Rewrite: The Introduction Arc and The Land Of Waves Arc.
It is time. This is my rewritten Naruto series. In this series, I will be rewriting Naruto, altering and changing elements to improve the series based on my taste and the occasional coffee-induced dreams. I am not saying I could do a better job than Kishimoto, as he is a fantastical storyteller who did a good job on the series but as much as I enjoyed it, several things stuck out to me and didn't really make any sense. This is more of a what-if series if i could be reborn back in time an become Kishimoto's co-author or editor with the knowledge i have with how the story wraps up and how i would change it. Feel free to treat this as a fanfic. If there is a plot point, story beat or an arc i didn't mention please assume it remains the same as the original.
Artistic credit: The first picture is a fan-made poster created by Srank Graphics20, the others are official artwork. Disclaimer: English is not my first language and i don't know how to put words to paper so apologies in advance.
Let's begin😁
CHAPTER ONE: Naruto Uzumaki
Chapter One starts the same as the original series. We learn about the nine-tailed fox's attack on the village, the fourth hokage's sacrifice, Naruto, and that he is a loner, hated and ostracised by the entire village for being the nine-tails jinchuriki, but in this rewrite, Naruto knows about his dad, Minato, and that he was the fourth Hokage. However, Naruto harbors a deep hatred towards his dad for selling a demon inside of him, so when he defaces the Hokage monument, he is especially ruthless towards Minato.
[ I always found it weird that Naruto never knew who his dad was, and when it was revealed to us, the readers/viewers, it was in a conversation between Jiraiya and Tsunade; honestly, nothing special about it. Plus, since everyone in the village knows about Naruto and his relationship to the Fourth Hokage, people would definitely be talking about this or using this to insult him. Naruto is gonna learn details about it, even if it's not much. This will make when Naruto eventually meets his dad whom he hated for years, the reunion will be quite interesting. Plus, personally, I would hate my dad for sealing a demon in me and then just dying and not leaving me money.]
Naruto also has very little understanding of the Nine-tails. He knows that there is a monster sealed inside him, and that's why the villagers despise him. Plus, he sometimes gets nightmares where he is drowning in a sea of red water or energy, scary voices, and darkness-type stuff, but that's all he really knows. The villagers themselves are way meaner to Naruto, but unlike the original, Naruto also despises the villagers for treating him like some sort of monster. He is also just as sad as he is in the original, but he is also very, very angry. In a particular scene, we see Naruto being shouted at by the villagers, and when he gets mad and pissed off, we see his eyes flash red for a quick minute, and the villagers get scared and run away from him. After they leave, we see Naruto's sad expression from being so lonely and not having any parents or friends. We can also show a scene where Naruto is on his usual swing and see kids with their parents or just a group of kids playing together, and Naruto looks envious and sad about his own life.
Everything progresses as it did in the original; Iruka catches Naruto and takes him to Hiruzen, and that's where we learn about Naruto's dad and that Naruto hates his dad, screaming at Hiruzen that the hokages deserve to be defaced. Naruto also says that he would become the strongest and the greatest Hokage to surpass his dad, as well as show the villagers that he never needed them now and wouldn't need them then. [ A great scene to showcase his character flaws]. Hiruzen defends Minato, saying he was a great person and that he never truly intended to put the Kyuubi in Naruto. Hiruzen here is a kind man and is very kind towards Naruto, even though he is being an ass. Hiruzen then invites Naruto to live with him like before, as he knows that Naruto lives in poor condition. Hiruzen also mentions that Minato left Naruto in his care and that it is his responsibility to care for him. The way Hiruzen says this will be like he has made this offer countless times before ( which he has and still does), but Naruto refuses, claiming he wants nothing to do with another hokage, much less one related to his dad. Naruto stomps out of the office and slams the door. Hiruzen just sighs and says, "He got his father's stubbornness's that's for sure."
[ In this rewrite, Naruto originally lived with Hiruzen, but after finding out about his dad and everything, he left home and attempted to live on the streets. After many attempts to persuade him to come home, Hiruzen gave up and gave him Minato and Kushina's old home.]
Continuing with chapter one, everything stays exactly the same, but when Naruto confronts Mizuki and threatens him, saying he will kill him if he comes near Iruka sensei, we see his eyes change into the classic Kyubbi eyes and his whiskers become bolder. Mizuki gets scared, and Naruto uses his thousand shadow clone jutsu to defeat him, and everything else goes about as it did in the original.
CHAPTER 2: Sasuke Uchiha
As you can see, chapter 2 will no longer be about Konohamaru but Sasuke Uchiha, the deuteragonist and the second most important character in the story as a whole. Plus, I found it strange that the second chapter of the story followed a flat side character that had zero development or impact in the story, and not one of our main characters, so I decided to change that. In chapter 2, we get to see Sasuke's life from his own perspective. We see that, like Naruto, Sasuke has no one and is quite alone, but unlike Naruto, people don't really hate Sasuke; they pity him, and he hates that to his guts. He doesn't want to be pitied; he wants revenge for his clan. Still, Sasuke remains very stoic and his usual cold, distant, and PROUD self never letting his anger transpire or showing any reaction.
[We are not going to get details about the Uchiha massacre. All we know is that Sasuke is very alone, and people pity him a lot. ]
Of course, we see that Sasuke's got a lot of fans his age who idolize him, like Ino and Sakura, but Sasuke feels completely undeserved of this admiration and idolatry due to the guilt he feels about his past that he was weak and couldn't do anything to help his clan. The only person who seems to have feelings other than admiration or idolatry, or worse, pity, is Naruto, who sees him as a rival and wants to beat him in every aspect. This is quite new for Sasuke, and in this chapter, we see that although Sasuke and Naruto act like they can't stand one another, deep down, they want to get closer and be friends; they don't know how, and their individual pride and ego won't let them and the don't know how. It seems like the two of them are the only ones who can truly understand each other but their pride doesn't let them grow closer and become friends outright.
We include a scene where Naruto provokes Sasuke in his usual childish way in part one and Sasuke just act cool and dismisses Naruto while dissing him with words. Naruto leaves pissed off but then we cut to Sasuke and he has a subtle smile on his face.
Chapter 3: Sakura Haruno
Chapter 3 will follow Sakura Haruno, the third most important character, the heroine and the most important female character of the series. (I always found it odd that we never saw a conclusive glimpse of Sakura's life. We know that she's the only 'normal' one the team cause she has parents and a normal childhood but we barely saw any of that and that's wrong cause she's a very important character. I am changing that here in the rewrite not only to build up her character more but to set up things that will pay off later on.)
In this chapter, we get a glimpse of daily life in Konoha through Sakura's perspective and see the norms and circumstances in her life. Note: This will happen before we get the whole bell test and Kakashi's introduction. Sakura's life is quite normal for the most part. We learn that Sakura comes from a humble background, and that her parents aren't shinobi but merchants. We also learn that Sakura's family is struggling quite a bit. They're not poor, but they aren't really comfortable either, and Sakura's parents are working quite hard to try and make things meet up to the point that they are ignoring Sakura when she tries to talk to them. Sakura is quite bummed out about that and heads to her room. We also see that Sakura is quite a studious and bookish person, as most of her room is littered with open books, a lot of notes and her parents mentioning that she always gets top grades in the academy. Sakura also says in this chapter (like her inner thoughts) that 'books are the only thing she's good at' [I know a lot of people may not like this, but don't forget that Sakura was set up to be the smartest, well, book-wise in Team 7, and that is a great concept that I want to keep. I'm not gonna give her glasses and make her a nerd, she's just very intelligent, that's all.] However, we do see that Sakura gets bullied and teased a lot at the academy. Even though she is academically one of the brightest students in the school, she gets bullied and picked on a lot. The reason is that she is not from a well-known clan, nor is her family affiliated with one. She also doesn't have any special abilities, nor is she well-versed and talented in the ninjutsu, taijutsu, etc. Her skills are just very basic. She also gets bullied due to her appearance. Sakura kind of sticks out like a sore thumb among the other genin at first glance. Her pink hair and green eyes are a very unusual combination, and also her huge forehead. We also see once again Sakura's big childish crush on Sasuke here as well. We can include a scene here where Sakura is running some late-night errands for her mother, and then she bumps into Sasuke. Sakura gets flustered and tries to strike up a conversation with Sasuke, but he ignores her. Sakura gets pretty bummed out, but perks right up after remembering that she gets to see Sasuke again at the academy the next day, and she runs off with a blush and a smile on her face, wondering who their new sensei will be to close the chapter.
THE BELL TEST
Moving on to the bell test, well, everything will remain the same, but I will be removing the part where Naruto kisses Sasuke cause i always found that joke stupid, and when he captures Sasuke, cause as of now, the power gap between them is quite big, and Naruto shouldn't be able to beat Sasuke at this point in the story.
During the bell test itself, we will see Kakashi actively provoking and taunting Naruto and talking about his dad. Kakashi will then tell Naruto that his dad was his sensei, and even though Naruto looks like Minato, the difference between them is very evident. How Minato was faster and more skilled than him. Naruto gets very pissed about that and tries to beat him, but we already know how that turned out.
Source: Batoto
The rest of the bell test remains the same, and after the test, we get a little montage of Team 7 going on low-rank missions, such as D rank and E rank. It's just a couple of panels or so, nothing too much. In that montage, we get a good old Naruto and Sasuke rivalry with Naruto doing everything he can to one-up Sasuke at every opportunity, but it usually ends with him failing and getting embarrassed. Naruto is also doing all that to catch Sakura's attention. In this version of the story, Naruto has a crush on Sakura, mostly due to his rivalry with Sasuke and getting the girl who likes Sasuke and is also Sasuke's close friend will be a way to show he is superior to him.
[ In the original, Naruto was supposed to be in love with Sakura due to his rivalry with Sasuke, and he didn't want to lose to him. So by getting Sakura to fall for him will be a way to assert his dominance since Sakura has a crush on his rival. This concept was never added, and like with Sasuke and Sakura, we never got why Naruto likes Sakura other than that he thinks she's cute.]
As I mentioned, we see that Sasuke and Naruto want to be friends, but their egos are getting in the way during the montage.
THE LAND OF WAVES
Now for our main event: The Land of Waves. The first thing I am changing is Sasuke's reaction when Kakashi shows his Sharingan. In this rewrite, Sasuke will look pissed and will confront Kakashi about that. One of the things that Sasuke will ask is if Kakashi is a Uchiha or part-Uchiha, at least since the Sharnigan is a dojutsu kekkai genkai only native to the Uchiha clan, so how does he have it? He will also ask if Kakashi stole that Sharingan? Kakashi's reaction to that question will be him struggling not to laugh before saying he is not a Uchiha and that an old friend gave him his sharingan. Kakashi will also say that when Sasuke gets his, he will be able to train him and teach him how to use it better. Sasuke calms down, but he is still suspicious.
[ I want to develop the relationship between Kakashi and Sasuke more. Kakashi will serve as some sort of father figure to both Sasuke and the rest of Team 7 but especially Sasuke but not on the same level as Naruto and Jariaya but close notherless]
Just like Sasuke, Naruto will confront Kakashi about him being Minato's student and ask him to tell him more about his dad. Even though Naruto harbors a deep resentment towards his dad, he is still curious about who is dad really was and his abilities. Kakashi will sit Naruto down and begin to tell him about Minato and a couple of his feats, how he was the fastest shinobi of his time, and how he was nicknamed the Yellow Flash of the Leaf. A bit of lore on Minato won't hurt, and it will keep the connection between Minato and Naruto going and set the stage for when they finally meet.
Another change will happen when Naruto and Sasuke are doing the tree-climbing training. The training will go as it did in the original, but after they both succeed, Sasuke will say to Naruto in a cool, shy way, "Good job, loser." Naruto grins and says, "You too, Jerk." This is said playfully, but they are still acknowledging each other as friends.
The arc goes on as in the original, but we get more mentions of how much he hates his dad and how he will become Hokage to show everyone that even though he may have a demon in him, he won't let that tie him down and forge his own path. Sakura does nothing in this arc as usual, but I will add a scene where Sasuke and Sakura go to buy food, and they share a short emotional but awkward moment, and Sasuke will start to see Sakura a lot more differently with other eyes, other than a teammate, but in a typical Uchiha manner, he won't say anything. Sakura, of course, has a huge crush on him, and that's quite obvious to even Sasuke, just like in the original. We have to develop the relationship early in the story to give more emotional impact to scenes and moments to come.
The rest of the land of waves arc remains the same, as it is a masterpiece and a good way to start the series. However, when our heroes go back to Konoha and give their report, we see Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto walking on the streets. Kakashi has invited them to Ichiraku's to celebrate, so they are heading over to meet him but, on the way, we see a handful of chunins get in their way and start harassing Naruto. Naruto gets pissed of course, as usual. Sakura tries to interfere and get them to stop bothering them, but they pay her no mind. This reaction gets Sakura quite pissed, but she doesn't lash out since the shinobis are still their superiors, but malicious intent just oozes out of her. Seeing this, Sasuke comes in and activates his Sharingan and intimidates the chunins to leave his friends alone, and they do. Naruto is annoyed, saying he doesn't need Sasuke to fight his own battle, but he is also grateful and happy and thanks Sasuke cause no one has ever stood up for him. Sakura is still fuming but is more concerned about Naruto and asks him if he is all right. Naruto acts all macho around her as usual, and they head to Ichiraku's, where Kakashi is waiting for them and the arc closes with Team 7 enjoying ramen at Ichiraku's, showing their blossoming friendship.
Overall, i think i did a nice job with this. It took me a while. The next part is gonna take sometime as I want to add an original arc before the chunin exams as I feel that the chunin exams where a bit rushed, and the land of waves was the only arc we saw Team 7 go on a normal mission. But I have writer's block, so I am going to go to bed now and rest. If you have add ideas you want me to incorporate into the narrative, please drop it in my inbox and I'll see what I can do. This will also help me partially overcome my writer's block before I start working on the part. Please like, reblog, and follow for more.
I need a nap.
