Ninja Deer
Shikamaru - Six years old
Shikamaru was holding his mother’s hand as they walked through the market. That was when he first saw him.
An orange blur came flying out of a store and crashed into a stand across the street. The orange mass resolved itself into a scrawny blond boy with bright blue eyes welling with tears. A middle aged man stormed after him, and the boy cringed away from his anger.
“For the last time, stay out of my store! We don’t serve demons here!”
His mother’s hand tightened around his own as they watched the scene play out. Other passers-by ignored the boy, bumping into each other to avoid coming close to him.
“Kaa-chan, what’s happening?”
The boy stood up on shaky legs, looking around helplessly. For a moment, he met Shikamaru’s eyes, and quickly hid his sadness and fear with an angry scowl. Shikamaru tugged on his mother’s hand. The other boy was just a kid like him. Where were his parents? Why was everyone being so mean?
Before he could drag his mother forward, the other boy ran off, weaving between muttering civilians and indifferent shinobi, before vanishing into an alleyway.
“Who was that?” Shikamaru asked.
His mother looked down at him, a conflicted expression on her face, and merely shook her head.
“Let’s finish shopping and go home, okay?”
Naruto - six years old
Naruto crawled in through the window of his apartment and collapsed on his thin futon. He was hungry, cold, and tired, and he could only do something about one of those things. He shut his eyes and hoped the next day would be better.
When he woke up he thought he was drowning. Everything was wet, but strangely warm, and it stank. Had someone broken in finally? Dumped something on him? He suppressed the urge to throw up—there was nothing in his stomach anyway—and cautiously sat up. He was in a dark hall flooded with water, and a dull red glow pulsed at one end. He walked for what seemed like forever, but nothing really changed until finally he came across a huge gate. Big golden bars took up the entire space, so tall he couldn’t see where they ended. Hot air blew from between them, and Naruto moved closer, drawn in. The spaces between the bars were big enough for him to get through, but when he tried his hand got stung. He looked up and saw a piece of paper with strange symbols on it. It sort of looked like writing, but he couldn’t read.
It must have been some kind of prison. Why would someone put him in prison? He knew people hated him, but…
Naruto sat down, not caring about the gross-smelling water anymore, and since he didn’t know what else to do, he started to cry. He was still tired, his stomach still hurt, he didn’t know what was happening to him or why.
A deep, powerful voice spoke out. “Why are you crying, kid?”
Naruto sniffed and lifted his head, looking for the speaker. “Who are you? Where are you? Where am I?”
The voice chuckled. “You’re in your seal. Don’t you know about that?”
“Seal? What’s that?”
The red light grew brighter behind the bars, and Naruto’s eyes widened when he saw a flash of white. It was a tooth, a fang, bigger than a person.
“Don’t worry about that right now. Why are you crying? It was so loud it woke me up!”
“Sorry,” Naruto said. His stomach growled. “I’m hungry.”
“Hungry? Why is their son hungry…Did you do something bad?”
“I don’t know!” Naruto wailed. “The people at the store won’t let me buy things. They call me bad words, like demon, but they don’t say why!”
The voice laughed again, sounding a little embarrassed. “That’s probably my fault. My bad. Uh, anyway, if they won’t let you shop, why don’t you use a henge?”
“A what?”
Shikamaru - seven years old
The deer were restless so Shikamaru went to see what was going on. He walked through his clan’s forest, following the disturbance, until he tripped over a boy huddled over a cluster of mushrooms. Shikamaru’s foot caught on a basket, spilling its contents all over the dirt and leaves. He pushed himself up, crushing a few berries.
The boy shrieked. “No! My nuts!”
“Uh, sorry?”
The boy dropped the mushrooms he picked and scrambled over the ground, gathering his fallen foods.
“I’ll help,” Shikamaru said, bending down to rescue what he could. The other boy glanced at him, but didn’t object.
“So, what’s your name? What are you doing here?” Shikamaru asked. “Um…do you need help?”
The boy flinched, face clouding. “I’m Naruto. Am I not supposed to be here? I thought it was the public forest, usually it’s okay…”
“My clan takes care of this part,” Shikamaru said. “Usually we don’t let outsiders in, but if you’re not doing anything bad…"
“I’m not!” Naruto shouted, making Shikamaru wince. “I’m just getting food. My allowance ran out…”
“That’s fine,” Shikamaru said, not knowing what else to say. Why was a kid using his allowance to buy food? Weird. “Just leave enough for the deer.”
“What deer?”
Shikamaru pointed to a deer who was currently scaling a tree to reach the lower, tender leaves.
Naruto’s jaw dropped.
“Is that deer climbing a tree?”
“They’re ninja deer,” Shikamaru explained. “They can do a lot of stuff.”
“I think I’m going to go.”
Shikamaru watched Naruto scamper away and vanish into the trees. Shrugging, he went back to his house where he found his dad sitting on the porch drinking and staring at a shogi board.
“Hey, oyaji,” Shikamaru drawled. “The deer are fine.”
His dad, Shikaku, nodded absently, engrossed in his game. Shikamaru had no idea who he was playing against.
“Why doesn’t Naruto have food?”
Naruto - seven years old
Naruto ran out of the woods, basket clutched in his arms, and nearly fell into the Naka River.
“We’ll work on water walking next,” Kurama said.
“I’ll have to find somewhere else to hunt,” Naruto replied. “I didn’t know that was a clan forest!”
Kurama sighed. “You can go back to stealing, now that you’re good enough to not get caught. It’d be easier if you had some storage seals to put things into.”
“Seals? What’s that?”
"Havent we been through this?"
Shikamaru - eight years old
Shikamaru expected the Academy to be boring and stupid. He hid in the back with Choji. He took an offered chip, then slumped forward on his desk.
A blinding flash of orange hurtled through the window and crashed into the wall. Shikamaru sat up, blinking, and recognized Naruto. After the forest incident, and his parents being weirdly evasive when he asked them questions about the kid, Shikamaru had finally remembered where he had first seen him. Naruto was an orphan, a starving orphan, and the entire village seemed to hate him. Shikamaru couldn’t figure out why, and both his ignorance and Naruto’s treatment were annoying.
He watched Naruto take in the room, eyes distrustful and scanning for threats. Many of their classmates had visceral reactions to him, glaring and muttering. A few had taken to calling him an idiot, when all he did was walk into the room. Or fly. Whatever.
Finally, Naruto’s eyes landed on Shikamaru. He raised his hand and tried a small smile, hoping to put the other boy at ease. If anything, it made Naruto more wary. He hugged the wall and made his way to the back of the classroom, taking the free seat next to Shikamaru. Shikamaru then noticed Naruto didn’t have anything with him. No books, no paper, no lunch. His clothes were clean, but too big and obviously worn a lot. And he was so short and skinny compared to everyone else. It sucked.
During the entire lesson, Naruto kept fidgeting, freezing when the teacher chose him to answer a question. Naruto gave a mumbled, and correct, answer, and the teacher sneered.
When the bell rang for lunch, Naruto shot out of the window and disappeared. Shikamaru turned to Choji, who was busy opening another bag of chips.
“Do you think your mom could make two lunches?”
Naruto - eight years old
Naruto watched Sasuke’s fist fly through the air in slow motion. It was so slow. He turned his body so only his shoulder would get hit, then half-heartedly kicked at the other boy. Surprisingly, it caught Sasuke in the chest and he fell to the ground, hard. A hand grabbed Naruto’s thin arm, hard enough to leave a bruise, and he was dragged away from the spar.
“They shouldn’t let things like that in here,” the assistant teacher, Mizuki, muttered. Naruto guessed he wasn’t supposed to hear that, but he couldn’t help it.
Mizuki fixed his face and smiled down at Naruto. It looked gross. “Naruto-kun,” the creepy teacher purred, “You need to be more careful with your classmates.”
A group of flustered fangirls swarmed Sasuke to fawn over him. Mizuki joined them, leaving Naruto alone. Sasuke was glaring at him again, and Naruto resigned himself to even worse treatment from the class.
“Naruto…”
“I know, I know! I’m supposed to lay low or whatever.”
“That shadow boy is coming over. Again.”
“Shikamaru?”
He looked around and spotted Shikamaru strolling towards him, his friend Choji hovered nervously at his side.
“Yo,” Shikamaru said, looking bored. “Nice job beating Sasuke.”
Naruto laughed, feeling awkward at being praised. No one ever complimented him, except for Iruka and the Hokage sometimes. “Thanks, but I wasn’t supposed to.”
“What do you mean you weren’t supposed to?” Shikamaru asked, eyes narrowing.
“Nothing! Uh, what’s up?” Naruto looked at Choji. “Did your mom make too much food again?”
Choji smiled shyly. “It happens a lot. It’s a…clan thing?”
“Yeah, every day,” Naruto mumbled.
Naruto didn’t know why these two boys had decided to be so nice to him, but he wasn’t going to question it if it meant free food.
Shikamaru - nine years old
Shikamaru took his returned test and briefly glanced at the grade. He had gotten full marks, which was annoying since he didn’t want to set a precedent for it. Beside him, Naruto had gone rigid, his own test crumpling in his hand. Shikamaru didn’t want to pry, but he quickly glanced at the ridiculous large grade on Naruto’s paper. A zero, in red ink. None of the questions had even been marked.
“Shika,” Naruto said. “Can I see yours?”
He silently handed his own test over, and watched as Naruto laid his own out to compare. Naruto’s expression grew darker with each question.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. He crushed his paper into a ball, and painted a bright smile on his face. “Hey, Choji! What’s for lunch today? What’re you guys doing after school? There was this lady who pushed me into a puddle the other day, I was thinking we could…”
When class ended, Shikamaru saw Naruto toss his test into the trash before leaving. Shikamaru darted his hand in to retrieve it. He got a few weird looks, which he ignored as he smoothed out the paper. He wasn’t surprised when he saw that Naruto had gotten every question right.
He sighed, resigned that he’d have to talk to his dad about it.
Naruto - nine years old
Naruto crawled up the side of the Hokage tower. His pockets were filled with leaves. The window was open, and realizing the Hokage was still in he gave up his attempted subterfuge and vaulted inside.
“Jiji!” Naruto screeched, throwing himself at the old man.
“Naruto, what are you doing here so late?” Sandaime patted his head indulgently, happily puffing away on his pipe.
“I wanted to show you a new jutsu I made,” Naruto said, grinning mischievously.
“A new jutsu?” The Hokage quit his pacing and sat down, ready for the show.
Naruto nodded eagerly and clapped his hands together. “Oiroke no jutsu!”
A moment later, Sandaime was sprawled on the floor and bleeding heavily. Naruto casually stepped over him and went for the locked room with all the secret scrolls and forbidden techniques.
“A kid should not be using that,” Kurama said. “I didn’t teach you henge for this.”
Naruto shrugged. “It worked, right?” He rummaged through the Hokage’s robes and drawers, eventually finding a key. He flung open the previously locked door to reveal the treasure inside. Lots of dusty books and scrolls.
Pulling a storage scroll from his pocket, he quickly filled it with the room’s contents, replacing each stolen item with a transformed leaf.
“Are you sure no one will notice?” Naruto asked.
“No one’s been in this room for years, kid. Don’t worry about it.”
Once he was finished, he carefully closed the door and returned the key to the drawer he found it in. His hand brushed over a picture frame, and he pulled it out. A blond man stood next to a red haired woman.
“This guy kind of looks like me, ” Naruto said. “Who is he?”
“That’s the Yondaime Hokage, kid. He’s the guy who sealed me in you. Your father.”
Shikamaru - twelve years old
Shikamaru was, as usual, watching Naruto. It was impossible not to, the kid literally screamed to get people’s attention. A lot of people found it annoying, but for Shikamaru it made the school day a little less boring.
What was annoying was that the teachers had finally cracked down and made Naruto sit in the front row, where he supposedly caused less trouble. All it really did was make Naruto uncomfortable. Shikamaru knew he didn’t like having his back to people, since every time they went to a restaurant he’d go straight to a corner table. Naruto was also squashed between Sasuke, who still hadn’t gotten over losing that first spar, and a shrieking, pink-haired fangirl who hit Naruto every time he stood up for himself.
“Do you think he’ll pass,” Choji asked, holding a bag of chips out. Shikamaru took a few for himself and thought it over.
“We know the adults hate him,” Shikamaru said. “Except for Iruka-sensei. And we know he’s being sabotaged. But, it’s Naruto.”
Choji nodded thoughtfully, then smiled. “He’ll do it.”
Naruto - twelve years old
Naruto was twitchy. The class was nearly empty, most of the other students already done with the test and waiting outside with their friends and family. He knew they’d be tested on the nearly useless clone technique everyone had to learn, and it put him in a bad mood. He’d broken into the Academy the week before as part of his preparation. His chakra control was abysmal because there was simply too much of it, but years of working with Kurama and stolen scrolls had helped him with restraint. He’d get through it, and the written test too. If someone tried to mess with that, he’d just break in again and adjust the scores.
The team selection sucked. He knew the whole Ino-Shika-Cho thing would happen, Shikamaru had warned him of it years before. Naruto had hoped he would get nice teammates, like Hinata or Shino. Instead, he’d be stuck with Sasuke and Sakura. Even worse was their assigned jounin sensei. Another lazy genius, and worse, his own father’s student who had basically ignored him his entire life.
Naruto broke out of his thoughts when the next name was called. Sasuke pushed himself off the wall, taking the time to sneer at Naruto.
“What the hell are you looking at?” Naruto asked.
“A failure.” And with that, the emotionally stunted Uchiha stormed into the exam room and slammed the door behind him.
Naruto happily slurped up savory, delicious ramen. He got his hitai-ate, he could start taking missions (once he passed that stupid bell test), and he wasn’t stuck in a classroom anymore. Things were looking up.
A nearby shadow turned into Shikamaru and he nearly choked on his noodles.
“What the hell, Shika? When did you learn how to do that?”
Shikamaru shrugged and took a seat next to him. “I thought Iruka-sensei would be here.”
“He left after the 20th bowl,” Naruto said, smiling around his noodles.
“So you passed then,” Shikamaru said, nodding at Naruto’s new hair accessory.
“Yeah, should’ve seen the looks on their faces!”
Just then, a team of ANBU darted by, white masks stark under the streetlights.
“The hell is going on?” Naruto asked, still eating his precious ramen. Quickly finishing, he grabbed Shikamaru’s wrist and dragged the other boy with him to the Hokage tower. They scaled the side of the building to listen in.
“The Scroll of Seals is missing,” the Hokage intoned. “Mizuki, a teacher at the Academy, was seen fleeing the village. That scroll must be retrieved at all costs!”
Naruto pressed himself against the wall as the teams moved out. Shikamaru, having retreated to his shadows, was nowhere to be seen. He leapt away from the building, jumping over roofs as he raced to his apartment.
“This sucks!” He complained as he sailed through his window. “If they catch him they’ll figure out the scroll is a henge! I told you we should have returned it.”
“It’s been three years and no one noticed,” Kurama said. “I didn’t think anyone else was stupid enough to take it.”
Naruto tore apart his room, looking for the giant scroll. He found it on top of his refrigerator.
“Got it, now we just need to—”
He screamed when Shikamaru appeared from under the fridge. “Don’t do that!”
“What’s that?” Shikamaru asked, indifferent to the terror his ability instilled in his friend.
“A scroll,” Naruto said.
“The Scroll of Seals?”
“Maybe…”
“Why do you have that?”
“That doesn’t matter! The important thing is I need to find Mizuki and switch out the real scroll for the fake scroll so that I don’t get caught!”
Shikamaru nodded. “Let’s get the deer.”
Next thing Naruto knew, he was being wrapped in shadows and pulled into the ground. He emerged again, sweating and shaking, in the Nara forest. A few deer were in the middle of a surprisingly vicious spar, trading blows while on their hindlegs. They stopped when Shikamaru stepped into the ring
“Can you guys find our teacher?” Shikamaru asked. “We need to give him something.”
After a brief conversation in deer talk, which Naruto couldn’t follow, two lean does stepped forward and knelt down. Shikamaru climbed onto one, motioning for Naruto to follow. As soon as he locked his arms around her neck, the doe shot forward in an impressive display of speed. The forest blurred around them as she vaulted over fallen logs and ricocheted off trees.
The doe came to an abrupt stop, and Naruto flew over her head to crash into his former teacher. Thinking quickly, Naruto stabbed the scroll tied to Mizuki’s back with a kunai, and it poofed into a very dry leaf.
Well, it had been three years.
“Naruto!” Mizuki pushed himself off the ground and turned to confront him. “What are you doing here? Give me back that scroll!”
Naruto looked around. Shikamaru had, once again, vanished, and the deer were gone too. He yelped and ducked as a giant shuriken came flying at him.
“I said give it to me, you monster!”
“Uh, no?”
Mizuki smiled evilly at him, an expression which had lost its impact over the years. “Why do you care if I take it? Don’t you hate the village? Don’t you want to know why everyone hates you, you little freak? On that night, twelve years ago…”
Naruto tuned him out, already bored, wondering when ANBU would finally show up. It was ridiculous that two twelve year olds riding deer had intercepted the ex-teacher first. Naruto stretched his senses, and frowned when he recognized a familiar chakra signal approaching.
“You’re the kyuubi!” Mizuki said, finally finishing his speech. Right on cue, Iruka jumped out of the bushes and put himself between Mizuki and Naruto.
“Mizuki, you traitor!” Iruka growled.
Naruto peeked around his favorite teacher. “Why would the kyuubi go to the Academy? That’s stupid. I’m obviously not the kyuubi.”
“You killed Iruka’s parents!” Mizuki insisted.
“He’s just a kid, you idiot,” Iruka said.
A barrage of shuriken flew at them, and Iruka pushed Naruto to the ground to cover him. Naruto wriggled from under his injured teacher and created a small army of clones. They proceeded to beat Mizuki senseless while waiting for ANBU to arrive. Naruto busied himself removing shuriken from Iruka’s flak jacket, which was surprisingly sturdy.
A deer nosed Naruto’s hair, nudging him until he stood up.
“Well, that was fun,” Naruto said. He handed the large, authentic scroll over to Iruka, who took it without comment. Clearly he was dazed by the number of Narutos milling about. “I’m going home. See you later, sensei!”
Naruto clambered onto the deer again and they took off into the night.