from more than a month ago wasn't easy, but she'd given reports–both mundane and 'Uchiha Style'–with much longer delays before. Her eyes flashed red, and she and Minato kept eye contact for a minute that lasted much longer to the two of them.

As quickly as it started, it was over. Blinking his eyes, Minato said, "Oof…yeah, I think you win this round, I'll take a foreigner recognizing Kushina's greatness over a day of running through trees as she fails to notice you flirting."

Mikoto sighs. "At least this time she didn't take the time to try and convince me of her theory that you and I are meant for each other. How she can be so bad at noticing actual romantic attention and so good at inventing it where it isn't, I'll never know."

"Remember when you brought back those scrolls you found in that Iwa base? Where she somehow decided that you'd given them to her not as a gift because you thought she'd enjoy studying the seals in them, but because you were too shy to come to me with them?" Minato's grimace quickly turned into a teasing grin. "I suppose, silver lining from the rest of your mission, she did look even more radiant than normal in the light of the fires."

Mikoto groaned, burying her face in her hands. "Don't you start on that. Her hair is supposed to flicker like fire, not flicker because it's on fire because I was too busy staring at her to keep my flame narrow enough for her seals to contain."

Minato patted his friend's shoulder in sympathy before focusing on his latest drink. They sat in contemplative silence for another minute before he spoke again, "You know Mikoto, for all that you were calling me a kid earlier, you'd think you'd be less prone to academy antics like this…and besides, that's supposed to mean pulling the girls hair, not lighting it on–ACK" With a rattle and a splash, Minato's glass hit the bar as he found his words–and his breath–cut off by a strong pressure on his throat. 'Okay that's fair,' thought Minato as he tried to shift out of the headlock he'd just been put into.

Luckily for Mikoto's elbow, by the time Minato's struggling had shifted it into his fallen drink, the seals on the bar had absorbed the lost fluid. Even more luckily for both of their wallets, they were still capable of enough awareness to avoid knocking any of their glasses onto the floor. Unluckily for their shared ambitions of wooing their shared crush, a very familiar voice sounded from the entrance.

Despite its low volume, the two of them were always ready to pay attention to the speaker in question. And so they froze as one Uzumaki Kushina spoke, "Oh, oops! I see you two are busy… I'll come find you both tomorrow, you two lovebirds have fun!"

Slowly, Minato and Mikoto loosened their grapple–which they now realized to their dismay could easily be mistaken for an embrace if you were already convinced that they liked each other–before staring with empty eyes at the door where Kushina had been moments ago.

Behind them, the bartender cleared her throat. "I take it you want something a bit…stronger for your next round then?"

After a pair of silent nods, the two greatest appreciators of Uzumaki Kushina sat, spirits broken, until their last round arrived.

Their usual drinks, of course, but with a single addition each. Minato's milk was now chocolate, and Mikoto's sprite was now an ice cream float. Delivered by a bartender that had long since decided to just accept her two weirdest and most consistent customers' tastes.

---

A/N: One of my (and JJ's) favorite ships is a polycule of Minato/Kushina/Mikoto, where Mikoto and Minato are not romantic but are close friends who love their adorable himbo of a wife even though she keeps trying to ship them together Also they're all really big on honestly quite concerning murders that would be warcrimes if they didn't live in This Ninja World ™️ . Hopefully the fact that we scattered in a dozen random inside jokes doesn't render this completely incoherent. Let me know if you have any suggestions for titles or any typo corrections

Quick edit: Forgot to thank @CatOnTheWeb again for having given it a read through before the contest to help check for grammar and typos

 

[okurasha]

That was utterly adorable. I can't wait to see more.

 

[Abby Normal]

That was utterly adorable. I can't wait to see more.

Click to shrink...

Ahh!!! I'm glad you like it

 

[Abby Normal]

EDIT: THIS VERSION IS A ROUGHER VERSION WITHOUT JJ'S HELP EDITING, GO LOOK AT THE ONE BELOW THIS INSTEAD UNLESS YOU JUST WANT TO GET AN IDEA OF HOW MUCH WORSE MY WRITING IS WITHOUT THEIR HELP​

A/N: Transferring over one of my oneshots from Ao3. This one actually was originally supposed to be an omake for JJ's own fanfic, Konoha Justice, but in the end it was just a standalone one shot. Either way, inspired by jokes and discussion about Konoha's official languages and the like. I think part of it was a joke about Ino as an interrogator in training having to learn Inuzuka? And of course then it spiraled off into me philosophizing on team dynamics

---

Team 8's Hobbies​

Going from the Ninja Academy and its standardized curriculum--along with any supplemental family training--to the bounds of a Genin Team whose training is almost entirely driven by their Sensei's personality and talents can be a shock. Some students adjust well, having complementary skills and backgrounds to their teachers. Others end up relying almost entirely on their family training or self-study, either from a surfeit of skill in those areas or from a lack of use to get out of their squad's team training. Most fall somewhere in between, and often those new skills and training methods that were most difficult to adjust to at first become essential parts of their repertoire. For Team 7, their sensei's focus on teamwork conflicted with their...existing predispositions towards one another, but in the end, it was their teamwork that saved them in the Land of Waves and the Forest of Death...and the sabotage of that teamwork that spelled the end for their team for many years. For Team 10, while teamwork was and is their greatest strength, each member took different paths in their individual skills. Shikamaru, whose brain has always been his greatest tool, took to Asuma's disguised training via Shogi and brain teasers well. Chouji, who was held back by his lack of confidence, blossomed under the gentle encouragement of his team. Ino, meanwhile, became a master of her clan's techniques, as Asuma had little to teach her that would fit with her style. And while Rock Lee took after his sensei's training style wholeheartedly, Gai's core philosophies of Hard Work and pushing your body to ensure a solid base served Tenten and Neji well, saving their lives--and those of their comrades--dozens of times.

For Team 8, however, almost no one manages to guess what unexpected training element was the hardest for them to get around at first. It wasn't the physical sparring that Kurenai put them through, for even Shino had been drilled in the importance of how to stay alive for long enough for his allies to drive off a foe that closed to melee. It wasn't the genjutsu lessons, because even though none of them--Kiba and Akamaru especially--were well suited for casting genjutsu, their sensory abilities made it relatively easy for them to understand and counter genjutsu, especially when covering each other. It wasn't even the chases--Hinata and Shino weren't as fast as Kiba or Akamaru, but improving was straightforward (if not easy). No, the hardest training exercise for Team 8 was one of the seemingly easiest that Kurenai had come up with--I Spy. Commonly played by even toddlers, if with simpler targets and fewer jutsu involved, most would assume that a famous scouting team like the legendary "Team Kurenai" would be far too busy training with elaborate clones or even genjutsu automatons to bother with a children's game. But everyone has to start somewhere, and it's a good thing Kurenai started them out easy, because it turned out that somehow, none of them had ever played I Spy before.

In retrospect, it makes sense. Kiba and Akamaru's sense of fun had always been far more physical--playing tag, ninja, various sports, or even just races and running for fun took up their free time. Shino had been both serious and somewhat solitary--though he'd be quick to remind you that technically he had far more friends than any non-Aburame could even imagine--from a young age, and so disinclined to that sort of spontaneous game. Hinata meanwhile was simply too shy and self-conscious to make friends outside her little sister, at least until becoming part of her team. And while they each had tracking and scouting training from their clans, the Inuzuka favored chases and hunts, the Aburame focused on communicating and organizing their allies, and the Hyuga's Byagukan exercises were essentially vision charts, expanded and spread out over a three-dimensional volume. As such, they were all a little puzzled--and Kiba a little angry--when at their third team meeting Kurenai introduced their newest exercise, and the foundation of their scouting training. They were only slightly mollified when she explained that they wouldn't just be looking for "something starting with ka," and that she had much more complicated objectives in mind. And so, they soon realized that having to find "a red camellia surrounded by white ones, east quadrant" or "signs of a struggle, along the river" trained them in skills that they needed if they wanted to spot and catch Kurenai's oh-so-annoying genjutsu targets, let alone Tora or other mission objectives. Of course, while they didn't play the simpler version of 'I Spy' in their youth, they quickly picked up the habit of playing their new favorite training exercise in their down time as well--if with much easier objectives.

And so it was that our heroes found themselves passing the time while waiting for Kurenai to get out of her Jonin meeting so they could go for their weekly dinner:

"40 yards west, 23 yards north, the black pine trees."

"Shino, I keep telling you to just use metric like the rest of us!"

"And I keep telling you that my family has used these measurements for centuries. Next objective is <ha>, living, plural."

"Hinata and Chouji are from Noble Clans too, and you don't see them using yards and feet and elbows or whatever else!"

"Umm…is your target the flock of pigeons on the academy roof, Shino?"

"You are correct."

"Then next let's find…um…<sa>, living, singular…and stands out."

The boys shift around on their perches on the roof of their team's favorite diner for a few minutes, before Akamaru breaks into excited barks.

"Oh, good call boy! Akamaru says it's the weirdly striped toad over next to the ramen shop on 33rd street, among the normal green ones."

A pause falls over the group as Akamaru and Kiba's pride turns awkward, until Shino finally speaks up.

"Perhaps Akamaru heard incorrectly, Hinata said <sa>, not <ga>, Kiba."

"Huh? Yeah, and 'toad' starts with—wait no, crap, you're right… Akamaru, <bark yip growl> starts with <sa>, you have to remember to translate…though it'd be much easier if these two would finally agree to learn Inuzuka, ya know!"

"That would be an illogical use of our time. Why? Because as we've discussed before, you yourself have informed us that Akamaru will likely develop vocal cords capable of conventional human speech within the next five years. As we would be incapable of speaking Inuzuka and have already learned to understand the very basic emergency phrases in case you are incapacitated and Akamaru has to inform us of your general location and status, it makes more logical sense—"

"Oh, come off it with the logic this and sense that, I'm just saying we have 4 team members so it would be nice if we could all share another language! Hinata and I already signed up for your clan's Insect Semaphore classes, and that's way harder-"

"Are you two fighting again?" the air spoke, before Kurenai appeared from behind both the tangle of pipes at the side of the building and a complex genjutsu.

"Umm, of course not sensei…we were just practicing"

"Hmm…well, Raidou finally finished his report, so we can go eat. Who won today?"

"Assuming that Hinata's target was Sakura Haruno, who just exited the Ninja Supply shop 43 yards south-south-west, then I believe Hinata and I tied today."

"Well, then I suppose Kiba, Akamaru, and I will just have to split the price of both some winter melon and some cinnamon rolls, unless either of your dessert choices have changed?"

And so, Team 8's life continued, as it often did, to the yells of an outraged Kiba and the chuckles of a fond Kurenai.

 

[Abby Normal]

A/N So in an example of something I should have done *before* reuploading it here, I have had JJ do an editing pass on this, because 1. its almost 3 years old and I am at least slightly better at writing now, and 2. either i didn't have them edit it back then or i hadn't convinced them that they were allowed to be mean and make nontrivial edits/delete things for my own good yet So i'll put the 'original' version into apocrypha so everyone can see just how big a difference their help makes!

Or, as they said in our discord:

i think vveve solved it

Click to shrink...

Let us know if we managed to mess anything up while porting the edited version back into SV

---

Team 8's Hobbies
​

Going from the Ninja Academy and its standardized curriculum–along with any supplemental family training–to the bounds of a Genin Team, whose training is almost entirely driven by their Sensei's personality and talents, can be a shock. Some students adjust well, having complementary skills and backgrounds to their teachers. Others end up relying almost entirely on their family training or self-study. Most fall somewhere in between, and often those new skills and training methods that were most difficult to adjust to at first become essential parts of their repertoire. For Team 7, their sensei's focus on teamwork conflicted with their… existing predispositions towards one another, but in the end, it was their teamwork that saved them in the Land of Waves and the Forest of Death… and the sabotage of that teamwork that spelled the end for their team for many years. For Team 10, while teamwork was their greatest strength, each member took different paths in their individual skills. Shikamaru, whose brain had always been his greatest tool, took to Asuma's disguised training via Shogi and brain teasers well. Chouji, who was held back by his lack of confidence, blossomed under the gentle encouragement of his team. Ino, meanwhile, became a master of her clan's techniques, as Asuma had little to teach her that would fit with her style. And while Rock Lee took after his sensei's training style wholeheartedly, Gai's core philosophies of Hard Work and pushing your body to ensure a solid base served Tenten and Neji well, saving their lives–and those of their comrades–dozens of times.

For Team 8, however, almost no one manages to guess what unexpected training element was the hardest for them to get around at first. It wasn't the physical sparring that Kurenai put them through; even Shino had been drilled in the importance of how to stay alive for long enough for his allies to drive off a foe that closed to melee. It wasn't the genjutsu lessons, because even though none of them–Kiba and Akamaru especially–were well suited for casting genjutsu, their sensory abilities made it relatively easy for them to understand and counter it, especially when covering each other. It wasn't even the chases–Hinata and Shino weren't as fast as Kiba or Akamaru, but improving was straightforward (if not easy). No, the hardest training exercise for Team 8 was one of the seemingly easiest that Kurenai had come up with: I Spy. Commonly played by even toddlers, if with simpler targets and fewer jutsu involved, most would assume that a famous scouting team like the legendary "Team Kurenai" would be far too busy training with elaborate clones or even genjutsu automatons to bother with a children's game. But everyone has to start somewhere, and it's a good thing Kurenai started them out easy, because it turned out that somehow, none of them had ever played I Spy before.

In retrospect, it makes sense. Kiba and Akamaru's sense of fun had always been far more physical; they spent their free time playing tag, ninja, or various sports, as well as challenging others to races. Shino had been both serious and somewhat solitary–though he'd be quick to remind you that technically he had far more friends than any non-Aburame could even imagine–from a young age, and so disinclined to that sort of spontaneous game. Hinata meanwhile was simply too shy and self-conscious to make friends outside her little sister, at least until becoming part of her team. And while they each had tracking and scouting training from their clans, the Inuzuka favored chases and hunts, the Aburame focused on communicating and organizing their allies, and the Hyuuga's Byakugan exercises were essentially vision charts, expanded and spread out over a three-dimensional volume. As such, they were all a little puzzled–and Kiba a little angry–when at their third team meeting Kurenai introduced their newest exercise, and the foundation of their scouting training. They were only slightly mollified when she explained that they wouldn't just be looking for "something starting with <ka>," and that she had much more complicated objectives in mind. And so, they soon realized that having to find "a red camellia surrounded by white ones, east quadrant" or "signs of a struggle, along the river" trained them in skills that they needed if they wanted to spot and catch Kurenai's oh-so-annoying genjutsu targets, let alone Tora or other mission objectives. Of course, while they didn't play the simpler version of 'I Spy' in their youth, they quickly picked up the habit of playing their new favorite training exercise in their down time as well–if with much easier objectives.

And so it was that our heroes found themselves waiting outside the mission office for their sensei, having fallen back on their new habit to pass the time.

"40 yards west, 23 yards north, the black pine trees."

"Shino, I keep telling you to just use metric like the rest of us!"

"And I keep telling you that my family has used these measurements for centuries. Next objective is <ha>, living, plural."

"Hinata and Chouji are from Noble Clans too, and you don't see them using yards and feet and elbows or whatever else!"

"Umm… is your target the flock of pigeons on the academy roof, Shino?"

"You are correct."

"Then next let's find… um… <sa>, living, singular…and stands out."

The boys shifted around on their perches on the roof of their team's favorite diner for a few minutes, before Akamaru broke into excited barks.

"Oh, good call boy! Akamaru says it's the weirdly striped toad over next to the ramen shop on 33rd Street, among the normal green ones."

A pause fell over the group as Akamaru and Kiba's pride turned awkward, until Shino finally spoke up.

"Perhaps Akamaru heard incorrectly, Hinata said <sa>, not <ga>, Kiba."

"Huh? Yeah, and 'toad' starts with—wait no, crap, you're right… Akamaru, <bark yip growl> starts with <sa>, you have to remember to translate… though it'd be much easier if these two would finally agree to learn Inuzuka, ya know!"

"That would be an illogical use of our time. Why? Because as we've discussed before, you yourself have informed us that Akamaru will likely develop vocal cords capable of conventional human speech within the next five years. As we would be incapable of speaking Inuzuka and have already learned to understand the very basic emergency phrases in case you are incapacitated and Akamaru has to inform us of your general location and status, it makes more logical sense—"

"Oh, come off it with the logic this and sense that, I'm just saying we have 4 team members so it would be nice if we could all share another language! Hinata and I already signed up for your clan's Insect Semaphore classes, and that's way harder–"

"Are you two fighting again?" the air spoke, before Kurenai appeared from behind both the tangle of pipes at the side of the building and a complex genjutsu.

"Umm, of course not sensei… we were just practicing."

"Hmm… well, Raidou finally finished his report, so we can go eat. Who won today?"

"Assuming that Hinata's target was Sakura Haruno, who just exited the Ninja Supply shop 43 yards south-south-west, then I believe Hinata and I tied today."

"Well, then I suppose Kiba, Akamaru, and I will just have to split the price of both some winter melon and some cinnamon rolls, unless either of your dessert choices have changed?"

And so, Team 8's life continued, as it often did, to the yells of an outraged Kiba and the chuckles of a fond Kurenai.