Preface

Greetings all. Thought I'd post a little preface to this story I'm about to do. You've probably never seen me around the Fanfic forum recently, save for the 'Retards on Ice' escapade. I was a face around 2000, back when I was obsessed with writing about my Golduck, and back when RPGs were done in the Fanfic forum, as there was no RPG forum until either late 2000 or early 2001, I can't remember. And by the way, those fics about my Golduck were grade-A manure. This led to a falling out with BBP and his crew and myself, as I was only 11 years old, and 11 year olds can't take criticism, something I'm still not sure I can handle, so be gentle.

One of my later efforts was a Legend of Zelda fic. I think I got 2 chapters up, both met with acclaim (even from BBP). I think this was in 2002 or 2003, but I never got past chapter 2. I remember I got an email from a dedicated reader two months after I abandoned it begging me to write another chapter. It was quite heart-warming, and I think I did get halfway through chapter 3, and then lost interest. I think this was probably around the time I discovered alcohol (or at least the heavy consumption thereof), and I might have had an N64 as well, or a PS2, so I was busy playing video games, or causing trouble in local parks as cider-addled lad.

I'd guess my next effort after that was a Star Wars fic from the point of view of an Imperial commander. It had no Jedis (or Pokemon), so naturally, people were not interested, so I abandoned that too. I also remember posting a light-hearted poem for a Summer poetry contest, but that's not really important. Then, a few weeks ago, Magmar dared me to write a short story with absolutely ludicrous guidelines to the content of said story. With a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a keyboard in front of my other, I hacked out about 600 words, and began to consider the very real prospect of coming back to Fanfic.

The truth is, I've never stopped writing. I just haven't had much success in fiction. I operated a successful opinion blog for a while, plus wrote for a bunch of websites. I even had a short stint of being paid to write video game reviews. Unfortunately, that website closed down, and I haven't really been able to repeat getting a job, since most insist on past credentials, and the website was taken off the Internet, meaning all my hard work, and any evidence of me writing there, was kaput. Bugger. However, any old person can look at current events and give their two-cents on them. I believe they're called 'hacks' or 'pundits' nowadays, and usually the only opinion people are willing to pay for nowadays is an out-of-date, racist and slanderous one.

Fiction has always been at my heart though. Probably like you guys and any wannabe Tolkien, Orwell or Shatner out there, I've got some stories I'd really like to share. And like most wannabe Tolkiens, I don't have the time or effort to make it happen. I suspect I'll get bored here in a month, and the onus is on you guys to make sure that doesn't happen. No pressure.

So, I've decided to make my first fic back a Naruto one. I've been inspired by both the anime (obviously) and the recent RPG by Kalah that sadly passed away in October (the RPG, not Kalah...unless I've been conversing with some sort of zombie for the past 3 months). It might just be a manga and a cartoon, but it has such a rich and diverse background in which anything can happen. Indeed, some of the characters I've introduced may surprise you, but again, that's what I love about it, and what I loved about planning this story out. When I've written fics in the past, it is sometimes hard to express a character's uniqueness; it is often the case that some characters will be too alike and will make one of them almost superfluous. That is not a problem I have had here, and I hope you enjoy engaging in the characters here as much as I have enjoyed envisaging them.

I'd guess the main, and only insofar, problem of setting the story in the universe of Naruto is issues of canon. Some writers are willing to throw canon to the wind and write whatever they feel like. I, on the other hand, have a massive respect for canon, and would find it difficult to attempt to rewrite the story. I have tried to stay as canonical as possible, but I have had to make up details to plug the gaps, although let me douse any fears that I have come up with simple 'a wizard did it' fixes; I have tried to come up with logical yet interesting ways to circumvent the problem that Naruto is still an ongoing manga, and therefore certain plotholes haven't been resolved yet.

The issue of canon also brought another issue: the time setting. I had three (and a half) choices. I could either base it in the present, i.e. in the time-line of Naruto (or Shippuden, hence 'a half'), or take it forward or backward in time. At first, moving forwards in time seemed to be the easiest fix: most of the already existing characters would be dead, and therefore canon would not be too much of an issue. However, with the manga still going, it'd be difficult to foresee where it was taking the story, and whether Naruto becomes Hokage or whether Sasuke returns to Konoha. It was a rather large headache, and one I'd rather not deal with. Setting it in the present time of Naruto posed the problem of simply retelling the story from the point of view of another, less important person, and to be honest, I'd rather not have my main characters overshadowed by some twerp with a fox with an anger-management problem locked inside his belly. Setting it in the past seemed to be the least obvious solution but in the end it was the one that made the most sense, and the one that I knew I'd be able to write best about. My one regret about having none of the main characters being born would be losing my favourite character, Shikamaru, but I resolved this by simply setting the story when Shikamaru's father, Shikaku, would be around 15. Therefore, I have set this story around 10 years before the death of the Fourth Hokage, complete with an all-new cast of characters, and for those fans out there, appearances from a younger Third, a still Leaf-loyal Orochimaru, the original Ino-Shika-Cho trio, a five-year old Kakashi and his father, and a still popular Uchiha clan. None of these characters will be central as such, but will definitely appear alongside the main cast. As I mentioned earlier, I've been inspired by the RPG as well, so anyone who participated in that may recognise a certain someone in this story (or at least the father of).

In closing, I really hope you enjoy it, and I would appreciate the feedback. If I know people are reading it, it will definitely encourage me to write more.