Naruto: A Different Beginning

By Smithjohn2020

Chapter 6: The Untamed Shrew

Hi. I know this is short, but Life's been crazy busy for me right now. I hope it's short but enjoyable :D

Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the words below and the original ideas they convey.

Unbeta'ed. Plot unrelated to the title borrowed.

…o.0.O.0.o…

Last Chapter: Minato and Kushina ran outside when they'd heard a girl's cry of despair, only to interrupt their son making out with Hinata. Minato took Naruto away and had another talk with him, telling him it was okay to fall in love, and that he could only burden his love interest with his secret only when he was certain that she was the one. Kushina gave Hinata a reality check, letting the girl know that if she wanted to be with her son, she must grow strong enough to be of support to him. Naruto, with his seal hinged as Kal-El, departed to find Jiraiya.

…o.0.O.0.o…

Sitting in solitude of the family dojo, Minato waited until he could no longer detect his son's chakra signature and cast a privacy jutsu. Ever since Naruto had discovered his super hearing ability, it had been really difficult to keep things confidential around him.

Seven years ago, he had sent Kakashi out to find Jiraiya, who in turn was supposed to find Tsunade, in hopes that their return would help to stabilize a conspiracy breeding ground that was known as Konohagakure, with factors that included the patriotism that Danzou fronted to conceal the self-serving activities of his Root ANBU and the note about the Mizukage found on the desk of the head of the most power hungry clan with an unchecked inferiority complex.

Kakashi had tried his best for two weeks, but had returned home empty handed. Minato didn't blame him; he knew elusive his sensei could be, especially if he didn't want to be found. Plus Minato wouldn't have put it over him to bribe Kakashi with the newest of the Icha Icha series.

Three years later, the Uchihas' secret clan meetings and collaborations with Mizukage finally culminated in a coup d'etat. Fortunately, their mutinous plot was uncovered and reported to Minato by one of their own, Itachi, another loyal ANBU captain, successor to Kakashi.

The thirteen-year-old captain had buried his own feelings for his family and relatives to serve the greater good of Konoha. And for those reasons, he had requested that should a mission be required to terminate such treasonous clan that he'd be the one chosen to carry it through.

It didn't happen. It couldn't happen. Minato would have no part of it. If it had to come to that, he himself would have carried out such a mission and would never have subjected anyone else to bear such painful burden of choosing one's village over one's family, though when one put on that hitai-ate, one already had.

Instead, Minato's solution was that any adult Uchiha, which also included young ninjas who would be otherwise considered children had they been civilians, and anyone with an activated Sharingan were arrested and kept in the ANBU cells until an irrevocable seal that permanently suppressed chakra could be applied to them. Any who were children or otherwise too young to understand what was happening had been given to the Konoha ward, originally set aside for the orphanage.

But, to pull off anything short of a clan massacre, especially in light of the uncovered mutinous plot, Minato would need consent from the village advisors, of which unfortunately Danzou was one. He would only relent if Minato'd agreed to let Root have those children. Against his better judgment, but then it was either that or a bloody alternative, Minato gave in to the war hawk's demands.

Would it have made a difference had either or both of the two loyal Sannins been in the village during that turmulous time?

Probably not, at least that was what Minato had been using to console himself with. No matter what, he would not blame Kakashi, lest he led him down the tragic path of his father the White Fang.

Now another situation arose where he could not afford yet another absence of either Tsunade or Jiraiya. This time a "failure to retrieve" was not an option; thus, he sent his very best - his one and only.

Once the privacy jutsu had been casted, he turned his attention to his ANBU captain hidden behind a shadow genjutsu.

"Weasel, report!"

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

Out from the shadow cast in the corner of the room emerged a moving darkness that gradually shaped into Itachi, perhaps one of the few who could avoid Naruto's detection, if Naruto's super senses had been distracted enough.

"Your suspicions had been right, I'm afraid."

Minato narrowed his eyes slightly as he contemplatively waited for Itachi to continue.

"Iwa and Kiri have been sending their ninja to pose as civilian merchants and infiltrate our borders. We don't know how many they've sent, but so far we've only managed to capture 2 from Iwa and 3 from Kiri. Ibiki have been trying to break them, but he hasn't been successful."

Minato nodded in acknowledgment and sighed.

Tschikage and Mizukaga, what are you two up to? "Very well. Looks like we have another war brewing in the horizon. I'd like you to double the patrol on our borders and report again next week."

A "Hai" later, the loyal Uchiha melted into the shadows.

…o.0.O.0.o…

Apart from the name and looks, Naruto knew little else of the person he was sent to retrieve.

Sure, Naruto had heard stories from his dad about this man and seen plenty of pictures with him in it, but merely knowing a person's appearance did not constitute, at least to Naruto, knowing about someone, which was most unforgiving, since this person was supposed to be his godfather.

Jiraiya, huh? I'll teach him why he should not miss all those important days of my life. Hell, Dad said that he had only seen me once, and that was right after that whatever was sealed inside me.

From the top of the Hokage Monument, standing on top of his father's head actually, Naruto in his henged Kal-El form made a cross hand seal and instantly four Kage Bunshins poofed into existence beside him. He nodded to them and off they go, superspeeding in different directions covering the Five Elemental Nations. He himself chose to stay in the Fire Country, searching the vast land outside of his beloved village.

Perhaps that was why Naruto felt the need to find Jiraiya fast.

... Or was it because he wanted to get back to seeing his favorite blue-haired stutterer?

... Or was it because he had sensed a hint of worry in his father's voice when issuing this mission?

Nah, he's a Sannin and my dad's sensei. There's no way he could be in any trouble now. He probably got lost on the road of life. Huh?

Naruto didn't understand why suddenly his thoughts shifted to Kakashi-sensei and his two other teammates. He shrugged away an uneasy feeling as he realized that Team 7, despite not having his, a baka-pretender's, presence was a still a formidable team.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to speed this up.

He sent a telekinetic pulse to the rest of his clones to inform them of his concerns. This was perhaps one of the very few occasions that he saw any advantage to having something unknown sealed in his navel.

For some reason, the seal or the thing sealed within had the ability to alter any and all Naruto's jutsus, and in the case of Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, his kage bunshin variations were able to communicate thoughts without having to dispel any of his clones.

Not all alterations ended up enhancing the jutsu's intended outcome. Some even made the jutsu unstable, unusable, or uncontrollable. But the biggest problem for Naruto was when learning a new jutsu, not knowing how its outcome would be altered.

Many times that means he could only learn new jutsus in private or from a handful of people who knew about his special condition. And when someone not knowing his special condition tried to teach him a jutsu or if he had to perform it in front of a group, like in a classroom setting, he had to pretend to be the dense class clown that people associated him with.

Perhaps that was the real reason he chose to rely more on his super abilities – once he'd discovered that he had them – than to pay heed to his father and mother's urges to study, practice or train in any jutsus.

Once his clones received his telekinetic message, they doubled what was already a speed unfathomable to human minds.

Already the clones had entered their assigned Elemental Nation and its hidden village, heading toward the target's favorite hot spots, namely brothels, bath houses, and hot springs.

Doing a quick surveillance scan, the clone in Suna finished the scan first and "sent" his report to the boss and his clone comrads. Apart from a few intriguing custom differences and ninja quirks and habits unique to their dry climates and temperature extremes, there was nothing remarkable to report.

The clone wanted to lighten up the mood by reporting about a funny boy playing with dolls and walking around with a thick face paint, but decided against it, since he wasn't sure if it would be convenient for his clone comrades to laugh. He himself was already having a hard time controlling his own laughter from drawing attention or alerting the populous that some foreign ninja had breached their village security and was roaming about freely in the street.

Picking up a female scent heading toward his hiding place, he readied himself to speed away before he was discovered, but was surprised to find her scent disappearing from where it had been and instantaneously reappearing right before him, and literally as if she had stepped out of a rift in the thin air.

At the very sight of her - or was it because of her proximity, the Naruto clone wasn't sure - he felt his strength leaving him, and a part of him, namely his naval where his seal resided, aching in excruciating pain.

Pain. This was a feeling that he had never felt before, and he quite frankly did not know how to even describe the agonizing sensation or how to cope with its throbbing.

He wanted to clutch his naval, but common sense told him it would be foolish to act on the urgings of his reflexes and give away any appearance of weakness, especially in front of someone of another village.

That did not mean the blonde four-ponytailed kunoichi, whom the clone judged was a year or two older than boss, did not pick up on his discomfort or trepidation.

"Who are you and what are you doing here in Suna?"

Her tone told Naruto that she was really confident in her ability to deal with him, if needed. Silently the Naruto clone was glad that his boss had activated the disguise seal before cloning them; otherwise, his normal appearance would be too much of a giveaway to his identity as the son of the famed Yellow Flash.

Quickly he turned and ran to no particular direction. Anywhere. Anywhere away from her would suffice. He wasn't sure why he couldn't use any of his superpowers since she appeared, but on his own he was still moving at a very fast pace.

But somehow she was faster.

Appearing in front of him was a sliver of pocket leading to seemingly another dimentional plane, and out of it popped out a foot, kicking him right in the shin.

Pain. More pain.

What da heck!?

And then the offending foot disappeared, and the Naruto clone felt some of his superpowers returning to him. He was too stunned to even notice another sliver of opening appearing in front of him, directly in front of his abdomen. Out of it popped out a fist that socked him in the gut ...

"Mph!"

... knocking the wind out of him.

The Naruto clone dropped to the ground and rolled away from the ambush. He stood cautiously and had his arms outstretched in anticipation of another sudden attack. He was trying his best to assume a defensive taijutsu stance, one that he had never bothered practicing.

I swear, boss will be practicing all his taijutsu stances from now on. He'll be paying more attention to jutsus. He will not slack off during training and ...

Pow!

He was punched squarely in the face by a fist that materialized in the same fashion as before. The punch knocked him off his feet. This time, the fist did not disappear, and Naruto clone saw the rest of the blonde kunoichi stepping out of that sliced opening in the very thin air.

"Answer me when I talk to you, boy! Whose village do you belong to, and what's that S sign on your hitai-ate?"

She vehemently asked, never liking how she had been ignored by her own father the Kazekage, she certainly wasn't going to take the same crap from anyone else. Not from her two brothers. And certainly not from this gaki!

She noticed the boy slowly getting up and wiping off the damage from his mouth. She smirked seeing him mouthing "Blood" in disbelief.

"What? You've never seen blood before? Ha! What kinda of ninja are you?"

The real Naruto certainly had seen blood before - Kami knew how often Kushina had accidentally cut her finger in the kitchen - but never his own, hence his current state of disbelief.

He stepped away with genuine fear in his eyes. He tried to transmit messages and warnings to the other Narutos telekinetically to watch out for anything unusual, but somehow the kunoichi's presence had canceled the alteration that the sealed THING made to his kage bunshins.

He wanted to use other jutsus but the pain from his seal was too great to ignore, and was disrupting his chakra flow.

Whoever or WHATever she is, boss needs to know. I guess he'll just have to get this once I'm dispelled.

Quickly he formulated a plan. He knew he needed to get as much information from her.

"I'm a nobody. I wasn't even given a name at birth. I'm just a tool hired to do another's bidding..."

... all of which was still true, of his cloned persona anyway.

"... I would ask you not to kill me, but since we both know that you'd have to, at least tell me who you are and how you're able to appear out of thin air like that."

She raised one of her eyebrows and smirked at the boy. No one, not even her mentally-imbalanced, bloodthirsty brother Gaara had the guts to deny answering her question or ask another in exchange.

He's certainly interesting. Too bad I have to kill him.

"And why should I tell you anything?"

The Naruto clone saw her - was that coquetish? - smirk on her face a hint of playfulness in her tone. He wasn't sure what to make of this, but he figured it must be another weird ninja quirk, like Kakashi-sensei's habitual tardiness and overt porn reading.

"I'm going to die anyway. The least you could do is to let me know by whose hand I died."

The blonde girl put her hands on her hips.

"Very well. My name is Temari no Sabuku. That technique is unique to me because I have a piece of a fallen star sealed inside me."

Fallen star!? The meteorites that Dad was telling me about? Is that what's weakening me, or is it actually weakening the THING sealed inside me?

He pretended to coward before her, holding up his hands as if they could shield him from his end, and waited for the blonde to deal the death blow.

"Thank you."

He saw her right index finger making a scratching motion in the air, and small slit of opening appeared. She reached her arm into it and grabbed out a folded-up battle fan that stood slightly taller than she. The portion of her arm that reached in had disappeared for that brief duration - a sight Naruto would not be forgetting anytime soon.

With one smooth motion, Temari opened her fan and sent a windblast toward the boy, slicing through anything in its path.

Poof!

"Kuzo! A Kage Bunshin?"

…o.0.O.0.o…

The rest of the clones and the original briefly stopped what they were doing as they received memory from the dispersed clone.

What!? Impossible! Someone has been experimenting with the meteorites, even sealing them into ninja? Did others do the same?

This new information troubled Naruto, who really wanted to discuss this with his father. He immediately signaled his kage bunshins to speed up their searches.

I wonder what weirdo I'll encounter next in this mission.

They continued their hunt for Jiraiya with a renewed fervor, hoping to find this white-haired pervert soon before encountering another incident again.

…o.0.O.0.o…

A/N:This is not a harem. It'll strictly be Naruto and Hinata. The Temari attraction was to point out that there's a thin line between love and hate, friend and foe. Nothing more.

Title of this chapter is derived from Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew." I don't know why it's Shakespeare again, and honestly it wasn't deliberate on my part. But thinking up appropriate chapter titles with names derived from famous literary works isn't that easy to do.

Special thanks to hakanamu for helping translating some jutsus into Japanese in early chapters, which I've updated accordingly. His contributions are in the Reviews.

Thanks to those who reviewed. \/ Keep them coming :D \/