Naruto lead his team through the halls of the Hokage Tower as he was already very familiar with the building's layout. Well, that, and the fact that he felt Kakashi, his team's jonin sensei, was walking too slowly. They were supposed to be in the Hokage's office three minutes ago.
"Are we even going the right way?"
Naruto crossed his arms behind his head as he walked. He turned slightly as he shrugged to his loud, pink haired teammate, Sakura Haruno. He put on a wide smile as he spoke.
"Trust me, I know this place like the back of my hand! Kakashi Sensei was taking too long, so we're going ahead of him!"
Sakura sighed in frustration and looked to her left at their third teammate, a brooding, black haired teen named Sasuke Uchiha. The teen was silent, simply walking along with his hands in his pockets. Even that was enough to make Sakura blush, apparently. Naruto was the opposite. Sasuke's demeanor only served to annoy the blonde genin. He turned to look back down the hallway as talking to Sasuke had never lead to anything good. He was hoping things would start to change since they had officially become a team earlier in the day.
Naruto slowed his pace with his two teammates doing the same and they soon stood in front of the door to the Hokage's office. The blonde teen opened the door to see the other two genin teams, Team Eight and Team Ten, were already in the room.
"Hey, old man! Sorry we're late, Kakashi Sensei was taking too long-"
Naruto was interrupted by a hit to the back of his head courtesy of Sakura.
"You idiot! Don't talk to the Hokage like that!"
Sakura turned to apologize to the old man in ceremonial robes sitting behind the large desk with countless papers stacked on it that were pushed to the sides.
"It is quite alright, Miss Haruno. But where might Kakashi be?"
The three genin of Team Seven looked back for a moment before they heard a puff of smoke ahead of them.
"Sorry about that, Lord Hokage. It seems my genin were a little too excited so they went on ahead of me. I got lost trying to find out where they went so I ended up being late."
The old man simply raised an eyebrow as he didn't believe the jonin's excuse. He shook his head and sighed before addressing the entire room.
"Now that you're all here, I would like to ask you all a favor."
This got all of the genin curious as they hadn't expected the Hokage to ask a favor of them.
"While this is mainly a job for your jonin senseis, I want to ask that you all do your best to get along."
Now, the genin were confused. They looked around at each other for a few seconds before the Hokage spoke once again.
"Ah, I apologize. I was not exactly asking for the nine of you to get along with each other. Instead, I want you all to get along with another genin. He is from a foreign nation and was brought here after a series of unfortunate events befell him."
Everyone, including the jonin, turned to look at the door as it was opened. It revealed a nervous looking genin their age with black, spikey hair that went down almost to his shoulders. It was tied into a short, spikey ponytail at the back. He wore a dark gray-ish blue short sleeve shirt with black cargo shorts that went down past his knees. His forearms down to his knuckles were covered by white wrappings. The same wrappings were applied to his lower legs from his shins to the soles of his feet, which were noticeably bare. The most striking feature about the teen was his eyes. The irises were pitch black with bright orange and yellow dots occasionally blinking in and out. An extremely faint ring of dark orange bordered his pitch black pupils. They held a look of unwanted experience that somewhat confused most of the onlookers.
The teen carefully closed the door behind him before giving a polite wave to everyone in the room.
"This is Adrik. Again, he only just transfered here, so please be sure to give him a warm welcome to the Hidden Leaf Village. Oh, and here."
The Hokage reached into a drawer and pulled out a black headband bearing the symbol of the Hidden Leaf Village on a metal plate. He threw it towards Adrik, which the teen easily caught. He looked at it for a few seconds before deciding to tie it and let it hang loosely around his neck.
"Now, the nine of you, please get to know our new genin as he may very well become a part of one of your teams in the near future."
The majority of the genin nodded along excitedly.
"That is all for you for now. You may leave. I still have some matters to discuss with your senseis."
The genin nodded and followed Adrik out the door. After they closed it behind them, the Hokage adjusted himself in his chair and his eyes narrowed slightly.
"Well then, I assume you all know of the young man's situation by now?"
The three jonin nodded towards their Hokage.
"Good. I want all of you to keep an eye on him. He is a quiet individual, but his strength is something I cannot deny. He is already incredibly distrusting of us adults. Even I have barely gotten him to speak more than a few sentences in a day. I am hoping that he will open up more around people his age."
The old man sighed tiredly.
"You have already sensed it, correct? His lack of chakra, I mean."
Upon seeing the three jonin nod, he continued.
"He is an anomaly in the sense that he has no chakra to speak of. One of the Hyuga Clan members I brought in saw nothing but an outline of his form with their Byakugan. As such, I suspect whatever bloodline the young man possesses is one that somehow trades in chakra and the ability to use it for an entirely new power, one that acts as a supplement. He has shared no information on it other than the fact that it exists, so keep track of anything you see him do as it could help us understand him better."
"I don't get it. Even if there was some kind of bloodline like that, there would still be a tiny bit of chakra in a person's system, wouldn't there?"
The Hokage looked to his left at Asuma Sarutobi, the jonin leader of Team Ten, his own son, and nodded.
"I believe so, but this type of bloodline is exceedingly rare. Perhaps it is a relatively new bloodline or even the first instance of one. We can only guess as to what it is. But other than that, I want you all to make sure he gets along well with your teams. I do plan on putting him on one of them in the future."
"I know I'm not usually one to question your judgement, Lord Hokage, but would it really be wise to put four genin on one team?"
The old man looked to the jonin between Kakashi and Asuma, Kurenai Yuhi, and nodded.
"A valid concern. Trust me when I say, however, that the three of you would be more than qualified to lead a team of four genin. On top of that, I believe the young man would be much more helpful to the other genin than you realize."
Kurenai nodded with her question answered. The Hokage looked between the three jonin before nodding.
"Your teams will be getting their first missions tomorrow. Adrik will be acting as a team member for Team Ten for that day, rotating the next day to Team Eight and the day after that to Team Seven so he can get accustomed to everyone. You may take your leave."
The three jonin bowed to the Hokage before walking out of the room. The old man sighed to himself as he thought back to the week before. He should've never let Inoichi look at the teen's memories...
X
Adrik could feel the gazes of the nine genin on him from across the small waiting room. He leaned against one of the walls with his arms crossed while looking down at the ground. It would occasionally shift to only a few looks as the teams seemed to be preoccupied with talking to each other. He heard a sigh come from one of the teens. It was specifically the one with a lazy look and his hair tied back into a ponytail that made his head look like a pineapple.
"If you guys wanna know about him, there's this thing called 'social interaction'."
The girl with long, platinum blonde hair sitting next to the lazy teen turned to him with an agitated frown.
"And who do you think you're talking about, you lazy hypocrite?!"
The lazy teen shrugged.
"I know all I need to know right now. Prying into his personal life would be more trouble than it's worth."
The blonde girl, presumably also his teammate, shook her fist at him angrily.
"He's right, though. I feel stupid just sitting here staring at him like this."
The teen with the small puppy peeking out of his jacket was the one to speak. The teen got up and walked over to Adrik with a welcoming grin. He stopped in front of the teen leaning against the wall and held out his hand.
"I'm Kiba Inuzuka, nice to meet you."
Adrik shook his hand carefully.
"Adrik."
The teen, Kiba, grinned as he pointed at the small, white dog sitting in his jacket.
"This here is Akamaru."
Adrik gave a small wave to the puppy, who let out a small bark in return.
"I don't know how much you know about the clans here in the Hidden Leaf, but in mine, we get a canine companion that we work with throughout our entire ninja career. It's a friends to the end kind of thing, and I'm glad I have him. I hope we can get along, Adrik."
Adrik gave Kiba a small nod as he headed back over to rejoin the rest of the genin.
"See? No harm done."
The others nodded along to the point being made.
"He didn't really talk much, though."
This sentence was followed by the crunch of potato chips. Kiba shrugged to the big boned genin who spoke.
"He seems nice enough. Why don't you guys go introduce yourselves, too?"
The large teen looked to the lazy genin he sat next to and nodded. He got up, his bag of chips in one hand, and dragged the lazy teen along with him by his shoulder.
"Hey, I'm Choji Akimichi. This is Shikamaru Nara. It's a pleasure to meet you."
Adrik shook the large teen's hand while glancing down at the lazy teen who seemed content with staring up at the ceiling.
"Don't worry about him. His entire clan is like that. Well, except for some of the women. He's usually either staring at the clouds or playing some board game with his dad or Asuma Sensei."
"It's not just some board game, it's called shogi."
Choji simply nodded.
"He's passionate about it. But it's nice to meet you. I hope you like it here in the Leaf."
Choji moved to sit against the wall Adrik was standing against. Shikamaru still hadn't moved from his position on the floor. Choji held out his chip bag to Adrik and gestured for him to take one. Then teen shook his head while putting a hand up and Choji nodded, going back to eating.
"Hey, I'm Naruto Uzumaki! And I'm gonna be the Hokage someday! It's nice t' meet ya'!"
Adrik raised an eyebrow as he looked back towards the teen with bright yellow hair and blue eyes with whisker marks on his cheeks. As surprised as he was at the teen's enthusiasm, he still had the courtesy to shake his hand.
"So, what brought you all the way to the Leaf?"
Adrik shrugged.
"Bad incident. Had to recover here."
Naruto's smile immediately dropped to a half hearted, awkward grin.
"Oh, uh, sorry for, uh... askin'... Well, I'm glad you recovered. I know hospitals can be pretty borin'. That's not even talkin' about the food they have there. Seriously, I'd rather eat cardboard than whatever that crap is!"
Adrik nodded along. Naruto moved to lean against the wall next to Adrik on the opposite side that Choji sat at.
"I'm lookin' forward to workin' together, even if it's only for a little bit!"
Adrik nodded to the notion. He looked across the waiting room to see nobody else was exactly intent on getting up. The blonde girl and the pink haired girl seemed content with staring at the brooding teen staring out the window. The other two genin were presumably Kiba's teammates. One was a pale eyed girl who seemed really shy and was occasionally glancing towards Naruto. The other was a tall teen with most of his face obscured by his high collar jacket and small sunglasses. Said teen simply nodded a greeting towards Adrik, to which he nodded back the same way.
The genin collectively looked over at the door when the three jonin exited the Hokage's office.
"Alright, everyone. It looks like you're taking the rest of the day off to do whatever. Feel free to use your team's training grounds."
The genin all nodded as Asuma spoke. The jonin turned to address Adrik.
"Tomorrow, you'll be working with my team. The day after that, you'll be working with Kurenai's team, Team Eight. And the day after that, you'll be working with Kakashi's team, Team Seven. Sound good?"
Asuma lit a cigarette as Adrik nodded to him.
"Alright. Just meet me back in the Hokage's office at around seven in the morning."
Asuma waved at his genin team and Adrik before he left, signaling everyone else to begin leaving as well.
X
Naruto raised an eyebrow as he looked at Adrik. The teen was carrying a rucksack while walking in the same direction that he was heading, which happened to be to his apartment.
"Hey, you're not followin' me, are ya'?"
Adrik shook his head.
"The Hokage set up an apartment for me."
Naruto nodded skeptically before realizing.
"Oh, you're the one who's movin' in next to me! That makes a whole lot more sense now. Jeez, I can't even remember the last time I had neighbors."
Adrik raised an eyebrow as he looked at Naruto. Said teen didn't seem to notice, looking as if nothing in the world could bother him. It was then that Adrik noticed the hateful glares being sent in their direction. More specifically, in Naruto's direction. Nobody really seemed to pay attention to him.
Adrik looked back at Naruto with curiosity but didn't speak. The teens continued their walk for another few minutes before finally reaching an apartment building. The apartments were noticeably empty with graffiti occasionally marking the walls of each floor the teens went up.
"Alright. Have a good night, man."
Adrik waved back and opened the door to his new apartment, which happened to be right next to Naruto's on the top floor of the building. It would definitely take him some time to get used to this new lifestyle. At the very least, the inside of the apartment was nice.
Immediately to the left coming into the apartment was a small kitchen with the necessary appliances. A dining table with four chairs sat near the wall opposite of the door with a nice view out of the large window. In the middle of the left wall was the door leading to the bedroom.
At the back right corner of the bedroom was the bed with a nightstand next to it. The door to a small balcony sat on the wall immediately to the right of the doorway. To the left was the entrance to a washroom/bathroom.
All in all, Adrik had nothing to complain about. If he was understanding the currency correctly, it was pretty cheap, too. The only thing left for him to do was get used to sleeping on something softer than concrete...