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Shoganai - An Ignoramus SI in Naruto

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AU Omake - Cleanin’ Out My Closet
  • Sidestory

    • AU Omake - Cleanin' Out My Closet


    Ten days and several villages after they'd started, Naruto was already getting sick of searching for Tsunade.

    "Maybe… maybe we ought to take a break, eh, kid?" Ero-Sennin remarked. "C'mon. This place has a bar."

    Every place they'd gone to had had a bar. That was one of the problems. But what else was there to do - he'd protested all he could the first time, but had gotten overruled.

    This was apparently just his life now. Babysitting a pervert sage… admittedly, in exchange for some amazing jutsu.

    They were just about to head into yet another inn when Jiraiya froze.

    "Sorry, folks," came a drawling voice from one of the nearby rooftops. "But I'm afraid this particular restaurant is closed to the two of you."

    A man emerged from the shadows of the roof, tall and broad of shoulder, with slicked back blond hair and intense blue eyes. He wore a dark navy business suit with lavender lapels; a small pin bearing the notes of Otogakure was affixed to one of them.

    "If you think-?!" Naruto began, but the man above him held up a hand for silence - and for some reason, the orange-clad almost-chunin stopped talking.

    "Nothing personal," the man continued. "But given my last conversation, it wouldn't do either of you any good to go in there. Mother dearest is still angry, and while Mom tries her hardest…." he shook his head.

    "You," Ero-Sennin growled.

    The man's lips parted in a grin, and he sketched a mock bow. "Me," he allowed. "And at last, the third of three… well met, Uncle."

    "Eh?!" Naruto looked between the two, feeling the one-sided hostility. "Uncle?!"

    "Where are my manners?" the man spoke like an old woman, which was really freaky to be honest. "Senju Kipposhi, at your service. Son of Senju Tsunade."

    "How dare you claim to be her son," Ero-Sennin snarled. "You abandoned her!"

    Something like irritation passed briefly over Kipposhi's face, but only for a moment - Naruto almost wasn't sure he'd even seen it.

    "It's rude not to introduce yourself back," Kipposhi said, though Naruto was pretty sure that wasn't what he had been going to say. "Uncle."

    Well, if Ero-Sennin wasn't going to then someone had to step up!

    "I'm Uzumaki Naruto!" the young teen called out. "And I'm going to be Hokage someday, so you better be warned-"

    "Naruto!" Jiraiya tried to cut him off, but it was too late. Kipposhi's laughter echoed above them.

    "Well met!" the man cried out between peels, even as he leapt down to the ground. "Well met indeed, Uzumaki Naruto."

    "Don't you dare come any closer," Jiraiya snarled. "If you even think about harming him-"

    "I'll swear any oath you want that I have no ill-intentions towards your student, Uncle," Kipposhi spread his arms, palms upward. "Quite the opposite, I can assure you."

    "Um," the genin in question frowned. "Ero-Sennin-?"

    "This kid is the Mayor of Otogakure," Ero-Sennin growled, dropping into a combat stance. "Don't trifle with him."

    "Kid?!" Naruto all but shouted. "When I'm that big, if you still call me a kid, I'm going to kick your ass, old man!"

    Kipposhi only looked idly between the two of them, amusement glittering in his expression

    "He's only a year older than you are."

    "Eh?! Is that true?!"

    "Yeah, well," Kipposhi scoffed. "We have a biomancer - and having, ah, heard about puberty? Ain't nobody got time for that. This way was much more efficient, don't you think?"

    Naruto wasn't sure what a "biomancer" was, but from the way Ero-Sennin was grimacing, it probably wasn't a good thing.

    "It's unnatural," the gray-haired man insisted.

    "So's clothing," came the immediate rejoinder. "... though that probably might not be the right counterexample, given who I'm speaking to."

    Naruto couldn't help but chuckle. "He's got you there, Ero-Sennin!"

    "This isn't funny," Jiraiya snapped. "What are you planning? What does Orochimaru want with Tsunade?! Answer me!"

    Kipposhi had been very personable this entire time, and his act - because it had to have been an act - had been enough to make Naruto forget who the man was clearly in service to. Orochimaru had participated in the assault during the Chunin Exams, after all.

    "Oh, he wants her medical expertise," the Otogakure nin flicked his wrist in a casual dismissal. "His last fight took quite a bit out of him, you know."

    That remark immediately soured Naruto on the guy - how dare he! The old man had been nothing but kind to him!
    "If you think that Tsunade would-"

    "I didn't," Kipposhi interrupted Jiraiya. "Not really. But it was worth a shot, at least. And I haven't seen my parents in years." A shadow flickered over his face. "Perhaps a big happy family reunion had been too optimistic, there."

    "You abandoned your mother for a traitor and a monster," Jiraiya's words were frosted over colder than the Land of Snow. "What did you think would happen?"

    "Monster?" Kipposhi's smile turned just as arctic. "Should we ask the orphans of Amegakure what moniker they'd give you?"

    An inhuman noise rumbled from the deepest recesses of Naruto's mentor's chest.

    "I'm not here to fight," the enemy nin continued. "And if you want my mother for Hokage it'd be best you wait a day or two, let her cool off and deal with the hangover."

    Naruto froze at the man's words. He knew? How?

    "You think we can trust your intentions?" Jiraiya's voice had become rougher. Harsher. "After all that your master did?"

    "Sunagakure was going to betray you eventually," Kipposhi waved another dismissive hand. "Maybe if you spent some time gathering intel on your supposed allies instead of faffing about Rock and Cloud you would have realized this. Honestly, we did you a favor, popping their treachery wine before it'd fully matured.

    "As for our little part… we were only there to kill a single nin. The Hokage was just… a tragic accident."

    Jiraiya's face was purple. And Naruto could feel the fire of his own rage stirring.

    "...Admittedly," Kipposhi concluded. "That's just what Auntie Orochimaru told me beforehand. He is a splendid liar, and he and the Hokage do have a bit of a grudge. I can't control him - really, being the Mayor means he can foist all the administration off on-"

    "That's enough!" Naruto erupted. "You speak in circles, you attack our home, you kill our Hokage, and you think you can just… talk and give us some advice and that's it! You'll pay for what you've done - believe it!"

    He'd been forbidden from using this technique during the Exams, but this was a real life and death situation. And maybe if he took down a real Otogakure jonin - because "Mayor" had to mean he was highly ranked - then maybe they'd promote him to chunin.

    "Rasenga-!"

    "Shinra Tensei"

    An explosion of force knocked Naruto into the wall of the nearest building - Jiraiya, too, was in a small crater of his own next to him. The man's face was pale.

    "Impossible," he whispered.

    "Apologies," Kipposhi stated, and as the dust cleared, Naruto could see him dabbing at one of his eyes with a bloody cloth. "New technique - don't quite have the control over it yet that I'd want."

    The now bloody cloth came away and with a slight shimmer, the genjutsu around the nin's eye vanished. No longer blue, but completely. inhumanly purple, with spiraling black rings darker than Sasuke's tomoe.

    Did… Kipposhi have a Sharingan, too?

    "I have no desire to fight you," he continued. "Believe me, I think we'll be great allies in the future. But don't take an unwillingness on my part for an inability. There's no reason we can't be friends."

    And then Kipposhi vanished, just as two new figures burst from the building behind him.

    Yeah, this is kinda how I imagine things would have turned out if Tsunade had tried to raise a young Kipposhi. Let's be honest - she'd be the worst kind of overprotective helicopter mom, for admittedly very good, trauma-related reasons.

    And I am a highly opinionated person - have been my whole life. And being treated like a five year old when you have thirty years of memories? Nope. Would not be a good fit at all. All the emotional volatility of a child and all the indignation of being infantilized as an adult. Could Tsunade have handled this sort of prodigy while battling her own inner demons?

    Probably not - though she'd have tried like hell. Honestly, this would have been on the both of them.
     
  • Sidestory
    • Wonder what Rinnegan power Kiposhi likes the most?

    Chakra absorption?
    Cybernetics?
    Summoning?
     
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    25. We are the Others
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    • Chapter Twenty-Five - We are the Others

    I woke up on a thin mattress, staring up at a plaster ceiling gone slightly yellow with age.

    "Nobunaga!" Shizune was at my side. "You're awake."

    I didn't hurt… anywhere. Even in my foot or my abdomen, which you'd think really should have still been healing, even with -

    -no. Wait. The foot pain was phantasmal; a focus in the aftermath of the genjutsu. And I'd never actually suffered any sort of stabbing or injury to my torso except in the Tsukuyomi itself.

    Shizune's grey eyes peered at me with

    DarknessARedMoonAnIronCross​

    concern, even as I flinched away from them for some reason.

    "Not fully recovered," she murmured, her head now lowered. "Not unexpected. I'll inform Tsunade-sama-"

    "Wait," I croaked out, belatedly spying a sealed bottle of water at a bedside table. "What… what's going on?"

    "What do you remember?"

    We want to know where your brother is.

    "Naruto," I croaked. "They're after Naruto…."

    "Yes," Shizune nodded. "He's currently down the hall along with several of the others. No- Nobunaga! Stop!"

    I could have broken her hold on me, but not without risking breaking or spraining something on my mother's factotum - so I didn't.

    "He's made a full recovery," she said, and once again, I had to look away the moment her gaze touched mine. "We're keeping him for observation and because his teammate and mentor are still recovering."

    "What about mine?" I asked, as she slid back off the bed. Shizune pretended not to notice as I discreetly tucked in the hospital blanket and I pretended she wasn't pretending. Puberty was a bitch and while our whole deal was fucked up - my lizard brain did not care. "Gai? Lee? Neji?"

    The dark-haired kunoichi checked her ever-present clipboard. "One of your teammates was expelled from the hospital grounds for causing a disturbance during your surgery. The other stayed by your side as you slept and left earlier this afternoon - you've been out for over half a day. Maito Gai has been standing guard on the roof of the hospital this entire time."

    I frowned. "Surgery?"

    Shizune nodded. "You collapsed in the lobby of the hospital with little physical injury - it was unlikely that you were suffering from a stroke, so the aftereffects of a genjutsu was the most likely. Certain genjutsu can cause physical changes to the brain — but only the most skilled med-nin are capable of performing the procedure to alleviate the symptoms. Otherwise, you might have found your personality and self irrevocably… altered."

    I took a second to mull over the explanation. There were… quite a few implications in there — but most importantly.

    "My mother took a look inside my mind?"

    I had secrets, dammit! My memories were private — there was an entirely lifetime's worth of thoughts and opinions that were mine, and nobody else's to just amble through —

    — what if she'd seen them? What if she'd seen those extra memories and that was why she wasn't here, and ANBU were already just outside the door—

    "Nobunaga," Shizune stated very firmly. "Tsunade-sama worked to help heal your brain. Not your mind. She didn't see anything; that isn't how the procedure works."

    Her expression softened. "And it wouldn't matter even if she did. She loves you, Nobunaga. I know that it's difficult for you to believe but—" she shook her head. "Sorry. That isn't my business. As you made very clear."

    "...Yeah. So I did."

    The two of us sat in that awkward silence for a few seconds.

    "We're keeping you under observation for another day," she informed me at last. "To make sure that you're fully recovered. There'll be limited visitors according to a schedule at the foot of your bed, in order to check your progress. There is also ink and paper, and your teammates took some things from your home to ensure you wouldn't be bored otherwise."

    "...It's the eye thing, isn't it?" I said, quietly.

    She nodded. "We're hoping it goes away soon. That's what the surgery was trying to keep from setting long-term."

    Shizune headed to the door of the hospital room before turning back towards me. "Good luck," were her final words, before departing.

    Leaving me alone with my thoughts. For… the next three hours.

    Yeah, fuck that. There were things to do.

    Starting with drafting a response to a letter that I'd been putting off because finding the perfect words had been hard. My handwriting wouldn't be very good in the hospital bed, using the clipboard where my schedule was being kept as an improvised desk, but that was alright; this was very much a first draft.

    To my favorite daimyo…. I began, ending the salutation with a bit of a flourish.


    I wasn't really satisfied with said first draft, but staring at the characters any longer wasn't going to be doing either me or the letter any more good.

    And while I had a small selection of texts that my teammates (Neji, presumably - one of them was a classical work), I'd been lying in bed for too long. So I got up, and started doing what exercises I could, even if I felt a bit silly doing them in the paper hospital gown.

    Where were my clothes anyway?

    Sit-ups, pushups, planks, jumping jacks. It felt good to get the body moving again. And as my body went through motions taht by now were second nature, my mind was free to wander and ponder - to reflect on the attack and its assumed motivations. I was taking a brief rest, digesting a very unpleasant conclusion when I heard the tapping.

    "Caw."

    A crow, or maybe a raven - a black bird of some description - was perched outside of my hospital window.

    I peered at the creature. "Eh? What're you looking at."

    The animal's head crooked as it peered almost curiously at me with dark, beady eyes.

    "I am talking to a goddamn bird," I muttered to myself. "This is nuts."

    "Caw," the creature agreed, and fluttered off, just before the door opened a crack.

    "Nobunaga!" Jiraiya called out from the corridor. "You aren't being a teenager in there, are you?"

    "Just exercising," I answered back, and the door opened all the way, revealing the Sanin, along with Shizune just behind him.

    I blinked at her continued appearance. "I don't mean to give offense… but shouldn't you be back at the Hokage's side?" I asked.

    "Yes," she stated flatly. "My being here is a compromise with Tsunade. She's getting regular reports on your progress while she is managing the wider crisis."

    Made sense — we had just been infiltrated and attacked, after all — and this was early enough in her tenure that she had to be a bastion of leadership.

    The idea that she would drop everything to see me… that she probably had, to perform what I surmised to be some sort of anti-PTSD brain surgery on me… I wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that. Decidedly mixed.

    Her expression softened slightly. "N-not that checking in on you is a chore, of course," she hastened to add. How are you doing, Nobunaga-kun?"

    "Nice save," Jiraiya chuckled.

    "Better, I think," I replied, nodding at them both. "...where are my clothes?"

    "They'll be returned when you're ready to check out," Shizune stated promptly.

    An insidious way to keep me in the hospital, to be sure. The door to my room may or may not be locked, but I could defeat it, and the window was eminently breakable — but I wasn't going to be wandering around the village, even (or perhaps especially) on the rooftops in nothing but a hospital gown.

    Jiraiya wiped a tear from his eye, and companionably put his arm around the slim woman. "She's fantastic, isn't she? A real chip off the old block."

    The apprentice to another Sanin stared at the hand as if pondering whether or not to vivisect it for a moment before deciding that no, she would allow it.

    "Jiraiya-san," her words remained very polite. "Boundaries."

    The arm withdrew.

    Fascinating.

    I cleared my throat, the better to get their attention. "There's something I have figured out though."

    The two of them straightened up considerably; at least, Jiraiya did. Shizune was already pretty professional in her demeanor to begin with.

    "We need," I made the effort to look each of them squarely in the eye, my shoulders tensing and bracing myself for a pressure that never came; in fact, the lack of pressure itself nearly bowled me over, like expecting another step when reaching the landing. "To figure out what Itachi and these 'Akatsuki's' real objective was."

    Jiraiya blinked. "Ehhhhhh?!"

    How could someone so renowned be so dense?! Was it because he was hoping to get in my mo- in Shizune's pants? Good luck with that Jiraiya, I was pretty sure she wasn't into men.

    "The Uchiha traitor claimed he was after Naruto," I spoke slowly, deliberately. To mock him. "So he is either a moron who would explain his plans to an enemy, or he was lying. And because the fucker made jonin before his balls dropped, and is supposedly a genjutsu master—"

    Jiraiya's lips twitched.

    "He makes a good point," Shizune's clipboard was in her hands. "We need to alert the Hokage immediately."

    My attention was focused on Jiraiya. Whose initial amusement had faded into apparent thoughtfulness.

    "...What do you know, Jiraiya?"

    "Hmmm?"

    "What are you hiding?"

    The Sanin's expression was stony. "Many things," he responded as the fingers on his gloved hands flexed. "I'm a very important nin, Nobunaga. Secrets are our stock and trade, you know — you never even got a summary of the documents that were the focus of our mission together."

    I felt the anger seething in me, churning like acid. I fucking hated being a mushroom - fed bullshit and left in the dark about everything. "Even still-"

    "The Hokage is aware," the man cut me off. "You have good instincts, though, and they'll take you far. But in this case, no."
    Shizune stepped in. "Your brother was attacked, Nobunaga. As was his partner, and several other nin. If it hadn't been for Jiraiya, then—"

    The door burst open once more.

    "Big Bro!" A baggy-eyed Naruto exclaimed. "They said I wasn't allowed to see you for another three hours but I heard you and the Pervert Sage talking so you'll never guess what happened!"


    Naruto's account of the encounter with Itachi and the shark man - Kisame - had been horrifying to hear. Apparently I was mistaken — I'd overestimated Itachi. The man was, indeed, the sort of idiot who announced his plans to the enemy. He compensated for it with the power of a Sharingan, but yeah. Bad habits.

    Good to know.

    My brother was a nigh-unstoppable ball of energy, and had recovered quickly, but even he needed rest, and he'd fallen for a fairly basic "I think think there's something wrong with my bed" fib — the little guy was out like a light mid-sentence in front of the three of us.

    Sasuke was also apparently recovering from the same sort of procedure that I was, but I was apparently recovering much quicker - according to Shizune, I'd made casual eye contact several times, in addition to deliberate. The former was more important, apparently.

    That meant that I was allowed to check out early. But not before I went to see the third, and most brutally impacted victim of the Tsukyomi - the one who hadn't been able to get the full benefit of Tsunade's procedure.

    "Oh my," he murmured faintly. "Out-recovered by a chunin. How embarrassing."

    Kakashi was being kept in a room with the lights dim, and was turned away from us. He was covered by a thin blanket that kept the outline of his body, and his voice was very soft, to the point that I had to strain to hear.

    One of his shoulders twitched in an approximation of a shrug. "Then again," he continued. "You are a Senju. Such things should be expected."

    "Well," my smile was brittle. "So long as you don't plan on killing yourself over the shame."

    Shizune sputtered in indignation but the son of the White Fang let out a couple of faint laughs at that pointed little quip. "Someone's done their research."

    The famed Copy Ninja was truly a pathetic sight at the moment, but his mind appeared as sharp as ever. "How did you do it?" he asked.

    "There's a technique Gai's taught two of us," I began, but Kakashi's hand was already shaking.

    "I know it," he croaked. "But how would that even work? It shouldn't break through the genjuts- oh." He breathed the last word out, and it echoed through his entire body, from head to toe.

    "It didn't," I confirmed. "Technically."

    What opening the First Gate did was unify my mind and body, synching the two of them - and therefore, breaking the time dilation aspect of the Tsukuyomi. I still technically experienced the entirety of illusion - but what had supposed to have been twenty-four hours of time looped mental torture had been essentially fast forwarded into the one or two seconds of actual time my body experienced.

    "... I see. I overestimated your genius," Kakashi said at last. "And underestimated your ingenuity."

    "Thank you," I informed him. Coming from the man who managed to exploit a Sharingan despite the lack of clan training - that was quite the compliment.

    "Mmmm," he grunted, rolled over, and instantly passed out.

    So that was the end of that conversation. Good talk.


    Neji was waiting for me in the hospital lobby, apparently reading a book, but from the pulsing veins at his temples, he could see me just as easily.

    "Nobunaga!" he cried out, tossing the hardback aside and leaping to his feet, before forgetting himself. "I mean, I expected that you would recover quickly."

    "Hard to be guarding the lobby for assassins with your nose buried in that filth," I informed him archly, clapping him on the shoulder. He nearly collapsed at the friendly touch.

    "I-it is a classic work of literature!" he insisted. "A complex narrative of psychology a-and politics a-and—"

    I was really just giving him shit. My friend wasn't even into women so the harem aspects didn't even matter to him. Hyuuga Neji was just a literature nerd.

    "In any case," I continued. "I am starving because the hospital food is barely deserving of the term. I assume Lee is stalking around just outside the property line, and Gai is going to leap off the roof the moment he catches us in his sight. So I suggest barbeque, all you can eat, and we can argue about the tab over a spar—"

    "Nobunaga!"

    Sarutobi Hiruzen was being wheeled into the hospital with his full-time aide.

    It wasn't for a medical emergency or anything. The former Hokage had sustained injuries in battle — over a lifetime of battle, really — but his defense of Konoha against Orochimaru had been his final one. Exercise, physical therapy, and the disuse of chakra would prolong his existence and to a certain extent increase the quality of his life, but he was essentially on hospice at this point. He had regular therapy sessions in this very building twice a week.

    This was just a coincidence.

    "I heard that you did the impossible, eh? You were always a clever boy, Nobunaga."

    Neji had gone still. I nudged him with my elbow.

    "Come on," I stated shortly. "Let's go."

    "Nobunaga? Not even going to greet me?"

    "Aren't you going to—" Neji began, but I cut him off with a brief shake of the head.

    I half-dragged Neji out of the lobby, even as Hiruzen craned his neck around.

    "...Can't you forgive an old man, Nobunaga?" he called out to the young man who he'd seen on a regular basis for over sixteen years.

    And I refused to say anything to the man.

    Just as he had, for that same amount of time.


    A few days later, I invited Team Seven as well as the two remaining genin of Team Gai to One Honnoji Way for dinner.

    Their jonin was still in the hospital; ours oscillated between an even more intensive training regime and spending time visiting his eternal rival. The specter of mortality for the one against whom Gai measured himself was a strange beast, it seemed.

    Nonetheless, I treated this dinner like a celebration. I put on a hibachi show with rare imported beef from the Land of Lightning, made delicate yellowtail sushi, and as the food was served, I raised my glass of soda in a toast.

    "Thank you all for coming," I told the assembled table. "This, uh… I'm not great at speeches, so—"

    "Bullshit," Neji coughed.

    "---I'd like to make a toast. Well. Two actually. The first: here's to us. Who survived an attack against not one, but two S-rank missing-nin. We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty. We survived, and that means that we were victorious that day. To us - the victorious living!"

    "To the living!"

    If anyone had actually died during the Akatsuki assault, it would have been a horribly gauche toast. But we'd been lucky, so I felt comfortable making it. Luck was a superpower, sometimes.

    "And the second," I continued. "Here's to us."

    "Again?!" Naruto piped up.

    "To us," I repeated firmly. "To the outcasts, to the losers, the cast-offs, the so-called broken."

    I stared around the table, at the five others I'd assembled here, in this place.

    "They underestimate us," I continued softly. "But we will make the world tremble at our approach. Each and every one of us. They will know us. This I swear."

    "Kampai!" Naruto cheered, and nearly everyone raised their cups either along with him.

    Nearly.

    "Cast-offs and outcasts?" The lone girl, and the one I had interacted with least of all, sounded more than a bit skeptical of my words. "Your mother is the Hokage. Sasuke-kun is an Uchiha. Neiji-san is the prodigy of Clan Hyuuga. Pardon me, Nobunaga-san, but that isn't exactly, ah,"

    She'd started out strong, but with the weight of everyone's attention on her, quavered under the attention.

    "I wasn't raised a Senju," I kept my tone gentle. We were here to support everyone. "Sasuke-san is the last Uchiha. As for Neiji…."

    My teammate let out an uncharacteristic, bitter little laugh that sounded foreign to my ears, and had Sakura flinch backwards. Where had he learned that?

    "You don't know everything," was all he said.

    She hadn't questioned my brother or Lee's inclusion in my toast — a backhanded compliment, I supposed, but she seemed to accept our explanation enough to raise her cup higher as well.

    "To us!" we exclaimed, once more, and drank.

    We didn't use glasses or saucers, nor did we dash them to the ground; this was not a proper oath, not yet. I didn't know Sasuke and Sakura well enough for that.

    "Reach under your seats," I said.

    As they did, each of them found a key.

    "Feel free to use Honnoji to train," I informed then, and several of them went pale. "Or to stay over if you need a night or a safe haven. Not to live here, mind—" that remark was directed more towards Naruto in particular, of course. "But as my teammates and my brother's teammates, I would be a fool not to share what I have."

    And after those toasts, and those little speeches, it would take a very special kind of person for it not to be a very merry dinner afterwards.

    After dinner, I took them on an abbreviated tour of the mansion: the guest rooms that they could stay in, and the training areas. I had two major ones: indoors and outdoors.

    Night had fallen by this point, of course, but there were lamps that I lit to show the courtyard where I practiced when the weather was good (and some days, when it wasn't, for suboptimal conditions training); the stones and tile and marbles laid down on the courtyard formed a map, so that we strode upon the world itself. Further ahead were other areas, including a carefully raked circle of sand for spars, but I enjoyed doing calisthenics and movement exercises here.

    Perhaps it was egotistical of me.

    "It might be too late to start now," I began. "But in the future—"

    "No," Sakura interrupted me, even as both Naruto and Sasuke nonverbally indicated agreement. "We… we have to get better. I-- we--"

    "I can help!" Lee volunteered immediately. "Sakura-san, could you show me your taijutsu? And… Neji? Could you help with training?"

    Inwardly I relaxed a little. Lee was still crushing on Sakura, I was pretty sure. But he knew to have a third person around to make sure he wasn't being too much.

    Sasuke, on the other hand, was staring off into the distance. … No - at a particular section of the training grounds - where I'd thinned the bamboo gardens and added distance markers. Areas of the plants a few meters past the first (really, the zeroth) marker were charred and blacked from where I'd been practicing the Great Fireball Jutsu with only limited success

    …The Uchiha clan was known for their expertise with that particular jutsu, weren't they? That had been written in the scroll I'd found it in - sure, it would sting my pride a little but subject-matter expertise was still-

    "Hey, Nobu-nii?"

    But with the worst possible timing, Naruto tugged at my sleeve just as I started to move towards his partner. There was an unusually serious expression on his face.

    "C-can I talk to you for a second?"
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Interlude - The Number of the Beast
  • Threadmarks
    • Interlude - The Number of the Beast

    Meditation was hard.

    It was probably easy for Nobu - everything came easy to Nobu. School, jutsu, people… he was almost always right. One time, he'd even heard a rumor that his big bro had slept through most of a math exam, and then still gotten a perfect score!

    That was the infuriating thing about Nobu, though. He was always right. Even when he was only a teeny tiny bit right and absolutely massively wrong, he still always had that teeny tiny bit. And boy did he let you know about it.

    So he tried his best to stop thinking and breathe.

    Naruto had seen the way his brother was looking at Sasuke — there was a weird sort of cold focus he had, sometimes, like he was doing a math problem but with people. He didn't like it, and he didn't want Nobu to do it to anyone, but he didn't know how to bring it up to his big brother.

    How were you supposed to tell someone that people weren't like math problems?

    Math problems were the worst!

    And what if Nobu got the answer wrong?

    He hadn't been sure whether or not he should tell his big brother the secret; the Ero-Sennin, the Hokage, and the new Hokage themselves had all gathered around him because it was so important.

    But he had to tell somebody! — and Sakura was a girl, there was no way he was telling Sasuke, and Kakashi was still in the hospital.

    He'd been trembling the entire time.

    And Nobu had looked at him with eyes that weren't cold in the slightest, with open arms, and a single word. "And?"

    He'd hurled himself into those arms, sobbing. Because how stupid was his big brother? Didn't he get it? Didn't he understand?

    That was the infuriating thing about Nobu.

    So he was meditating.

    Badly.

    Until he finally gave up, anyway; Naruto threw his hands in the damp air, and screamed into the echoing walls "I can't do it, alright?! It's hard!"

    Silence was his only response.

    He wasn't in Nobu's weird mansion anymore.

    Naruto stood in a dimly lit hallway with no visible lighting; pipes ran all around the ceiling and chipped concrete walls, and water from leaking pipes dropped into stagnant pools. It felt like the first time he'd gone into the basement of his apartment building to do laundry all by himself.

    He might have been just this scared way back then, too.

    His hand shaking, he touched his fingertips to the wall the way he did way back then, and walked the familiar steps to the laundry room, turning the corner just as he still did.

    Only instead of the more brightly lit room with its cheap machines, there was instead a barred cell, with intricate designs along its frame. The ceiling now stretched to an impossible height, and nothing but utter black stood on the other side of the cell's bars.

    Naruto swallowed, nervously.

    In the center of the bars, in place of a lock, there was a single piece of paper holding the thing back.

    Glowing red eyes emerged from the hungry dark, a mouth filled with sharp teeth meant to swallow him whole.

    A young genin clad in orange took a step back before he remembered his courage, and the advice his brother had given him.

    "What you're going to have to figure out, little brother, is whether you're the Fox's prison, or its roommate."


    "Hi!" Naruto screamed, at the top of his lungs. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto and I'm going to be the next Hokage-ttebayo! What's your name?!"

    And then, almost like an afterthought:

    "D-do you like ramen?"
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • I mean, if you are going to express that you aren't really a component of the great engine of human evil, ruthlessly honed by centuries of vengeance and realpolitik, this is how you do it. Under other conditions this conversation might have given Kurama a drinking problem but that is a different issue altogether.
     
    i wonder if Kurama predates the existence of Ramen?

    Kurama: "Back in my day we didn't have Ramen, we had to get by with only unseasoned spaghetti and hope"
     
    So, I just discovered this fix yesterday or so.

    It has been a very enjoyable read.

    I do have some thoughts on the story I'd like to share, but are their any topics the thread would like me to avoid bringing up?

    I do not want to relitigate some old argument.
     
    industrious said:
    Please - go ahead!
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Okay.

    First off, it was nice to see Nobunaga's ignorance of the setting played for drama. Where he did not realize how much he had been impacting the setting and how that fed into his worries about Fate and Destiny.

    I also like how those differences include literally inconsequential things like Ino's crush.

    On the whole you've been willing to throw a lot into your story (ranging from serious like Nobunaga's physical body seriously impacting his emotions and reactions to the funny like his badly cribbing real works songs). But nothing takes too much space or time. And that is to the story's benefit.
    (even if there are details I would have maybe liked to maybe see explored more in-depth).

    I avoided informational and side story posts until I was all caught up, so Nobunaga being Tsunade's son caught me completely off guard.
    Given I just accepted Nobunaga as Naruto's sibling in fact, My first thought was that the Third was forcing Tsunade to fake it just to make Nobunaga finally stop investigating.

    No complaints about Tsunade and Nobunaga's interactions so far.

    At first, I was thinking that even beyond Nobunaga's point that she could not change for him, but could for the Hokage office..
    Giving him up because she (probably rightfully) believes she would make a terrible parent is not a good look when the alternative ended up being a ward of the state.
    But, then I realized "No... Tsunade did leave Nobunaga directly in the hands of someone else". So, unless it turns out dumping him in the orphanage was Tsunade's plan, I am willing to absolve her of the greater portion of guilt and hand it to Jiraiya.
    That is two mothers who unfortunately trusted Jiraiya with their children. I guess they confused him being good at teaching teenagers with him being willing to be present in the life of anyone under the age of majority?

    Given there was a whole note on it, I figure I should throw in my two cents about the confrontation with Guy and Shizune.
    I completely understand why Shizune approached Nobunaga the way she did. And when she did (she was already there to fix him up). Of course it turned out to be less "striking while the iron is hot" and more "picking at the fresh wound".
    Nobunaga's reactions were completely understandable and I support him in telling his non-existent parents to hit the figurative road. Even if he was getting too personal by the end.

    Guy... I understand his logic. He looks up to Shizune and feels indebted to her. He does not want to see her hurt. And he wants Nobunaga to have a functioning and at least cordial relationship with her for both personal and professional reasons.
    By being so physically and verbally aggressive with Nobunaga... By reducing him to tears from physical pain and emotional fear, Guy does not only stop Nobunaga from potentially saying something unforgivable, he immediately reframed Nobunaga in Shizune's eyes from a cruel aggressor into a scared, victimized child. The less than subtle comparison to Tsunade's undoubtedly many low points only served to give Shizune an intellectual reason for forgiving Nobunaga.

    All that said, he still reduced his student to a crying mess without warning. So, I am happy you wrote in how their relationship was permanently damaged as a result.

    Elsewise... I really like your take on the Snow Kingdom.
     
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    26. Born in the USA
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter Twenty-Six - Born in the USA

    As wonderful as it was to be a homeowner — and One Honnoji Way was a beautiful manse retrofitted to my exact specifications — there were certain disadvantages to my circumstances. One of them was that the estate was distant from the center of Konoha; not only did this mean that eating out was much more costly, but also that whenever I started to run low or empty on some essential or other, I'd need to trek into town to resupply.

    After the first time I'd had to schlepp a fifty-pound bag of rice and toilet paper in addition to my usual groceries, I'd bought a wheelbarrow. It wasn't that I couldn't carry the weight — I was a ninja and a member of Team Gai — but the sheer bulk of the purchases had made it extremely awkward to carry.

    Plus, one of the shopping bags had ripped several miles out after it had gotten hooked on an errant tree branch.

    I was putting away the groceries from such a shopping trip when I found a note affixed to a package of noodles.

    Chunin - please report to training ground seven at noon in two days time. - Kurenai.

    That surprised me for a number of reasons, starting with the fact that the note had gotten in my bag undetected. I didn't have my teammate's advantages when it came to perception, but I was hardly the scatterbrained academic that I'd been in my previous life. And yet, I couldn't even pick out a particular point at which the note had been slipped in - though given the timeline, it had to have occurred after I'd checked out, unless, of course, she'd used a genjutsu. I'd been trained in both stealth and appropriate countermeasures, but it still seemed like there was a long way for me to go.

    There was something a little chilling about the display — if she'd wanted, she could have killed me.

    Not that she had any reason to, of course. The jonin mentor of Team 8 was known for being a relatively gentle mentor; while she'd objected to my use of Flashbang on one of her students during the month before the chunin exams, Hinata's performance had improved greatly afterwards, according to Neji. Yuhi Kurenai's Team 8 were specialists in reconnaissance, tracking, and counter-surveillance; the woman herself was considered to be the finest genjutsu practitioner of her generation.

    Because of this, it was very likely that she'd be assigned to evaluate me for tokubetsu jonin — yet I wasn't eligible for the rank for another six weeks. So what reason did the two of us have to meet?

    I had my answer two days later, with the rest of Team Gai at my side. I had been ambushed recently, after all; there was no reason not to come loaded for bear.

    "Ah, Kurenai!" Gai waved at the other jonin. "Fantastic day, isn't it?"

    She was an astoundingly pretty woman, so I wasn't surprised that my mentor was trying to butter her up a little. Tousled raven hair that fell just past her shoulders; vivid red eyes; a slender build with a willow-like waist and long legs… yowza.

    Sarutobi Asuma was a very lucky man. The two of them weren't officially dating, but the Hyuuga clan were a rather perceptive lot, and Neji could sometimes be quite the gossip when he had a mind to be.

    "Maito Gai," came her calm reply, as she inclined her head to each of us in turn. "Hyuuga Neji. Rock Lee. Uzumaki Nobunaga. Well met."

    Her lips parted in a smile. "As you can see, young chunin, this isn't an ambush."

    My mouth suddenly felt a little dry, even as Gai let out a booming laugh. "Ah… well… in my defense! I did just get attacked…."

    "None taken," she reassured me. "A healthy amount of caution is more than warranted. Gai — I'd like to speak with your pupil privately?"

    "Of course!" Gai beckoned to the other two members of my team. "Come genin! We have much more training to do!"

    The three of them departed, and the jonin and I were left alone in one of the more remote training grounds.

    "Do you know why I called you here, chunin?" she asked abruptly.

    "I have some guesses," I admitted. She waited for me to elaborate, but I didn't proffer any further information.

    "...It's rare, for someone so young to understand the power of silence," she said at last, smiling. "Can you tell me when my note made its way to your groceries?"

    A nice little power play on her part — I hadn't risen to her bait, so she was reminding me of the relative gap in our skills.

    "There are two major possibilities," I said promptly. "Either after I checked out of the supermarket, sometime during my trek back to my place, or you used a genjutsu while I was in the supermarket."

    "That's overly broad," she cautioned. "But the former is correct. As to why you are here… you faced Uchiha Itachi not ten days ago, did you not?"

    I gave her the mildest smile I could, even if a slight tremble blew through the rest of my body. "I did, yes."

    "He was considered the greatest genjutsu prodigy of his time," she informed me, and I had to bite back a laugh. "And yet you managed to break his most potent jutsu."

    I weighed my options - whether to brag a little or be honest. Part of me wanted to puff up, disparage the missing-nin who was apparently after my brother; a calmer, more rational part knew that there were only so many ways that the jonin could know the story.

    "Break is a very strong word, jonin."

    "Withstand, then," she waved a hand. "I'm sure you're aware that you aren't eligible for promotion to tokubetsu jonin for at least another two months, but Team 8 will be going on an extended mission around that time. My recommendation letter can be written before the submission date."

    So I was right, then. This was my interview.

    "Thank you very much, jonin," I stated, bowing.

    "I wouldn't be doing this had it not been for the Akatsuki's attack," her words held a steel edge to them. "You're so… young, Nobunaga."

    I really wasn't.

    But there was no way I was getting into that with anybody, so there wasn't anything for me to say.

    "...So," I resisted the urge to stick my hands in my pockets. "How is this going to work?"

    Kurenai nodded. "You're going to show me your genjutsu," she informed me. "And we're going to discuss how you use them and what you use them for. Ideally, we'd be doing so in the field, but this works just fine."

    A moment passed before the jonin made another gesture. "Feel free to begin, chunin."

    And so I did — forming hand signs and showing off all the jutsu I'd created, with the exception of Subtitle. I was actually pretty proud of how much improvement I'd made since the beginning - how much faster I was at forming Censor Bars than I had been at first; the ease at which I flew from Coil No Jutsu into the real attack that the feint would disguise.

    Throughout it all, Kurenai remained steadfast, her expression unchanging except when I brought out Knife Trick no Jutsu. That particular bit of genjutsu was based on the Third Hokage's signature move — the Shuriken Kage Bunshin — but was instead a simple illusion of multiplication rather than an actual duplication of projectiles. That one, at least, brought the faintest traces of a smile to her face.

    "...And those are my genjutsu, Kurenai-sensei," I finished, panting slightly after the demonstration.

    "I see," a slim finger tapped at her lips thoughtfully. "Thank you."

    That couldn't be it. No goddamn way.

    "...I would be eager to hear your thoughts," I offered.

    Apparently, it took her another minute to gather them, and with every passing second the fist around my heart grew ever so slightly tighter.

    "...It is obvious that you have crafted these genjutsu with skill and care," she said at last. "And that you practice them regularly."

    I sensed a "but" coming.

    "With that being said, young Nobunaga," she continued, and I would have punched if it had made any difference. "There is nothing in these genjutsu that speaks to me of mastery."

    "I'm sorry what" the words came out flat, as I tried to claw back any hint of derision or incredulity. I was not some teenage brat seeking validation but a chunin attempting to prove they were more than a mere journeyman.

    "Your illusions are… small," she settled on that final word reluctantly. "Skillful, like I said before, but small. Your 'DM' is perhaps the most advanced out of all of them and even then, you focus on maintaining a minimum of effort and commitment to the genjutsu itself. Why do you limit yourself only to a replacement of your own form with that technique?"

    "The ideal illusion is one that either isn't detected," was my immediate response. "Or one for which detection and dispelling is irrelevant."

    The jonin made a skeptical sound. "The perils of putting a genjutsu specialist on the same team as a Hyuuga," she mused. "And Maito Gai, for all his skill… this is far from his area as well. Most enemy nin should not be able to see through a properly employed genjutsu, or it will not matter."

    "Genjutsu," I had to maintain my calm. "Is not a knife but a fan — it distracts and deflects and creates openings for more devastating techniques themselves. The very possibility of genjutsu ought to create doubt and hesitation in a foe's mind."

    Kurenai made several hand signs and without warning I found myself bound by the limbs of a great tree, its branches and roots binding my limbs with unnatural speed.

    "This," the jonin began to whisper in my ear. "Is the Man Jubaku Satsu—"

    I laughed. Loud and hard and though the illusion was such that my hands could not form the seal for Kai I pitted my will directly against the jonin's and with logic and laughter the tree faded into nothingness.

    "A completely useless genjutsu," I spat.

    "An ancient and traditional genjutsu of the village," she countered. "One that your ancestors developed - for it sought to convince our enemies that Senju Hashirama himself had taken the field against them…."

    I couldn't help it. The defiant laughter turned to scorn as it continued to pour out of me.

    "Then it is even more useless!" I cried out. "Because nobody in this fucking village even has Wood Release anymore! Genjutsu is a situational art! You can't try to define deception — the illusion works, or it does not! You just need to tell the right lies at the right time and place!"

    "Genjutsu," she continued to speak in the same tone as she always had. "Is the art of imposing a new, false reality upon your opponents. You were not quick enough in your dispelling that I could not have slit your throat; it is in the sudden turn to the strange and bizarre that it can find more power. Genjutsu requires imagination and thought in its application - and yours remain far too firmly grounded for me to tell whether or not you are truly a master of the craft."

    "They feint and distract," I insisted. "And from there: taijutsu!"

    "This is not a test for jonin," she said, crisply. "But for tokubetsu jonin. And the rank you seek is not an intermediary between chunin and jonin, but of mastery in a single aspect of jutsu. And I say you are not yet a master."

    This was outrageous. Completely unfair.

    But I took in a deep, long breath before I next spoke.

    "Three weeks," I informed her.

    "I beg pardon?"

    "I don't agree with you," I said, calmly as I could. "But I will accept your premises for the purposes of this examination. In three weeks I will come back with a technique in your style, by your rules, and then we can talk about 'mastery.'"

    "Nobunaga," I heard her say warningly, though as I'd already begun to trudge off I couldn't see her. "You don't have to make tokubetsu jonin this quickly; you have plenty of time; we can talk again in a month!"

    I knew I was being rude, but I didn't really care.

    I had a job to do.


    "-NAGA? Nobunaga?! Where are you?!"

    There was someone in my home.

    Admittedly, not merely "someone" - Lee was in my home.

    I'd spent the past ten days working on the jutsu I'd promised Kurenai - I had plenty of supplies at home, and while I liked to consider myself pretty decent at genjutsu, even fired up and inspired as I was, there was still a process of continual refinement that I needed to work through to get the technique ready in time for my second round with the jonin.

    My friend's bowl-cut head peeked through the door to the indoor training room. "There you are!"

    His nose immediately wrinkled. "Uh, Nobunaga? When was the last time you, uh, showered?"

    I sniffed myself.

    Ah.

    "...I've been busy," I stated flatly. "I've got a new jutsu I need to work on for Kurenai or I won't get her recommendation for tokubetsu jonin, and---"

    "---You missed group practice," Lee said quietly.

    …Had I really?

    "Not that it's mandatory for you," he continued, a trace of old bitterness and anger seeping into his words like rancid tea. "You're a chunin now. And we're still genin."

    I blinked. "What's this about, Lee?"

    "Why do you want to be a tokubetsu jonin so badly?" he asked me, plopping himself right across from me. "You're already a chunin, you fought off an S-class Missing Nin - we haven't seen you in over a week!"

    "Rich talk coming from the man who wants to be a splendid ninja!" I shot back, and I did not see the fist Lee sent straight into my face.

    "I know about training yourself into exhaustion!" he told me, as I lay there, sprawled on the tatami like a novice. "And the real Nobunaga should have been able to counter that punch easily! This isn't dedication, this is obsession! What happened to what you told Neji and I? It wasn't a race, it was a marathon?"

    I lay there on the floor for a while.

    How could I explain this to Lee? Without telling him that I knew, vaguely enough, that we existed in a universe where my brother was going to undergo horrific and terrifying trials in the near to immediate future and I needed to protect him? That the ball was already rolling downhill and it probably wouldn't be stopping anytime soon - not since the old man retired and my mother—

    "...I'm not a skilled nin anymore."

    "What?" I heard him say.

    "I'm not just some skilled nin anymore, Lee!" I shouted. "I'm the Hokage's bastard kid! Everything I used to do, I was skilled or talented, and nobody expected anything of me - or of you, and so when we did the impossible, that made us mighty! But now… I'm just a Senju. All that work, all that effort… I'm just a Senju, so it's expected that I'd be great. It's meaningless."

    The words continued to pour out of me even still.

    "She said I wasn't a master of genjutsu, Lee. That the whole ideas and principles were wrong. But I'm not wrong, Lee. I'm not. I'm—"

    I pushed myself half-way to vertical, and Lee was there to catch me.

    The shoulder of his green jumpsuit was wet.

    "Nobunaga?" he said.

    "Yeah?"

    "For all your talk of supporting each other, you're pretty bad at asking for help."
    I let out a half-chuckle. "...A little."

    "I can't do genjutsu," he continued. "But you probably need a partner or two to practice it on. Take a shower, get some food… I'll get Neji and some of the others. We'll help you prove that jonin wrong."

    "...Okay."


    Two weeks later, I returned to the same field. Kurenai was waiting for me.

    She could not quite meet my gaze.

    "I'd like to apologize, Nobunaga," she began, in lieu of a greeting. "If my criticisms seemed harsh when we last spoke. You are very skilled and proficient - and I have no doubts that you will join me as a jonin one day. You don't have to prove anything to me. You're one of Maito Gai's students — if you're committed to this, you should easily be able to get a letter of recommendation for tokubetsu jonin for your skill at taijutsu. I can put you in contact with another jonin—"

    I shook my head, even as I thanked her.

    I had no confidence whatsoever in being able to pass a taijutsu tokubetsu jonin examination; Lee and Neji were still better than me in that field. I beat them with genjutsu, and therefore with genjutsu I would proceed.

    "Less than a month isn't enough time to perfect a technique," she sighed. "But show me what you-"

    Seven hand seals. Down from twenty five, with the aid of my friends.

    Tiger.

    Horse.

    Boar.

    Bird.

    Rat.

    Hare.

    Rat.

    "Isekai No Jutsu!" I roared, and Kurenai froze.

    The genjutsu expert of the previous generation had informed me of her philosophy — that the art of illusion was the art of building a new world around the opponent. Of confusing and disorienting them with the bizarre and the baffling.

    I knew something about that.

    In World War I, over a hundred years and a universe away, a phenomenon called "tank shock" was first observed. The sight of a multi-tonned steel death machine charging straight at a group of infantry with its engine roaring would cause said infantry to freeze, like a deer in the headlights. Flesh had no chance against unyielding steel - they would be run over, pulped underneath the treads.

    It wasn't a tank I conjured in Kurenai's mind's eye, though. It was one of those PT Cruiser knockoffs made by Chevy, black and with its highbeams on, its paint chipped and with a dent on the driver's side A-beam.

    Just the sort of vehicle you want, if you wanted to get rid of a mediocre academic crossing the road on a Thursday evening after he and his wife had gotten some slightly-above-average Thai food because he'd been too tired to cook after a long day's work. Parking down would be a nightmare of course, so he'd have had to drop his wife, who at seven months wasn't really capable of long or medium distance commutes in front of the restaurant and then find a spot, and then after dinner head back to the aforementioned spot to pick her back up.

    You'd hope that the wife in question hadn't seen anything untoward - you weren't really sure when it happened. Your last thoughts would have been… something about how you had to do another set of ironing before the frantic honks of the undersized SUV running a yellow light caused you to look to your left and-

    My hand was outstretched towards Kurenai. Sweat drenched both of our bodies.

    There was a second part to the illusion, but I couldn't… I couldn't remember what it was. Dragons and impossibly tall, snow-capped mountains, and a prisoner. Why couldn't I remember? It was fine - I knew the second part from countless hours spent there, I didn't need conscious recollection.

    My hand was trembling.

    I took a step forward.

    Another.

    Another.

    Knife in hand, I rested it near Kurenai's throat—

    She gasped as she finally broke the genjutsu, her face pale but her eyes alight.

    "Yes!" she cried out, heedless. "That's what I was talking about! That was so vivid, Nobunaga; so many details, and the feeling, the real feeling of approaching death…."

    Her words washed over me. I couldn't hear them. I smiled and nodded, and then I headed home.

    And until the sun rose the next morning, I existed upon a rocking chair, my feet resting upon the map of a strange new world, waiting for the tears to come.

    It took me three days to fall asleep.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • He's still in a teenage's body.

    With all the hormone cocktail that it entail.

    And one of the most well known efffect of such is...

    Exactly what happened here.
     
    Fucking ninja, I hate all of them.
    Edit: Did he at least get the recommendation from her. The way he broke down after 'winning' is disappointing. Understandable, I guess, but still. I feel let down by the way you glossed over Kurenai's reaction. It kind of feels like a cliffhanger, in that I was looking forward to a 'good' ending for this chapter, and even though after he proved himself, didn't get one.
     
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