Naruto: The Gamer
Inspired by The Gamer and The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor, as well as exocara's Game of Life
Disclaimer: Not mine. I wish I could draw as well as him.
WARNING: If you don't remember the main events of the anime you might be really lost. I find it pointless to write a summary of the exact same events you can find in the anime/manga itself, but I do hint what has just happened in canon in my writing. Also it ended up being drabble-like because of that.
EDIT 8-10-15: too lazy to shift chapters down. adding prologue into first chapter.
Prologue: Dropping the Death Note
The full moon was at its largest in the night, casting a soft glow to the multitude of buildings and trees. The trees howled loudly with the wind, as if alarmed. Leaves danced furiously in the air throughout the Hidden Leaf Village, as if running from something…
...or perhaps someone.
The air shifted suddenly—nothing had changed in that particular moment, not a single speck of anything displaced. Yet there was something unmistakably different in that particular space in that very moment.
Soft laughter rang throughout the village, but no one heard a thing. Not unless It wished it so.
The wind and the trees howled louder than ever when a red apple flew down from the sky, hitting the ground with a dull thud. The fruit was unharmed, gleaming silver in the moonlight, appearing more black than red.
The laughter died in the air along with the howling wind and trees and the night was silent once again.
The moon would be replaced with the sun by the time a particular boy picked up the apple off the ground took a large bite out of it while rushing to the academy. He hadn't had time to eat breakfast and was running late already.
Chapter 1: Troublesome Discoveries
Ding!
Ability unlocked!
[Gamer]
Naruto, age twelve, awoke to a soft bell noise. The first thing he saw was a blue text box, glowing brightly in the dark. He rubbed his eyes wearily, glancing to the side of his bed at his alarm clock that read 4:03 AM. He turned his attention back to the text box that had followed his line of vision even as he turned his head. "What is this thing..." He muttered to himself, still half asleep. He raised an arm and batted the text box away, but his fingers only slipped through it. However, immediately the text box began to fade away until it was gone completely. Naruto shrugged, pulling his blanket up to his chin and rolled to his side, falling quickly back asleep.
When it was morning, Naruto busied himself to his usual routine, which consisted of brushing his teeth, "cooking" his cup noodle and changing into his beloved orange jumpsuit. The moment he zipped up his orange jacket, he heard a ding! in his ears and a familiar blue text box appeared before him.
Attractiveness decreased. -10 ATTRCT
He knit his brows, puzzled and offended at the same time. He pointed at the text box, shouting, "Who are you to tell me what's attractive and what's not?!"
When only silence answered him, he sighed. "What the hell is this thing anyway?"
Recalling the message that awoke him last night, he scratched his head in confusion at its implications. Clearly it had something to do with the "Gamer" ability that he had "unlocked" at 4:02 AM somehow. But, a game? What kind of game was this? How did this thing even happen to him? After a minute of reaching more questions and no answers, he decided to ponder on it another time.
Naruto entered his bathroom to brush his teeth, letting his body conduct itself into its daily routine of wetting the toothbrush and placing toothpaste as he absently stood in front of the mirror. It was until he was almost done brushing when he noticed in the reflection there was something above him.
[Kyuubi Vessel] Uzumaki Naruto
Lvl. 15
"What is with all these floating words today?!" He shouted, his toothpaste spit-foam littering the mirror and the sink in a mess. When he moved to the other side of the mirror to set his toothbrush down, the text maintained its position above his head. "It follows me!"
He ignored it after trying to touch it a few times and cleaned up his mess before going off to the academy.
~•~
It was a day like any other; civilians bustling with activity, greeting each other with warm familiarity. However midst the normality of this particular morning in Konoha, there stood a young boy, wide-eyed, whipping his head back and forth at the sights of the village as if he hadn't been living there for twelve years since the day he was born.
While that was what it looked like, the young boy was actually staring at the air above the civilians, completely oblivious their glares and stares for the first time in his life.
This boy—namely Naruto—once again, could not comprehend what had happened to him overnight. Everyone had a little icon following above them, just like he did. They were horribly distracting; the text within the brackets were bright red, and their names, he assumed, were in bold blue text. Whatever this gamer thing was, it was pretty useful (if the fact that it was a huge distraction could be overlooked). It seemed that the information in the brackets displayed peoples' positions and what they did. For example, Azuki Sanada was a merchant, therefore within his bracket was "merchant." Considering that...he was the "Kyuubi vessel"?
~•~
"Hey, hey, Iruka-sensei."
It was break time in the academy, and as usual, no one looked to Naruto to hang out with during this time, or any time, for that matter. Iruka (Umino Iruka, academy teacher, level 76, Naruto read when he stole a quick glance above Iruka's hair) smiled down at the boy, ruffling his blonde hair affectionately. "What is it, Naruto?"
Wide-eyed, innocent, he asked, "What's a vessel?"
Iruka looked at him with sudden suspicion. Naruto added with a grin, "I'm just curious! Hokage knows everything so I have to learn everything when I take Jiji's hat!"
Iruka's caution immediately disappeared as he chuckled. He cleared his throat, and in his teacher manner, he explained, "A vessel is something that contains something. As vague as that sounds, pretty much you could consider a scroll containing a kunai, meaning the scroll is the kunai's vessel."
Naruto grinned again and said, "OK sensei! Thanks!"
Iruka smiled at him warmly and reminded him, "The genin exam is tomorrow, make sure you don't stay up too late tonight."
"OK, sensei!"
Naruto's smile disappeared into a frown the moment he turned around, stepping out of the classroom. He chose his usual spot on the swing under the tree, his small hands wrapped around the rope of the swing.
Kyuubi vessel. He had the nine-tailed fox in him. Assuming the gamer ability was correct. It would explain the incomprehensible hate he received from the villagers. He felt a stab of betrayal—Jiji never told him about it all this time. When had he planned to tell him if Naruto hadn't found out himself? Partially because of his childish desires, he wished to keep a secret from Jiji the same way he had from Naruto. He would not reveal neither his new power nor his knowledge of the fox sealed in him unless the situation was forced upon him.
Putting the fox in him aside, how did the gamer ability know this and everything about other people? What else could this ability do?
Ding!
Would you like to begin the tutorial?
[Yes] [No]
Tutorial? Whatever that was, it wouldn't hurt to do it right? Naruto looked around, seeing he was alone, said, "Yes."
Nothing happened.
"Uh...Yes!" He repeated, louder this time. When nothing happened again, Naruto pointed at it, shouting, "Stop ignoring me! I said yes already!" His finger accidentally pressed against the "yes" icon on the text box, and immediately the text box disappeared, another one replacing it.
Welcome to your gamer ability! This tutorial will cover the basics of how your ability works.
So now it decides to explain what this was?! Why didn't this appear earlier, like when he first got this thing?!
~•~
Naruto had gone home from the academy and immediately crashed onto his bed. He lay over his covers, crossing one leg over the other with a hand resting behind his head in a relaxed position.
Tapping the left top corner of the air somewhere, a drop down menu appeared. He clicked "profile," and a large text box opened in the air before him.
Username: Uzumaki Naruto
Lvl. 15
Abilities: [Gamer] [Longevity]
Skills: [Ninjutsu] [Genjutsu] . . .
Stats:
HP: 700 +80
ATTRCT: 8
CHAR: 55
END: 24
STAM: 44
VIT: 21 +80
DEF: 10
RCV: 32 +40
Luck: 2
INT: 5
Mana: 570
Sub-mana: ?
Mana CTRL: 8
Offended, Naruto questioned in protest (in his head), why his intelligence so low. Nonetheless, he was more curious about his ability long Longevity. He clicked it.
[Longevity]
Due to the Uzumaki blood that flows in you, you have inherited a common trait of Longevity. HP, VIT, STAM, RCV are increased relative to your growth.
His heart jumped in excitement at the mention of blood relatives. He had family? He would look more into the Uzumakis, one way or another, sooner or later.
Then he clicked the gamer, hoping to find some clues on the whereabouts of the ability.
[Gamer]
Allows user to use gamer capabilities.
Naruto wanted to throw something that it. "That was the vaguest thing I've ever heard!" He screamed.
~•~
Naruto zipped up his orange jacket. Today was the—
Attractiveness decreased. -10 ATTRCT
He closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath to wash away his irritation. Today was the—
Ding!
Skill unlocked!
[Meditation]
He swore the game was trying to piss him off. He took another deep breath to calm himself. Today was the genin exams. He couldn't be late.
Naruto entered his kitchen, opening the refrigerator and reached for the milk carton. He opened it and was about to chug it down when he noticed the milk wasn't exactly...liquid anymore.
Ding!
Skill unlocked!
[Observe]
Naruto snorted at the lame skill he had just obtained. "I don't need a skill to observe things..." He muttered, tapping at the skill name.
[Observe] Level 1
Allows the user to observe other users' stats, states and more depending on skill level.
Naruto shrugged at the explanation, figuring he could try it out on someone later. He dumped the milk down the sink and threw it away. Grabbing a quick snack in the pantry instead, he set off to the academy, his heart dancing with anticipation at the prospect of finally becoming a real ninja.
~•~
"Naruto-kun."
Naruto felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Mizuki, the other teacher at the academy. The man squatted to meet Naruto's eye level and gave him a smile. "Don't feel bad. You can try next year."
Naruto only shook his head.
"You want to be a ninja, right?" Mizuki leaned in closer to his ear. "There's another way to pass the test."
Naruto looked up at Mizuki. "There is?"
"Yes." He gave him a small smile and whispered, "If you steal the forbidden scroll from Hokage-sama's office and show me it, you pass."
You have received a quest!
Request: Steal The Forbidden Scroll from the hokage's office.
Rewards: ?
Difficulty: E
His very first quest—an important one that would begin his ninja career.
"That's it?"
Mizuki nodded with a small smile. "Yep."
"OK, sensei, thanks for telling me!"
You have accepted the quest.
~•~
You obtained The Forbidden Scroll!
Quest completed!
See Mizuki for your reward.
With a triumphant smirk, Naruto fled Jiji's office and ran straight to the forest. He finally came to a stop in a slightly illuminated area amongst the trees and set down the large scroll he had tied on his back.
"Observe!"
The Forbidden Scroll
Rank: A
Written by Hiruzen Sarutobi, this scroll contains powerful jutsu forbidden to be used for various reasons, usually because the user risks death upon usage.
Naruto wanted to dance, scream and celebrate at the powerful item he had just obtained. From the tutorial, he knew he could consume the scroll and obtain all the jutsu that were written in there, or he could store it in his inventory. Of course he would rather take all of its skills. It was a no-brainer. However, if he consumed it, he would have nothing to return to Jiji—and more importantly, he would fail the secret genin exam that Mizuki-sensei issued to him.
"The future hokage needs to be strong, even if he needs to make a few sacrifices along the way!"
He nodded to himself and clicked the icon of the forbidden scroll in his inventory and then clicked use.
Are you sure? The item will be consumed.
[Yes] [No]
He clicked yes.
Bzzt.
Your level was insufficient and was unable to consume The Forbidden Scroll.
"Nooo!" He wailed in despair, doubling over on the ground as if in pain. After a long moment on the forest floor, he recovered, hastily sitting up and pulling the scroll out of his inventory. If he couldn't use the gamer ability to learn jutsu, he could always learn it himself, as he had always done.
He unrolled the scroll, squinting at the writings, trying to see past the darkness with the moonlight. "Shadow clone jutsu?" Naruto grinned. "All right, time to get to work!"
He tested the hand sign, inputting a bit of chakra into it. "Shadow clone jutsu!"
On the third try, he succeeded, creating ten shadow clones. "I did it!"
Ding!
Sub-skill unlocked!
{Shadow Clone Jutsu}
He clicked the icon of the new jutsu he learned, bringing up the familiar blue text box.
{Shadow Clone Jutsu} Level 1
Sub-skill under [Ninjutsu] skill.
Rank: A
Creates shadow clones. The number of clones created varies upon mana usage. These clones are physical beings, therefore can deal damage and can be dealt damage. Shadow clones can only withstand about one hit, therefore is not commonly used in combat. Because of its memory retaining properties—where when the clone is dispelled, the memory of the clone is transferred to the user—it is mostly used for scouting.
Immediately Naruto knew that this "mana" the game spoke of was equivalent to chakra. Then after rereading the description several times, Naruto finally understood what it meant by "memory retention" and produced one clone, told it to face the other direction, and then dispelled it. The image of the trees behind him popped into his mind. He spun around to look at the trees behind him, confirming the memory.
~•~
Naruto touched the forehead protector he wore on his head with a hand—it was once Iruka's and now it was his—grinning as he settled himself onto his bed. After taking Iruka to the hospital, seeing as his teacher had protected him from a giant shurikan which Mizuki-bastard had thrown, Naruto had gone back to his apartment, his head swimming chaotically with all the new information he had learned.
He understood now why the quest information did not specify the reward and left it with four question marks even though Mizuki had claimed to promote him into a genin. Mizuki had never intended to promote him, so the quest reward was left unknown—the game system never lied even if the requester did.
He still had a lot to learn about his gamer ability. First, he would survey everything he had with his gamer ability. That meant reading the description of all his skills and sub-skills and whatever else he had missed.
Second, he needed to level up. A lot. He didn't expect to level up too quickly so soon; even Iruka-sensei was only level seventy-six, which was still way higher than him, but he also knew Iruka-sensei was only a chuunin. A position far, far away from his goal. More importantly, it had hurt to miss the chance of learning all the jutsu from the forbidden scroll just because he wasn't high leveled enough.
Naruto sat up and opened his game profile and began reading his skills.
One skill he had written off before was meditation. It raised a bit of HP and recovery temporarily and even permanently raised mana control description also mentioned he would find a kind of "calm and balance within oneself."
Naruto figured it'd be useful to level it up, so he rolled off his bed and sat on the floor, back straight, hands in his lap, eyes closed, and took a deep, calming breath.
You have entered your meditative state.
~•~
His eyes shot open when a thought occurred to him. It was ingenious of him, really.
You have exited your meditative state.
[Meditation] has leveled up!
[Meditation] has leveled up!
[Meditation] is now level 3.
HP and RCV increased for 30 minutes. +15 HP RCV
Mana CTRL stat increased. +1
Putting his fingers together, he created a shadow clone. "Use observe on whatever is in the room."
The clone saluted. "Yes boss!"
I hope it works, he thought as he sat back down, ignoring the constant shouts of "observe!" and resumed his meditation.
You have entered your meditative state.
You have exited your meditative state.
HP and RCV increased for 30 minutes. +50 HP RCV
Mana CTRL stat increased. +6
"Hey boss?" His clone rasped out, his throat horribly dry after shouting "observe!" non-stop for who-knew-how-long. "Can I stop now?"
Naruto opened the game's drop down menu, glancing at the top right corner for the time. 3:08 AM. It had been at it for an hour and a half. "Yeah. Thanks!" Naruto said with an uncharacteristic smile. He was feeling at peace with himself—something he had never felt in his entire life—which must've been the effects of the meditation, he mused. The clone looked at him strangely before dispelling himself.
[Observe] has leveled up!
[Observe] has leveled up!
[Observe] is now level 3.
Naruto's eyes widened in excitement. It worked! "Yes! It worked! It worked!" He jumped up and pumped his fist in the air. His clone's EXP gained from using skills transferred back to him when it dispelled. This was an amazing tool he would not let up.
He ended up staying up the rest of the night, meditating with five other clones. He managed to raise his meditation skill to level seven and his mana control stat to twenty-eight. He also noticed the level up effects never came into play until after he stopped meditating. Lastly, somewhere in the night he had also raised his overall level by two, raising all his stats by a bit. Progress on his other stats was slow, but he wasn't sure how to raise them. He only had the gamer ability for two days so far but Naruto would make sure to figure out how to train his other stats in the future.
He came into the academy, feeling and probably looking like shit. Naruto chose a seat in the back, so he could use his observe skill on everyone in the room. He wasn't curious about his classmates to that extent—frankly he couldn't care less (although it irritated him that Sasuke-bastard was level twenty-two), but he noticed he gained more experience points towards his observe skill when he used it on living things, and even more when they were higher level.
[Observe] has leveled up!
[Observe] is now level 4.
Upon reading Sasuke's information (almost snorting when he read Sasuke's title "The Last Uchiha"), Naruto noticed a special ability he had—the sharingan. Naruto knew by now that abilities were not common—most people had none, and most abilities were inherited. The sharingan must have been the reason why everyone revered the ground "The Last Uchiha" walked on. He clicked it to read what it was, but his observe level wasn't high enough to observe other peoples' skill details.
"Naruto, what are you doing here!"
Haruno Sakura, level six, top academy student.
Naruto smiled tiredly at her. "Hi, Sakura-chan."
"Don't call me 'chan,' stupid! I asked you why you're here when you haven't even passed the genin test!"
Naruto beamed, tapping his forehead protector and said, "I did."
She stared at it in confusion, then humphed and stomped away to Ino, who sat in the front row waiting for Sasuke. Naruto was just glad she didn't hit him.
~•~
"Why am I in the same team as Naruto?!" shouted Sakura, pointing at Naruto, who only opened one eye from where he lay on top of the desk. Sakura scowled, "Stop ignoring me! What happened to you anyway?! Why are you so quiet!"
Sasuke stole a glance at him, wondering the same thing.
"I'm just tired. Sorry, Sakura-chan." Naruto mumbled in his sleeve with his eyes closed.
She looked at him in surprise, unsure of what to say.
From there, the three of them spent three hours in the classroom, Sakura angrily pacing around the floor with an occasional shout of fury at their unknown teacher; Sasuke sitting there with the usual brooding expression; and Naruto snoring away on a desk.
~•~
Hatake Kakashi was a lazy man. Laid-back, shameless, and behind the tirade of fake smiles everyone could see through was a nasty personality. He blamed his jadedness. At the same time, he prided himself in being very thorough. Having read his students' records, he wasn't sure if they were going to be his students for long.
Nonetheless, he entered the classroom with intentions of impartial judgment, choosing to decide what he saw about them himself.
The first thing he saw was Haruno Sakura shoving herself in front of his face, shouting something about if he "really was our teacher" and being "almost worse than Naruto." The second thing he saw was Uchiha Sasuke standing a ways behind the loud pink one, with slight animosity showing in his brooding gaze. Lastly, his eyes landed on a lump of orange slumped over a desk—Uzumaki Naruto—who was sound asleep.
"My first impression is: I hate you all. Meet me on the roof." He shunshined in a swirl of leaves.
~•~
Naruto rubbed his head at the spot where Sakura had hit him (she had promptly awoken him with her fist and her voice. He swore he lost some health from her shouting in his ear), and glanced up at their new teacher who was leaning against the roof's railing.
[Copy Ninja] Hatake Kakashi
Lvl. ?
He must've been too low leveled to even see Kakashi's level. He muttered under his breath, "Observe."
Bzzt.
Your [Observe] skill level was insufficient and was unable to use [Observe] on this player.
Damn. It always came back down to levels. Then he noticed everyone was looking at him expectantly, so he knew he was definitely supposed to be answering something. Rubbing the back of his head, he asked with a sheepish smile, "Sorry, what was the question?"
"Likes, dislikes, hobby and your dream." Kakashi inputted with a sigh, pulling out a conspicuous orange book.
"I like ramen and training. I dislike lies and wasting ramen. My dream is to be Hokage! And my hobby is also training and," he paused, and then with a chuckle, as if sharing an inside joke with himself, he said, "games."
A/N:
Eh yep. That's chap 1. If anyone has any questions about the game system, I'd be happy to answer it. I'm still solidifying the whole game system thing myself, so it'd be helpful to have some outside insight on it too.