Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, sadly (but that's all about to change... Mwahahahahahaha!!!)
AN: I'm not that experienced with writing, so don't bust a blood vessel if this story isn't the best. No flames please. Constructive critisism is welcome, though.
'hey brat' - Kyuubi mind speaking
'blah' - Kyuubi talking
(blah) - Kyuubi thinking to himself(Naruto and crew can't hear)
'blah' - mind speak
(blah) - character thinking
"blah" - character talking
blah - justsu
(blah) - inner Sakura
Fate's Humor
Chapter 1
Voices. They were talking about something, but he didn't know what. He felt like he was floating in a sea of honey. The feeling of sleep wouldn't go away. Finally, after what seemed like a decade at the least, he opened his eyes slowly. And was rewarded with a bright light almost blinding him. He snapped his eyes shut, and then opened them, blinking slowly.
"He's awake. Finally." The voice belonged to someone that Naruto assumed was one of the doctors. Wait a second. What was he doing in the hospital? Suddenly, the events that had transpired, and ended with him in his current state, came flashing through his mind. Sasuke. The fight at the Valley of the End. Failure.
"What happened?" Just those two words were a chore to say, coming out scratchy and hardly recognizable as any form of human language.
"Well, demon," Naruto could tell by the tone of voice that the doctor was sneering, "It seems that the mission to retrieve Sasuke failed miserably. It is quite obvious why."
Naruto mentally sighed. He was REALLY tired of this kind of thing. Heh, maybe Sasuke had been onto something when he decided that the village was nothing more than a congregation of fools. With that thought in mind, Naruto blanked out again.
He awoke a few hours later, and noticed that the hospital room was completely empty of occupants other than himself. Naruto moved his limbs slightly, trying to feel what was wrong and what wasn't. There seemed to still be a slight problem with his left arm. If he remembered correctly, he'd used that arm to deflect a chidori. He was actually slightly surprised that it was still attached. No matter. The wound had already faded to minor burns, and looked about a week old, though the betrayal couldn't have been more than a day or two ago.
Naruto gingerly picked himself up out of the bed, not wanting to strain himself, and not seeing and point in keeping his mask on with no one around to see him. He sighed at the thought and walked over to the window. It was locked. Of course, being a ninja, it took Naruto all of three seconds to pick the amazingly simple lock. He got the distinct impression the doctors in charge of his care didn't care if he hurt himself trying to leave.
Slipping out of the now open window, Naruto made his way to his apartment. Sadly, he didn't ever bother cleaning it, but that was because, in the past, some moron or another that couldn't tell the difference between container and contained trashed the place. He hadn't kept anything even remotely valuable to him in his apartment in a while, instead choosing to hide it somewhere else. Though it wasn't really as if he had that much of value. He really needed to stop this line of thought. Though only an experienced ANBU would've been able to tell, he was really pissed. That was never a good thing. It was okay to pretend to be getting really emotional, but not to actually do so.
He landed in front of the door to his apartment, and went in. The place had been trashed again. Great. Just frecking great. Naruto sat on the slab of wood with a blanket on it that he jokingly called his 'bed', and fell into a meditative position. Time to have a chat with the Baka no Kitsune.
Naruto came to in the same old, familiar sewers. This place seriously needed some redecorating. He looked up at the great iron cage, and shouted, "Hey! Baka no Kitsune! I'm calling a meeting between you, Bakenokawa, and me!"
"This isn't like you, brat. You never have called a meeting between the three of us to this day." A sinister voice snarled from the depths of the cavern, as the Kyuubi appeared, with a grin, if such a visage could be called that, worthy of the Cheshire cat. It did wonders in showing off his immense canines.
Naruto yawned, completely ignoring the fox, as he waited for Bakenokawa to show. He didn't have to wait long. His alter ego's presence was premeditated by a splashing sound, as he rushed through the corridors. Sliding around the corner into the room, he flashed one of Naruto's trademark fox-grins, earned a scowl from the fearsome demon fox.
"Hey everyone! Whatsup?" True to his nature, Kyuubi growled at him, flexing his claws, and started to list things that he would do to the almost mirror image of Naruto if he ever got out of his cage.
"Shut it, you two. I called this meeting for a reason. We need to discuss what we are going to do next." Naruto said to the two bickering spirits.
"HUH?!? Don't you normally just either let Bawa make the decisions, or once in a blue moon, make them yourself? What's with this sudden democracy thing?" It was obvious that the millennia old demon fox was confused. He knew that the brat always hid behind layers upon layers of masks, but this was kinda sudden and REALLY out of character."I'm confused too. I may not have been paying that much attention, but what the hell is going on here?!?" was Bakenokawa's puzzled reply to Naruto's statement.
"I'm asking you two because this is the biggest decision in mine and Bawa's lives.." At this point Naruto took a deep breath before continuing. "I'm considering leaving the leaf."
3…
2…
1…
"WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?!?" Naruto had expected a reaction like this, and was slightly amused at how in sync Kyuubi and Bawa had been in their outburst.
"It's exactly as I said. I'm sick and tired of all this, and I'm considering leaving. I want to know what the two of you think before making any rash decisions." Naruto sounded amazingly calm while saying all of this. "It is actually a notion that I have been entertaining for a while."
"I could care less what you do in regards to your village, but leaving and becoming a missing-nin would be very dangerous, and you need to think this through thoroughly. Otherwise, anything is fine by me." Typical Kyuubi reply.
"I'm not really sure. It's kinda hard to act one way all your life, and then to go against that. I think we should wait and access the situation before making any rash decisions. Kyuubi also has a point with the whole danger issue."
"Makes sense. Maybe it won't be as bad as predicted. Things rarely turn out how we expect. Of course, it never hurts to be prepared. Any suggestions?" Naruto asked the two living within his mind.
"You were to preoccupied to notice, but in the room in which you found the Forbidden Scroll, there were many others. I'm sure those could come in handy."
"Oh, that's such an great idea Kyuubi! One question. How the HELL are we supposed to get enough time to read all of those?" Bawa question the fox.
"I happen to know a jutsu that will allow us to copy the contents of those scrolls onto empty ones, and we can just skim the tittles, we won't be needing them all." Kyuubi scolded the second brat, as he thought of him.
"I think Bawa would be good for this job. I can be trying to find out information on what's happening while the two of you sneak into the scroll room. This will also be a perfect field-test for the Gizensha Bunshin no Jutsu."
"Yeah, also to test out my doppelganger abilities!" Bawa shouted, much like Naruto supposedly did.
"Remind me again how these alleged doppelganger abilities of yours are any different from a henge and good acting skills?"
"Bawa's doppelganger abilities not only allow him to make himself look like a person, but all he needs is a few seconds of physical contact with a person and he can copy every single thing about them, from their looks, to their smell, even their chakra signature. He can know squat about them and act exactly as they would, down to the smallest personality quirk. Also, it takes a lot more than a simple hit to dispel the transformation, because it isn't a genjutsu and is actually physical. Also, if e can hang onto the person for about half a minute, he can copy bloodline abilities, as was proved when he partially copied Haku's Hyuton. Of course, t requires more practice to actually work at all, but you get the point." Naruto took a breath after his particularly long speech.
"Enough chit-chat. Let's go!!!" Bawa was as enthusiastic as always.
In the real world, Naruto opened his eyes. It had only been one or two moments since he had entered his subconsciousness. He stretched and looked around, taking note of the sign that someone had bothered to paint on his wall. It was the usual crap. Nonsense about how he was a demon, yada yada yada, and all that kind of junk.
He went into his bathroom, and found it in the same state of disarray. Shrugging, he bent over and carefully lifted up some of the tiles. He kept his 'real' clothes in here. Not the usual orange tracksuit, but instead real ninja clothes, as black as pitch. He closed the bathroom door, and quickly executed a series of hand seals. When he was done, he felt his mind being ripped in two, as a clone made out of pure chakra appeared, and materialized into the doppelganger's true form.
Bawa, when bothering to disguise himself, looks like Naruto's twin. When shifting between forms, when not holding up the disguise, and when forming outside of Naruto, looks like a blur. That's really the only way to describe it accurately. He basically looked like the vague outline of a person, and looking at him is like looking at anything else with astigmatism as a factor. He was blue, with streaks of red chasing each other throughout his 'body'.
"This feels crazy weird," Bawa remarked. His voice sounded like it was coming from all around you, and had a metallic drone to it. Like a robot with surround sound.
His form started to shift, and within seconds in front of Naruto stood a man of average height, with averagely shaded skin, brown hair, brown eyes, and a perfectly average facial and skeletal structure, in fact, everything about his man made you want to just simply register him as 'nothing', and concentrate on something more extraordinary. He simply picked up the black garments lying in the niche in the floor, and slipped them on. Finding that the current settings were too small, he adjusted the outfit until it was his size. This done, he picked up the black head wrapping, and tied it around his head so that only his eyes showed. He slipped on black moccasin, after some more fiddling. He now looked like one of those ninja you see in the movies. Now, you were even less likely to notice him. The only thing that trademarked him was that he smelled like a rat, and had the chakra aura of a rat.
The disguised Bakenokawa walked into the central hallway, and proceeded to head for the bedroom. It was empty. It seemed, though, that while he was dressing Naruto had cleaned up a bit by shoving all the trash into one corner and mostly washing off the graffiti. It still was faintly visible, but if you looked closely enough, such marking were all over the room, like a unique wallpaper. Turning around, he headed to the kitchen. He was greeted by the sight of Naruto cleaning up after the vandals.
Grinning from ear to ear, a coughed to get Naruto's attention. When said person turned around, Bawa saluted and exclaimed, "McDonald Joe, reporting for duty!"
At that, Naruto started laughing. "You have a weird sense of humor, Bawa."
"Not at all. My sense of humor is perfectly normal. It's everyone else's that is weird." Bawa solemnly stated, still grinning like a madman.
"Heh. Funny as always. You ready?" Naruto causually asked.
"When have I ever not been ready?"
"Do I really need to list all the times you've been caught off guard, or unprepared for something?"
"Uh… No?"
"Thought so."
'Do you two mind? We currently have a mission to complete,' growled a voice in both Naruto's and Bawa's heads.
'Yeah, yeah, we'll get right on it your royal majesty.' Bawa mocked the fox.
'Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…'
'More like royal pain!' Naruto sided with his alter ego. 'Though I hate to admit it, Baka no Kitsune is right. We need to get moving.'
'Hmph.' The demon fox obviously was peeved.
Bawa knew that he and Naruto had always had fairly good stealth skills, but this was ridiculous. There was a whole squad of ANBU guarding the place, and it had been as easy as breathing to get in. Now that's bad security. What if Bawa had been an enemy ninja?
Shrugging, he slipped into the scroll room. Quickly checking for traps, he found a few, and disabled them all. He crossed over to where the Forbidden Scroll was, and took out a scroll. He then opened it slightly, and applied chakra to one of the symbols, producing a scroll similar in size to the Forbidden Scroll. He gathered chakra in his hand like the Kyuubi instructed, and touched the scroll, and then he used some demonic jutsu to copy its contents. Now for the tricky part. He placed his hand over the summoned scroll, and concentrated on pasting the contents of the Forbidden scroll into his scroll.
This done, he resealed the scroll, and placed the Forbidden Scroll backed in its place. He quickly went around the room, copying any scrolls that were even slightly interesting. One in particular caught his eye. It was concealed by an advanced genjutsu, and if it hadn't been for the kitsune within him he would have missed it. He carefully undid the genjutsu, and then disabled the numerous traps surrounding the scroll. Picking it up, he saw that its title read: Secret Techniques of the Hokages. His eyes widened a fraction or two, and he quickly copied the scroll. He reapplied the genjutsu and reset some of the traps. He then scanned the rest of the room, copying any remaining scrolls of interest. Not a single one of them compared to what he had found.
He discovered that getting back out of the scroll room was shockingly even easier than getting in! He hadn't even thought that possible. After exiting, Bawa took a roundabout route to the rendezvous point, to throw off possible pursuers.
He soon arrived at the mouth of a small cave on the side of the mountain. It looked just like any other crack in the enormous wall, but Naruto had discovered that the crack, after narrowing quite a bit, opened into a room sized cave, with many places to stash things. This was where Naruto hid all of his valuable stuff, and it also served as a hideaway. Naruto had actually found it on accident when trying to escape some slightly to heavily drunk villagers. Since then he had used it as a storage shed almost.
It would be a few more hours until Naruto showed up, so Bawa lit up the mysterious glow ball, that only need a pulse of chakra to work. When activated, it would float to the ceiling and provide light. Bawa next took out a chess set, and created a clone. He put Kyuubi's chakra mainly into the clone, also partially giving it Kyuubi's mind. The two look-alikes settled back, and without a single word, started a game of chess. They really needed to find more ways to pass the time.
(Earlier that day)
After Bawa left, Naruto spent about fifteen to thirty minutes fixing up his apartment until it was at least livable in. Anything else was a waste of time and effort. He got dressed, and prepared to face the village. He would have rather spend the whole day training until he was to tired to even think, but he need to gather some information. He figured that the best place to start would be Sakura.
He exited his apartment, and started heading toward the Hokage Tower. Naruto wouldn't be seeing Bawa again until sunset the next day, so he'd have to really try hard to act. Bakenokawa was the actor among the trio. This was going to be tough without him. Anyways, Naruto figured that he might get into another situation like this, but instead with his life ridding on the line, so it wouldn't hurt to practice his own acting skills.
On his way to where he assumed Sakura trained, whom should he meet but the pink-haired girl herself? She was walking with her friend, Ino. Naruto quickly threw up his usual façade, and called out to Sakura. "Hey! Sakura-chan! Can you tell me what happened after I blacked out?" Cheerful as always.
"Naruto! How dare you be so cheerful when Sasuke-kun just betrayed us! You wanted him to leave, didn't you?"
Upon hearing her accusation, Naruto's mask started slipping. Yup. He needed to work on his acting skills. "Huh? Why would I be glad that Sasuke's gone?!? He was my best friend!"
Sakura, too wrapped up in her emotions, didn't notice his mask starting to crumble, but Ino did. She felt bad for him. Sakura was being kinda mean. "Ya right! Like Sasuke-kun would be friends with a dead last like you! You didn't even try to bring him back! I heard that you were the one that pushed him to leave in the first place! Don't pretend that you actually cared about him, monster!!!" Sakura didn't know why she said that last part, but she had heard others call him that sometimes, and it seemed fitting when it was Naruto's fault that her precious Sasuke-kun was gone!
Sakura's words struck deeper than anyone else's ever had. Naruto's mask crumbled completely. Sakura was to angry to notice, but Ino saw the pain written on his face, plain as day, before he turned and ran. She could've sworn she saw his shoulders shaking, like he was trying hard not to cry. She felt truly sorry for him. "Hey, Sakura, don't you think that was a little to harsh?" Ino asked her closest friend quietly.
"Of course not! The moron had it coming." Sakura's voice was full of ice. When she later calmed down, she would deeply regret her words to Naruto, but at this moment she didn't.
Naruto ran as fast as he could away from Sakura's biting words, fighting an uphill battle not to just simply curl up and start sobbing then and there. He made it to his apartment, and managed to close the door, before he broke down. He cried for about an hour straight. It made sense. No matter what had happened to him, he hadn't cried since the New Year's Eve in which he was six years old. His new year's resolution had been to never cry because he was sad ever again. In hindsight it was a stupid promise. He had actually kept to it up until this point, occasionally crying, but he was always faking it, just to put on a show. This was the first time in six years he'd cried straight from his torn and bleeding heart. Afterwards, he didn't have the heart to find out anyone else's opinion, and instead trained until he had knocked himself unconscious.
The next day, as Bakenokawa was sitting in a cave playing chess with a demon fox, Naruto was waking up where he had fallen as a result of his training session the day before. He used a low level henge, to subtle to be detected by anyone other than a jounin or higher, and walked into the town. He wandered all over, and found, to his dismay, that pretty much everyone blamed him for Sasuke's betrayal. They all also blamed him for the injuries his teammates had sustained. Going to Shizune, Naruto found out that Neji and Chouji had come back in critical condition, but were going to recover. He also found out that Kiba, Akamaru, and Lee had all been badly injured. It didn't help his moral. He knew, deep down, that they didn't blame him for their injuries, but he couldn't help but to feel guilty, and in addition the villagers' words were getting to him.
He was getting really depressed. He could count on both hands his number of 'friends', and he could count on one hand the number of people he really felt were close to him, and now with Tsunade pretty much ignoring him, Sakura snapping his head off, Sasuke gone, Kakashi nowhere to be seen, and Iruka to busy with the academy to pay much attention to him, he felt truly alone for the first time in a long while.
He felt the crushing weight of reality settle down on his shoulders, and something inside of him snapped. He unconsciously clenched his fist, before punching the nearest wall, reducing it to rubble. In his anger, he had accidentally used Tsunade's strength technique. Not noticing the pile of broken bits of stone that had once been a wall, Naruto started running through town, not caring who saw him. He slowed down once he was deep within the forest. At this point the Jinchuuriki turned and headed in the direction of the hideaway, and what at this point felt like his only two friends in the whole world. As he walked, three blue jays flew in a line over head. If you believed in old omens, you would probably consider this a sign of change. But believing in that kind of stuff's just ridiculous, right?
END OF CHAPTER 1
Bakenokawa- as far as I know this means something along the lines of disguise and/or masking one's own true character. correct me if I'm wrong. As far as I know Bawa doesn't mean anything, it's just Kyuubi and Naruto's nickname for him.
Gizensha Bunshin no Jutsu- I think gizensha means something along the lines of hypocrite or fox in a lamb's clothing. Bunshin means clone and jutsu means technique. This is the clone technique that Naruto uses to bring Bawa out into the real world