Chapter 1 : The Road of LIfe

Hello, my name is Isshin Yamanaka, twin brother of Ino Yamanaka. I'm the younger twin, so I'm not the heir thank Kami, that would just be troublesome to deal with. Anyway, today is going to be the day I join the Ninja Academy. I'm not particularly looking forward to it if I'm honest. My ideal life would be just to laze around, maybe look after the flower shop, and possibly have a small family. But in this crazy world filled with Shinobi, Bandits, Samurai, and giant beasts called Biju, no telling what else, I can't afford to live that life, sadly.

As Isshin was lazing around in bed having an internal monologue, he was suddenly startled by his bedroom door. So, Isshin decides to get out of bed, slip on his sandals, and starts to make his way to the door. When he reaches for his doorknob, he senses that his sister is about to kick his door this time, so he opens it to see Ino stumbling and falling to her back.

Isshin breaks out in laughter seeing her fall onto the floor. "Ouch, that wasn't funny. Why do you use your sensor abilities for stupid stuff like this?" Ino said while glaring at him.

"Help me up," Ino said while holding her hand out.

"Hm, did you say something?" Isshin said, faking a yawn.

"I swear, sometimes you're worse than Shika," Ino said while pouting on the ground with her arms crossed.

"Fine," Isshin holds out his hand and helps Ino up. "Well, I came up to let you know that mom made grilled fish and rice for breakfast, so get dressed before we go to the academy," Ino said and then turned around and went back downstairs.

'I love annoying her,' thinks to himself. Isshin turns around and goes back into his room and gets ready. Then he looks in the mirror to check his outfit out. He sees light brown eyes staring back at him. He has short messy brown hair (just think of Gaara's hair from Shippuden but light brown), and bandages wrapped around his lower face down to his neck (like Zabuza). He is wearing a short-sleeved fishnet underneath a black tank top with blue Anbu pants with the cuffs tied down with bandages and black sandals.

Isshin finally makes it downstairs to see his mother Mika putting away the food. "Good morning, Mom. Where is everyone?" Isshin says as he hugs his mother.

"Good morning, Isshin. You should've gotten ready quicker, the food has gone cold and you are going to be late for the academy. Also, Ino has already left, and so has Inochi," Mika said while looking at her son.

"Ah well, I guess I'm off then," Isshin says while making it out the doors waving backward.

"Ah, I got lost again. I don't see how I manage to do this every other day." Isshin was trying to figure out where he was until he saw a Jonin with silver gravity-defying hair, a hitai-ate tilted standing around a road reading an orange book with the words "Icha Icha" written on it.

Isshin walks up to the Jonin and asks, "What are you doing just standing around here?"

Kakashi looks up from his book to see Isshin trying to peek at his book. "Hm, did you say something?" Kakashi closes his Icha Icha.

Isshin gets a tick mark on his head, raises his fist, and yells, "Oi, that's my catchphrase, don't copy it, you copycat!"

Kakashi looks amused at the fact some kid has been using his line and asks confusingly, "I copied you?"

"Yeah, I've been using that for years!" Isshin yelled as he glared at Kakashi.

Kakashi looks on in bemusement and asks, "Might I know the name of the person I copied my catchphrase from?"

Isshin smirks, "Oh, so you admit that you copied it. I'm Isshin Yamanaka, who are you? Also, what are you reading? From the little I read, it seemed interesting."

"My name is Kakashi Hatake, and the book is called Icha Icha: Paradise. You're a little too young to read this masterpiece," Kakashi giggles and goes back to reading. "Anyways, shouldn't you be at the academy?"

Isshin scratches the back of his neck, chuckling, "About that, I may or may not be lost."

Kakashi says, "Ah, I understand. I always get lost here as well."

Isshin looks up at Kakashi with a confused look, "Really? A Jonin getting lost in his Village? I don't believe you."

Kakashi chuckles and points to a road sign that says, "Everyone can get lost on The Road of Life. I normally get lost here for about 3 hours."

Isshin just stares at him with a blank look on his face, and Kakashi's sweat drops. "Anyways, mister copycat, could you tell me how to get to the academy from here?"

Kakashi scratches his chin, thinking about it for a minute. "Sure, you should be able to make it there in about five minutes if you head down that street," Kakashi points.

"Thank you, Kakashi. See you around!" Isshin shouts while running away.

'I wonder whose team he will be on,' Kakashi then flickers away towards the Hokage tower. As Isshin was making his way to the academy, he ran into somebody and knocked them onto the ground. He then heard a loud shout coming from the ground, "Oi, watch where you're running. You just knocked over the next Hokage, dattebayo."

Isshin looked down and saw a spiky blond-haired boy with blue eyes, whisker marks on his cheek, wearing an orange jumpsuit and blue goggles glaring at him and said, "Oh hey, Naruto, you late too? Sorry, wasn't paying attention."

"Oh, it's just you, Isshin," Naruto said while grinning pushing himself up, and then dusting himself off.

"So do you think you'll pass the exam this time? And did you work on your chakra control like I told you to?" Isshin asked.

"Maybe I'll find a way to pass somehow, dattebayo," he shrugs. "I've finished tree walking, and I still can't make a single good clone," Naruto pouts.

Isshin frowns and thinks for a moment before saying, "You might just have too much chakra for regular clones and are probably overloading it with chakra. You have more than Iruka for sure. You should tell the Hokage or Iruka about it and see if either of them can help out."

Naruto scratches his chin before nodding, "Yeah, I'll probably ask Jiji next time I see him."

Isshin shakes his head, "I still can't believe you call Lord Third that."

"Well, he wouldn't mind you calling him that either," Naruto shrugs.

Sure, here's the revised version with corrected punctuation:

"Yeah, I know. I don't think I could call The Professor 'Jiji' yanno," Isshin laughs.

Naruto chuckles, "Yeah, I can see that. I hope I get an awesome nickname when I'm Hokage."

Isshin laughs, "You'll probably just be called the Orange Menace or Naruto the Great Ramen Devourer or something like that."

"Oi," Naruto shouts and points at Isshin.

"Oi, nothing. I'm still broke after I paid for your Ramen last week," Isshin said as he glared at Naruto.

Naruto just chuckles while scratching the back of his neck, "The next time we get ramen, I'll pay for yours."

"Alright, I'll hold you to that. Actually, how about we just go right now and get some? I didn't have breakfast this morning, and I don't feel like starting the school day by getting yelled at by Iruka-sensei," Isshin says while looking at Naruto.

Naruto shakes his head and points towards some cans of paint on the ground, "Sorry, maybe later. I'm planning on doing the greatest prank of all time, forever!" Naruto exclaims while holding up a victory sign and grinning broadly.

Isshin just stares blankly at Naruto and asks, "What are you planning on doing this time?"

Naruto beams and points up at the Hokage monument, shouting, "I'm going to paint the Hokage faces!"

Isshin sweat drops and starts walking away towards the academy, waving backward, "Have fun with that, Naruto. Hope Iruka doesn't kill you."

Naruto just chuckles and says, "Iruka will never catch me. Actually, come on, you're helping." Naruto then tries to drag Isshin, but he isn't moving. "Oi, stop, you're coming with me!"

"Nope, not happening. I don't want to get screeched at," Isshin states.

Naruto then pouts, crossing his arms, "You never want to prank with me anymore!"

"What do you mean? I helped you prank that store that was overcharging you just last week!" Isshin shouts.

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that," Naruto says, looking down at the ground. "We got them good too," Isshin laughs. "But seriously, if you need help, I'll help you, Naruto, just not painting the stone faces," Isshin says.

Naruto beams up at Isshin, "Alright. You want to get Ichiraku after class?"

"Sure, you know where to find me. Have fun painting," Isshin says while walking away.

"Later, Isshin!" Naruto yells before running towards the stone faces.

As Isshin is walking, he starts to think, 'Why the heck do people not seem to like Naruto?' Isshin finally makes it to the academy after getting lost again and walks through the hallway to the classroom, opens the door, prepared to get yelled at by Iruka, but luckily enough he doesn't. He then looks around in the classroom, sees all of his classmates, and walks up the steps, sitting near a boy with black hair tied up into a ponytail who was currently taking a nap with his head down on the desk.

"So, Shika, where's Iruka-sensei at?" Isshin looks over at Shikamaru.

Shikamaru mutters, "Troublesome."

A boy with spiky light brown hair and red swirls on his cheeks responds to Isshin's question while eating a chip, "He went after Naruto," he states as he points out the window at the Hokage monument that had paint all over it. "You want a chip, Isshin?" he holds out his bag of chips.

"Wow, that was quick. I must have gotten lost longer than I thought. Thanks, Choji. I didn't get the chance to eat this morning," Isshin says as he goes to grab a chip.

Choji gasps and just pushes the bag of chips toward Isshin. "You can have the rest. I brought some extras today."

While Isshin was eating the rest of the chips, Ino walked over and asked, "Didn't you go downstairs after I went through the trouble waking you up?"

"Took too long getting ready," Isshin shrugs.

Shikamaru raises his head and asks, "What did you mean, 'Wow, that was quick'?"

"Oh, I literally ran into Naruto earlier, and he tried getting me to help," Isshin says before placing his head down on the desk as well.

"Troublesome blondes," Shikamaru says before going back to sleep.

"Oi, Shika, I heard that," Ino screeches.

"I don't see how you're going to stand being on a team with my sister," Isshin whispers to Shikamaru.

"Why do you assume she'll be on a team with me?" Shikamaru asks.

"Well, yanno, it's normally standard for the Ino-Shika-Cho to be a thing if there's an Akimichi, Nara, and a Yamanaka in the graduating class, plus our dads were on a team together," Isshin shrugs. "And I'm not the heir, so it's most likely going to Ino."

"What a drag," Shikamaru mutters. "So whose team do you think you'll be on?"

"No clue. There's an odd number this year unless someone fails. There could be a four-man genin team, or someone could simply be apprenticed or something like that," Isshin says.

"You know, I don't understand why you do so badly in class, Isshin," Ino says.

"Kind of the same reason Shika does, but unlike him, I don't even do the bare minimum. I do less than that. I could do as well if not better than emo boy over there, and you know it," Isshin says, while a raven-haired boy sitting by a window suddenly turns and starts glaring at Isshin.

Ino just nods, thinking about how hard her brother trains. Then, a certain pink-haired girl in a red dress starts screeching, "There's no way you could do anything better than Sasuke-kun! You do as bad as Naruto! Stop bragging about skills you don't have!"

"Sakura, I'm not Naruto. I'm not nearly as nice and forgiving as he is. If you even try to do anything, I will use some of my clan jutsu on you, and trust me, you don't want that," Isshin states while giving Sakura an eye smile.

Around that time, Iruka popped up with Naruto tied up in rope and tossed him on the ground.

"Hai again, Naruto. You have fun?" Isshin asks.

"Nice to see that you actually showed up, Isshin," Iruka says.

"Thanks, Iruka-sensei. I was actually about to say the same thing to you," Isshin chuckles.

"So where were you?" Iruka asks, with a tick mark on his head.

Isshin scratches the back of his head and says, "Believe it or not, I got lost on the road of life."

Iruka sweat drops and facepalms. "Did a black cat cross your path, and did you have to take the long way around too or?"

"Oh, you've seen the black cat? No, that happened last week," Isshin states.

"Anyways, class, since I had to wrangle up Naruto, and Isshin wasn't here, we are going to go over the henge again," Iruka states and the class starts whining and yelling until Iruka tells them to shut up and calm down with his Big Head Jutsu.

Everyone goes, and now it's Naruto's turn. He builds up the chakra and transforms into a blonde lady with pigtails with smoke covering only the important bits. Naruto shouts, and Iruka shoots back with a nosebleed. While the girls in the class start getting mad and yelling at Naruto, Isshin starts slamming his head on the desk.

Iruka gets up off the ground and walks over, hitting Naruto on the head, knocking him to the ground, dispelling the Henge, and starts shouting at him.

After Iruka dismissed the class, Isshin was about to go home with Ino when Naruto ran up. "Hey, Isshin, still up for Ramen?"

"Yeah, Naruto, you going to pay?" Isshin asks.

"Um, not exactly. Iruka said he would buy me ramen after I finish cleaning the monument, and I was wondering if you would help me?" Naruto asks.

"Alright, I guess I'll meet you there?" Isshin asks.

"Yup, see you there!" Naruto shouts while he runs toward the monument.

"I guess I'll see you later, Ino," Isshin says as he walks away toward the monument.

"Later, I'll let Mom know you ate," Ino says as she walks toward home.

After Isshin and Naruto finish cleaning up the monument, Iruka brings them food to eat, and everyone goes home.