Chapter 2
Five days after their unprecedented second phase finish, the rookie genin stood on the balcony, fresh and well rested, watching the fights taking place in the hall below. Sakura was recounting their triumph in detail to Kakashi, who'd ambled in the morning of the fifth day.
"Hey, Naruto," said Sasuke, who'd absolutely dismantled a Sound genin right at the beginning, and spent the next couple of fights basking in the glory. He nudged the blond who was looking eagerly down at the fight currently in progress. Despite his best efforts to train in isolation, the Uchiha had ended up spending the majority of his time hanging out with his Team. The forced closeness had, surprisingly, been much more comfortable than the Uchiha had been expecting. He'd, in fact, developed a strange rhythm with Naruto, one that had been blooming since their first C-rank mission. It was like the two of them were in sync no matter what they were doing, from sparring together to standing on the roof and watching chunin-hopefuls ambush each other around the tower. "I want your opinion on something."
"What's that, bastard?" muttered Naruto, watching wide-eyed as Shino blasted apart another Sound genin's arms. "Man, who knew Shino could be so ruthless?"
"It is a little excessive," agreed Sasuke, the boy who'd witnessed his entire family get slaughtered and taken a solemn vow to kill his own elder brother. The fact that he'd beaten his brother's own record, however, seemed to have done wonders for the reticent boy. "Say, Naruto, imagine you wanted some ramen one night."
That got Naruto's attention. "Imagine?" Naruto snorted. "It's been a week since I ate any ramen, Sasuke, I could eat some right now if we didn't have to do these stupid preliminaries."
Sasuke smirked. Without the Uzumaki's trickery, they might not have needed to have the preliminaries at all. Nine out of the twenty genin participating were here and unharmed only because of Naruto's pranking experience. It was good to see his rival coming up in the world.
"Work with me here," said Sasuke. "You really love that stuff, right? So here's the scenario - you go one night to get your ramen. When you arrive at Ichiraku, you find that Iruka's ruined the entire place and destroyed all the ramen in the continent." Even Sasuke had noticed their chunin teachers uncommon affection for Naruto.
"What?!" roared Naruto, turning several heads in their direction. He blushed and then switched his voice to a whisper. "You bastard, what the hell are you talking about? Iruka-sensei would never do that! This is a stupid scenario!"
"Just listen to it, it's a hypothetical situation!" snapped Sasuke, his patience fraying a little. Taking a deep breath, he looked at Naruto and rolled his eyes. "Hypothetical means it's make believe. Think of it like one of Kakashi's mission training exercises."
"This is one fucked up exercise, you asshole," muttered Naruto, still wide-eyed at the thought of his most precious person destroying his most precious thing. "Where are you going with this?"
"So Iruka has destroyed the one thing you love more than anything else. He's also said that you won't ever be able to eat ramen ever again," Naruto's eyes went wide. "Ichiraku ramen, instant ramen, he's destroyed it all. If you try to make some yourself, he's going to come blow it up. If you get Ichiraku to make some, he's going to kill old man Ichiraku. The only way to eat ramen again is to kill…beat Iruka in a fight. But here's the kicker, he says the only way you can beat him is to live a…miserable existence, without ramen, and the only way you can get the strength to best him is if you only ate vegetables for every meal. No ramen, ever again. What would you do in such a situation?"
"What a terrible scenario," mumbled Naruto, his eyes wide and unseeing. "Do you - do you think this could happen? Did you hear something while the exams were happening? Iruka did look a little pissed that we'd cheated on the test…"
Sasuke sighed and pinched his nose. "It's make-believe, idiot. Never mind, I can't believe I took five days to build up to this. I thought you'd really changed, but you're still the same bonehead as ever…"
"No, no, just give me a moment," protested Naruto, still trying to process the idea of a world without ramen. He was so shaken up that he barely noticed Kankuro crush some ninja's limbs with his puppet. "Why would Iruka-sensei do this, even in this scenario? Did the Hokage tell him to do it because he was mad at me? Did I pull a bad prank or something?"
Sasuke paused. That wasn't a bad question, even though it was still annoying. "No," he said flatly. "Why would the Hokage tell him to do it? Ramen's great, the Hokage loves ramen. The Leaf village loves ramen. It keeps the citizens in line and is a very strong part of the village, it's almost the foundation of the damn place." Sasuke stopped himself when he realized he'd given away a little more than he wanted to. "The Hokage would never order such a thing. That's a ridiculous idea, and irrelevant to the story. Just say Iruka went mad with power and destroyed everything I…you love."
"Hey, Sasuke, make sure you watch me fight," offered Sakura as she walked past them and down the stairs. "I'm going to beat Ino's ass and then we'll progress to the finals together!"
Sasuke grunted in reply, which made Sakura blush for some reason he didn't want to figure out. The pink haired genin didn't even bother to ask Naruto the same, and besides, the blond was still leaning against the railing, staring unseeingly into the distance.
Naruto turned to him, and Sasuke saw a shadow of the same despair that had clung to him for years now. "No ramen?" he whispered.
"No," replied Sasuke.
"And I can't get any more?"
"Nope."
"And the only way to beat Iruka-sensei and get ramen back is to not eat it again until I defeat him?"
"Yes. And Iruka's super powerful in this scenario." Naruto, who'd doubtfully opened his mouth, closed it again. "He's got a super secret power that even a jounin like Kakashi couldn't beat. It's so powerful that there's not a single bit of ramen left in the Nations."
"Wow," mumbled Naruto. He blinked rapidly a few times before continuing. "A world without ramen, huh? A world that's full of loneliness and those stares at me, all the time."
"Yes," nodded Sasuke. "Wait, what?" he asked, startled, once he realised exactly what his teammate had said.
"No ramen," mumbled Naruto. "No grandpa Teuchi or Ayame, no Grandpa Hokage, no Iruka-sensei, no Team Seven, just…loneliness. No warmth."
"Naruto," asked Sasuke slowly. "What exactly does ramen mean to you?" Beneath them, Sakura and Ino were having some sort of discussion, but the two boys were too deep in their conversation to care.
Naruto turned his blue eyes to Sasuke, who had to resist the urge to step back. The normally sparkling blue shade was now dull and lifeless. "Hey, Sasuke," whispered the Uzumaki. "You ever been hungry? So hungry that your stomach hurts, all the time, but you have nothing to fill it with? You walk through the street and see all the shops, smell all the food, but you can't touch, you can't taste. Nobody offers you any food even though they can hear your stomach cry with the pain."
Sasuke felt frozen, unable to move. He'd known that Naruto was an orphan who had nobody to care for him, but he could never have imagined that the little blond had such depths to him.
"And then when you're cold, tired, and starving, you hear a voice. Someone offers you food for free. It's hot, it's warm and it fills your belly up…but you see the kind hands that give you the bowl. You see a hand reaching out to you. When you drink the broth, you feel the warmth of that bond. The next time you have money, given to you by a precious person, you buy cups so you can feel a little bit of that warmth when you're on your own."
Sasuke looked underneath the underneath. "That hunger…it isn't just for food, is it? It's the hunger for…" Sasuke clenched his fist. How many times, when he was younger, had he cried and shaken himself to sleep, aching to feel all the bonds he'd lost just one more time? How many times had he come face to face with his own loneliness, knowing that there was always a shadow, lurking, in his future, that would keep him from making more? He had sat on his couch on many sleepless nights, painstakingly learning how to sew with bloodied hands so that he could attach the Uchiha fan on to his clothes. Just to carry the weight of everything that had been taken for him.
"Heh," chuckled Naruto without any real humour. "You don't need to say it. You get it. I know you would. And that's why," Naruto gripped the railing so hard his knuckles turned white. "Even if the Fourth himself came back from the grave and ordered me to stop, I wouldn't. That ramen connects me to my precious people, it gives me the warmth of my bonds."
Naruto's eyes turned fierce, almost angry. "I would never give up on ramen. To me, no matter who stops me, it makes me who I am. If someone destroyed all of it, I would make my own, and I would share it again with my precious people. Even if I was weak, the lowest of the low, I would do it in secret, to preserve those bonds. I would get stronger until I found the strength to protect it. I wouldn't ever stop. And if someone came to take it away again, I would defend it with my last breath."
"Wow, Naruto, you really love ramen, don't you?" asked Kakashi, both a little surprised and exasperated. He'd been happy to have Sasuke engage Naruto in what looked like serious conversation, but they were both ignoring their teammate fighting her rival down below. The jonin had edged over to see what the two were talking about, and he was confused to say the least.
The two boys were having a heart-to-heart…about ramen?
Sasuke had gone white, his breathing coming harsher and harsher. With great difficulty, he controlled himself and sneered at his teacher. "Tch, Kakashi. You know nothing."
"Yes, but the two of you should really be focusing on Sakura -"
Sakura and Ino, who'd been standing frozen for the last half a minute, suddenly proceeded to knock each other out with simultaneous punches.
Kakashi sighed. "Never mind, you two," he said, trotting down the stairs to recover his downed genin. "Remember to always support your team, though. I can't help but say I'm a little disappointed."
Naruto looked stricken at missing his crush's match, but Sasuke was unfazed. "Don't let the scarecrow get to you. But you didn't answer my last question, Naruto. How would you make sure to protect your ramen from Iruka?"
"That's the thing, Sasuke," said Naruto. "Your scenario can be scary, but I know it'll never happen. Iruka-sensei could never hurt the ramen to begin with, not even if the Hokage ordered him to."
"What if he never ramen wasn't precious to him to begin with? What if something happened to make him hate it?"
Naruto smiled. It wasn't flashy or vibrant like his usual smiles. His face was somber and he suddenly looked much older and wiser than he ever had.
"You're mistaken, Sasuke. It isn't the ramen that's really precious to Iruka-sensei. It's me."
Sasuke's heart pounded. He had no answer to that. Hadn't he thought the same, once upon a time, before Itachi had come and ruined everything Sasuke Uchiha was? He wanted to yell at Naruto, scream at him that he was a fool, that he'd thought for a moment that they'd finally understood each other before the blond had gone and ruined it with his naive, stupid, weak optimism.
But looking at Naruto's solemn smile, he found that he just…couldn't.
"Don't worry, Sasuke," said Naruto, kicking him lightly in the shins and looking away when the Uchiha didn't speak. "You're one of my precious people too. I will always share that warmth with you, believe it. Even though you're a bastard," he added with a mischievous grin.
Their usual routine allowed Sasuke to marshall his emotions a little. "You cheesy fool," he said, punching Naruto casually in the shoulder. "Keep your weird feelings away from me."
"Hey, they're not weird -"
The two of them fell back into their usual bickering, but Sasuke's thoughts were still spinning inside his head.
"Hell yeah! It's my turn to rock!" yelled Naruto, as his and Kiba's name came up on the board. "Let's get wild."
Kiba leapt off the balcony straight into the arena, placing Akamaru carefully to his side. Naruto, who'd paused to bump fists with Sasuke and a newly revived and rather downcast Sakura, paused.
"Hey, wait. Kiba's allowed to fight with his partner? I thought this was a one-on-one match, what gives?"
Sakura sighed, annoyed despite her own dejection. She and Sasuke had spent some time going over gameplans and ideas with Naruto, trying their best to hammer some information into their dense treatment. They'd gone over the Inuzuka as well, but somehow she wasn't surprised that Naruto had forgotten. He might be tricky, but no one could deny that the blond was an idiot.
"Dogs are the traditional fighting partners of the Inuzuka clan. For this reason, Kiba's partner will be allowed to participate in this round with him," explained the proctor, before she could. The man was looking a little annoyed, and even the Hokage was shaking his head at Naruto's lack of knowledge.
"Oh, I see," said Naruto, adopting that strange thinking posture with his chin testing on his fingers. "Alright, Kaka-sensei, let's go."
"Hm?" asked the jonin, nonchalant as ever. "Oh, I see. I wanted to get some reading in, but I guess it'll have to wait."
Sakura watched with an open mouth as student and teacher leapt over the railing and landed together on the ground floor. Shouts and protests went around the arena, some calling for instant disqualification.
"Hey, what's the big idea?!" protested Kiba. "Akamaru and a jonin are hardly the same thing. I know you helped us with the second phase, Naruto, but I won't let you pull your tricks in our fight!"
"It's part of the Uzumaki clan style," deadpanned Naruto. "We always fight as a teacher and student."
Kiba turned as red as the tattoos on his face. "Clan? There's no such thing as the Uzumaki clan, you buffoon!"
An awkward silence fell over the arena. Kurenai, who'd been about to join Kiba down in the arena to protest this farce also stopped and coughed in embarrassment.
"Is this what the ninjas of the Leaf are taught nowadays?" asked the sand jonin, smirking. "Have their greatest allies been wiped from the history of the Leaf? How…shameful."
"Hey, who the hell are you calling shameful, you foreign -"
"Ahem." The Hokage cleared his throat and everyone fell silent again. "Genin Inuzuka. You should know better than to speak in such a manner to a superior, foreigner or not." Kiba bowed his head in chastisement. "You will have to forgive my genin, Baki. Not all students are gifted equally when it comes to academics."
Baki humphed. "But to forget the Leaf's oldest allies…a clan so dangerous that it took three Nations to wipe them out. Has your genin never noticed the patch your ninja wear on their shoulders?"
"Wait, there really is an Uzumaki clan?" asked Naruto.
"A lesson for another time," said the Hokage breezily, as mouths hung open in disbelief around the room. "And while some clans indeed follow this tradition, Naruto, I don't recall this being an Uzumaki tradition."
Kakashi raised his hand. All heads turned to him. "But my Lord, as the sole Uzumaki in the Leaf village, Naruto does have the right to institute his own traditions, right?"
The crowd looked at the Hokage, waiting for his answer. Hiruzen chuckled. "That is indeed correct, Kakashi, but Naruto has neither filled the paperwork to register as a clan, nor has he registered its abilities with Ninja Central. I'm sure we can go over the paperwork once the preliminaries end, but for now, I'm afraid you will have to let your student fight alone. I'm sure a ninja of Naruto's calibre will make up the deficit with little issue."
Naruto puffed his chest out at the praise, though he still looked a little taken aback by the fact that the Uzumaki really were a clan.
Kakashi shrugged. "Well, kid, I tried," he said, ruffling his head. With a puff of smoke, he vanished and reappeared on the balcony, winking happily at his genin. "Do your best!"
"I will, my cute little - er, sensei!" Naruto smiled, looking undisturbed that his ridiculous plan had failed.
Kurenai twitched a little. All the jonin on the balcony tensed, looking at Kakashi out of the corner of their eyes. They seemed to be thinking deeply for a moment, before they relaxed. Kurenai didn't.
"Are both parties ready to finally begin the match?" Hayate asked, looking more than a little annoyed. "Uzumaki, the dog stays. Inuzuka, you ready?"
"Born ready!" shot back Kiba, getting some of his fire back. The proctor called the beginning of the match and leapt away. "No more tricks, you bastard. It's just you and me in the pit now, and I'm going to take you down!"
Without waiting for his own dog, Kiba charged. Naruto slipped to the side almost casually, before bringing his fists up.
"That was your one shot to get me, Kiba," said Naruto, still serene. "You want to try and take mine, now?"
Kiba grinned. "Don't get cocky, dead last! There's no trickery to hide behind now, don't pretend you've improved so much since the Academy! Even then, your punches were just like flies, and your ninjutsu worse than a kid's."
"Oh, wanna bet?"
Kiba narrowed his eyes, before relaxing. Smirking, he unzipped his jacket and threw it away, and then crossed his arms and grinned at the blond.
"Bring it, Naruto. But if you fail to take me out, you have to forfeit the match right then, alright?"
"Fine by me," replied Naruto idly. And then he leapt onto the wall of the arena and began going through hand seals.
Sakura watched in disbelief as Kiba blindly charged Naruto and then stood his ground allowed him to take one free shot.
"Kakashi-sensei, what the hell is the idiot doing? He'll lose the match if he keeps this up!" She looked anxiously at her jonin sensei, who just chuckled.
"Don't worry, Sakura, I have a feeling things are going to take a shocking turn."
Naruto landed on the wall and began to go through a rapid set of seals. Everyone on the gallery leaned forward to watch.
"Yeah, he'll be fine," said Sasuke, his lips curling in amusement. "I can't believe he'd reach this level just to try and pass, though."
"Heh?"
"So that's your plan!" Before Sakura could speak, she felt a rush of wind blow past her. The next thing she knew, Team 8's jonin-sensei was standing on the wall behind Naruto, pulling one of his hands tightly behind a back and holding a kunai at his throat.
"Hey, what gives?!" protested Naruto, struggling against her.
"To think you'd stoop this low to get your student to pass. But even as a rookie jonin, I do know how to see, how do you always say it, underneath the underneath. I might be a rookie jonin, but I won't fall for your deception," Kurenai reversed her grip on the kunai and brought it down on Naruto's head, "Kakashi!"
Naruto fell onto the floor roughly, knocked out instantly.
Kurenai froze, her red eyes almost bulging out of their sockets. "What?" she asked, her voice cracking with shock. "But he was - he - the hand seals -"
The proctor leapt down. "This match is over. Kiba Inuzuka is disqualified by interference. Naruto Uzumaki proceeds to the next round!"
"What the fuck?!" roared Kiba. "Kurenai-sensei, why would you even do that?"
"No, there must be some mistake," the jonin muttered. She landed lightly next to Naruto and pulsed her chakra. For a moment, nothing happened.
After a second or so, nothing continued to happen.
"But -" Kurenai swallowed thickly. She whipped her head around to see Kakashi coming up to pick up Naruto. "You're you? He's not you?"
"Ah, the passions of a rookie jonin," Kakashi smiled, leaning over to check on his student. The blond was amazingly coming around already, slowly stirring. "Your concern for your student is admirable."
Kurenai's face was set in a rictus horror and shame.
"Will someone please explain what the hell just happened?" roared Kiba.
"Your cute little teacher," Kurenai flinched but remained silent, "thought that my cute little student was actually me."
"What? Why?! He smells just like Naruto," protested Kiba. "Why would Kurenai-sensei think the idiot was you? I was totally going to win this!"
"His deliberate little gaffe when I flickered to the balcony? The way he dodged your attack smoothly, though I'm happy to say that's the result of my own superior training? The hand seals for the jutsu he was pretending to do, even though he doesn't know a single elemental technique? Hmm," Kakashi tapped his chin thoughtfully, as Naruto slowly sat up and groaned, next to him. "Take your pick."
Kurenai puffed up indignantly. "Don't pretend that you and your little Uchiha didn't play along once you caught on. Your little shocking comment," she said, through gritted teeth.
"It's a rather common turn of phrase, isn't it?" replied Kakashi calmly. "Really, sometimes there is no underneath the underneath. Or perhaps," he said, putting an arm around Naruto who was grinning weakly, "there's an underneath the underneath the underneath."
Kurenai turned her head away and pulled a protesting Kiba up to the stands, steadfastly turning a blind eye to the mocking looks she was receiving.
"Naruto," said Kakashi, looking proudly down at his smallest genin as the crowd tried to decide whether to boo or applaud. The Hokage was rubbing his forehead while trying to hide a small smirk under his hat. "Sakura and Ino are right. You might really be a genius after all."