AN: Yeah. This is another Videogame:Naruto story. My FF reading time has been dominated by Rational fics, Videogame:Naruto fics, and D&D!Character fics (Not sure if that last one is a proper Genre yet, but it should be!). I made a pretty good attempt at working with other Manga that I'm familiar with to do a Videogame:fic, but discovered that Naruto seems to work best for these for whatever reason. It's probably a combination of the open world, pacing, etc. From other Shounin, Onepeice might be a good one if it wasn't for it being set on an Ocean, which limits travel and such.
Anyhow. Something to note is that I may not actually wind up explaining why/how Naruto is in a video game. My enjoyment of the fics comes from the nature of the story itself. Should this story become popular at some point, and there's a massive outcry for it, I -may- attempt to do so.
As you'll figure out soon, this is a Psudo-crossover. It's Naruto crossed with a generic Naruto videogame. The implications of this is while it's Naruto for all intents and purposes, it's not actually happening in his world. This may, or may not, be important later.
I've enjoyed the concept of the Crossover battles from the other Videogame!Naruto fics, so they'll make appearances here. One of hobbies is rational discussion regarding cross battles, as well as fictional calculations surrounding them. appearances by other characters during scenarios should have them in proper line with their actual standing compared to Naruto.
One thing I plan on doing with this is actually playing it as a game behind the scenes. I've come up with some rough table top mechanics which I'll be utilizing. When Naruto comes up against skill checks or battles, I'll be rolling them out. I'll keep track of things and post some of them up in a separate document every now and then for those who enjoy mechanics.
Base Naruto will be a little more intelligent than Canon:Naruto. Consider it a writers weakness of mine, but I don't have the capacity
On with the story.
...
...
"Welcome, Naruto."
With a start, the blonde protagonist shot up in bed, eyes darting around attempting to find who had snuck into his room. An odd feeling settled over him, though, as rather than find himself in his room he found himself sitting up on his bed surrounded by the nothingness of a void. Those spoken words floated, hanging in the air, white against the infinite dark.
The text suddenly swirled, changing it's composition.
"Naruto; the Game."
He blanched, brain racking over possibilities. Genjutsu, maybe? Naruto wasn't exactly the sharpest mind at the academy, but he knew what Genjutsu was. While under ordinary circumstances he probably couldn't actually spot it, Genjutsu typically relied on some degree of being believable. As far as genjutsu went, this was such a break from reality that even he could spot such a thing.
Too bad he didn't actually know Kai.
Below Naruto; the Game floated a single option:
New Game
He gave some brief consideration of his options and found himself short. There were no actual options. He could either take the single option presented or he could twiddle his thumbs and wait for something else to happen.
Naruto wasn't a patient kid.
So he reached out his hand with some hesitation at first, steeling his resolve, and then punching the button. If someone wanted to toss him in a Videogame genjutsu, he'd just kick it's ass and show them how awesome the future Hokage was.
Not that he'd played a video game before. Hm. Maybe this would actually be fun.
There was a flash of white as he punched the New Game option and he suddenly found himself floating outside of his body, looking at it. He stood on a circular platform, eyes cast straight ahead, an overload of text set to the right hand side.
Name: Uzumaki Naruto
Rank: Academy Student
HP: 80
Chakra: 80
Level: 1
EXP: 0/1000
Strength: 8
Reflex: 8
Speed: 8
Precision: 8
Endurance: 8
Control: 8
Power: 8
Intelligence: 8
Charisma: 8
Stat points: 22/22
He looked over the listed numbers, having a basic idea of what most of it meant, most of them being pretty self explanatory. Still, there was a help option floating beneath it and he'd be remise not to do his best to understand the situation he found himself in.
Name: Your name, of course.
Rank: Your rank in the shinobi world. Certain things are locked depending on Rank.
Level: Your mechanical level in the world. Represents your actual strength.
EXP: Your progress towards the next level.
Strength: Your physical capacity to perform feats of strength. Hitting, lifting, etc.
Reflex: The time it takes your body to process incoming stimuli.
Speed: How fast you can physically move.
Precision: Your accuracy with attacks and other actions.
Endurance: How much damage you can take. How much pain you can handle.
Control: How well you control your chakra.
Power: How much raw chakra you have.
Intelligence: How well your mind processes information and knowledge.
Charisma: How well you interact with other people.
A 10 in a category represents an average adult civilian. As a Shinobi in training, and as a protagonist, your stats will start higher than this. Your starting stats are caped at 18 outside of other effects.
Naruto processed this, a smirk coming to his face. So instead of being trapped with whatever he had naturally been born with and whatever he had ineffectively trained over the years, he had the power to actually determine how good he was a different things? This was going to be awesome!
His first move was to put 2 points into each category, not wanting to be weaker than a normal person at anything. He realized this only left him with a few points left to spend, and after some serious contemplation, put 2 more points into intelligence and charisma. He felt like he was going to need to be a little smarter to understand the game he was in, and maybe a higher charisma would help him with Sakura.
He noticed as a result of his stat spread increased his HP and Chakra by 20 each, and noted it down for future reference.
Upon clicking the accept button, he noticed some of his baby fat shrink off himself, and his muscles grew a little more defined. "Awesome!" He exclaimed into the darkness.
A new menu popped up as the changes finished.
Traits:
Jinchūriki - Increase chakra capacity by 5x. Increases control difficulties by 4x. Grants access to the Jinchūriki skill tree.
Flaws:
Hated (Konoha adults): For some reason, you are hated by a vast majority of people in a specific sect. This has role-play applications, and increases the difficulty of Charisma checks greatly with these people.
You may choose one additional trait. Most will be locked until requirements are met.
Naruto gawked. He had no idea what Jinchūriki was, but it was awesome. It gave him 5x the chakra capacity? Who cares it it made control a lot harder, he'd be able use tons of crazy jutsu! And the hatred thing...well, it wasn't exactly new information. A slight pang of pain flickered in his heart, but vanished just as fast. Yeah. Nothing new.
He clicked the trait option to see what his choices were, and found that the majority of them were grayed out, not allowing him to click on them, or even read them.
The options he had access to were:
Ninjutsu Genius - Increases your skill with Ninjutsu, lowering their chakra cost, increasing their effect and making them easier to learn.
Taijutsu Prodigy - Increases your skill with Taijutsu, increasing damage, resistance to pain, and unlocking certain skills.
Genjutsu Wizard - Grants a natural affinity to Genjutsu, making yours harder to break, allowing you to spot them easier, and lowering their chakra cost.
Will of Fire - When your allies or something important to Konoha is in danger, you gain a small increase to all stats.
Heightened Senses - Your senses are heightened to Inzuaka levels. Provides no actual clan advantages.
Rouge - Provides a moderate bonus to spotting and handling traps and minor bonus to stealth.
Lady Killer - Provides increased success from women, bonus damage to women in combat. May cause increased hostility from men.
Prodigy - Provides 5 extra skill points per level. Not retroactive.
Another situation in which his jaw basically dropped. All of these were fantastic. More jutsu? Beating people up easier? Help getting Sakura-chan?! His increased intelligence was showing through already, though, because he understood what retroactive meant, and it's implications. Begrudgingly he clicked the option, figuring he could pick up some of the other awesome stuff later.
Once again the world shifted, and he was greated with the skill selection screen.
"This is where you will pick the skills you have access to as a Ninja. Most skills will be locked until you find them in character, at which point you'll be able to rank them up. Maxing skills will provide new options for that ability. Some may unlock additional talents at certain levels."
Bunshin: 1/25
Henge: 1/25
Kawarmi: 1/25
Acrobatics: 1/50
Taijutsu, general: 1/100
Small projectiles: 1/100
Large projectiles: 1/100
Melee Weapons: 1/100
Tracking: 1/50
Stealth: 1/100
Speech: 1/100
Jinchūriki, basic: 1/50
You have 25 skill points to spend.
Naruto looked over everything, concentration clear on his face. There was cool stuff here, stuff he really wanted. Like, that Jinchūriki was clearly awesome. At the end of the day though, he needed to make sure he could graduate the acadamy, and that meant being good at the basics, and giving himself a little help with Sakura-chan wouldn't hurt anything, right? He placed 5 points into Bushin, Henge, Kawarmi, Small Projectiles and Speech.
His stats updated to reflect his choices, and then the world swirled, everything fading to darkness, as he felt himself pulled back towards his body. A large flash of light blinded his vision and a few moments later he was standing in his room, the color completely grey scale, with an open book floating in front of him, his stats written on it's pages. It closed, "Character" written on it's cover. Then the world around him shifted back into color mode and the book remained floating in the air.
"Game Saved."
"Well. That's weird." He murmured to no one in particular, looking around the small mess he called his apartment. His stomach rumbled it's protest at not having had anything to eat this morning, and he absently walked over to make himself some ramen lost in his thoughts about how things were going.
Really, even if he didn't understand most of it, what it really boiled down to was that it was awesome. He had the full ability to control how he developed, and from what he vaguely knew about video games, Saves let him return if he loaded them or died. So total control over himself, and being able to reload any time he screwed up. This was going to be awesome!
"+1 Instant Ramen Cooking!" Flashed into existence over the stove, causing Naruto to trip over backwards and bash his head on the wall, spilling the boiling food of the gods down his front. A expletive escaped his lips as he jumped up, staring at the words. Startlement was replaced with giddiness as he realized this meant that he could get better at cooking Ramen as well.
He returned to the stove to put this new knowledge to good use when an alarm started going off from his living room, causing him to grumble in frustration. It was time for class. Looked like he'd be attending hungry. Still, he was anxious to put his new skills to good use and quickly made for the door.
As he touched it, the world once more settled to gray scale, "Quests!" popping up as an option. Curious, he clicked it.
1 available quest:
Pass the Exam!
Reward: 1000exp, Genin Rank
Status: Main
Accept?
He stared at the words for a moment, a grin coming to his face. He'd completely forgotten that it was the day of the exam! Hell yeah! He punched the button as hard as he could and the world switched back to color scale. Naruto didn't waste a moment tossing the door open, rushing to the academy as fast as he could.
"Naruto! How could you be late for the exams!" Iruka yelled as Naruto entered.
Naruto's eyes shot up to the clock and he noticed that he was, indeed, about 5 minutes late. Maybe he should put more points in speed so he could get places faster?
"Ah. Sorry sensei." He said, placing his hand on the back of his head sheepishly. "I lost track of time."
Iruka's expression softened slightly while most of his class groaned in annoyance.
"Yes, yes. Just get to your seat."
He nodded, taking his seat in front over the ever emo Sauske, impatiently waiting for his chance to prove his new awesomeness.
Shikamaru groaned from the ground, eyes staring up at the clouds above. "Maa, Naruto. When did you get better at Taijutsu?" The genius himself wasn't great at it, but compared to the likes of Naruto he tended to have a little bit of an edge even without applying himself. As it was, Naruto managed to catch him in the face with his first, albiet very sloppy, punch laying him out on the ground, nose bleeding slightly. "Troublesome." He muttered.
"I've...uh... been practicing on my own!"
Shikamaru groaned and slowly stood back up to continue.
"Yeah!" Naruto exclaimed, as six out of his ten shuriken throws landed on the target, one even catching the target in the face.
His nearby classmates staired with some degree of wonder and even Iruka was left somewhat speechless.
"You really have been applying yourself lately, haven't you Naruto?" Naruto nodded, unable to repress his smirk.
"Alright Naruto. This is the last test, you've done surprisingly good at the rest. Just make a Bushin for us and you'll pass!" Iruka had some small degree of pride in this statement. It shown well for his status as a teacher that even the "dead last" seemed able to graduate.
Naruto ran through a few seals, finishing and calling out "Bunshin no jutus!" There was a poof and a half dead, devoid of color bushin popped into existence beside him.
Naruto gawked, a sweat drop trickling down his face. "Bunshin no jutus!" he tried once more, to the same result.
"Well." Mizuki started. "We could let him pass anyways. He's shown incredible improvement in his other areas. I'm sure he'd be able to fix this problem pretty quick."
Iruka shook his head sadly. "Unfortunately, we can't. Bushin is the most basic skill for demonstrating chakra control. If he can't manage that, we'd almost be guilty of sending him to his death, and possibly his team as well." He shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry Naruto. With your improvement though, I'm positive you'll pass next year!"
Naruto nodded numbly and walked outside, finding a seat to sit in. One by one, his other classmates came out excited about passing the test, their families looking on with pride. He sat alone, occasionally getting dirty looks and overhearing dismissive comments about himself.
Stupid game. Stupid skills. Why was he suddenly better at everything else, but couldn't make a simple clone?
He thought over everything, his mind eventually coming to rest on the Jinchūriki trait. Massive chakra, terrible control. That had to be it. He couldn't control his chakra to do something that required precision like that.
He sighed and started walking back home, wondering if he could change his character now that he had started, or maybe find a way to earn a level before the test. Behind him, he heard a voice, mind placing it as Mizuki's after a few moments.
"Hey Naruto, got a minute?"
"Yatta!" He exclaimed, sitting in the middle of a clearing, eyes filled with excitement. Not only had he managed to pass the secret test, he'd even managed to learn one of the Jutsu from the scroll. Who cared if he couldn't do the stupid normal bunshin? He could do the super awesome kage bunshin! Now all he had to do was wait for Mizuki to show up and he'd graduate.
Suddenly a sharp pain hit the back of his skull and the world went black.
"You've died."
The white words floated in front of him as Naruto pondered, head rubbing the back of his head. What happened? He'd passed the test, hadn't he?
More text floated on the screen:
"Quest: Pass the Exam! - Failed"
"Forbidden technique: Kage Bunshin - Learned. EXP awarded: 1000."
"Level up!"
"Would you like to level?"
The confusion over his death faded to the back of his mind as he shrugged it off. Dying sucked, but he was going to get to go back and do the test again, right? He'd actually pass this time probably!
He clicked yes and found out he'd been given 2 attribute points, both of which he dropped in speed so he wouldn't be late again. A new skill had been unlocked: Kage Bushin 1/50, so he dropped 10 points there, 10 points in Taijutsu and his last 5 points in small weapons. If he did this enough times, he'd be showing even Sauske up!
"Continue?"
"Hell yes!"
AN:
Relevant skill checks:
Passive: Iruka:
Type: Charisma.
Bonus: Charisma x 2 (24)
Difficulty: 30
Roll: 5
Status: Fail
Kunai to the back of the head:
Passive:
Type: Reflex
Bonus: Reflex x2
Difficulty: 30
Roll: 8
Status: Fail
Current stat sheet:
Name: Uzumaki Naruto
Rank: Academy Student
HP: 100
Chakra: 500
Level: 1
EXP: 0/2000
Strength: 10
Reflex: 10
Speed: 12
Precision: 10
Endurance: 10
Control: 10
Power: 10
Intelligence: 12
Charisma: 12
Stat points: 22/22
Traits:
Jinchūriki
Prodigy
Flaws:
Hated (Konoha adults)
Skills:
Bunshin: 6/25
Kage Bunshin: 11/50
Henge: 6/25
Kawarmi: 6/25
Acrobatics: 1/50
Taijutsu, general: 11/100
Small projectiles: 11/100
Large projectiles: 1/100
Melee Weapons: 1/100
Tracking: 1/50
Stealth: 1/100
Speech: 6/100
Jinchūriki, basic: 1/50