Fanfic / Better Left Unsaid

Better Left Unsaid is a Naruto Alternate Universe Fic by Kenchi 618, based on the premise that Mizuki didn't get the chance to tell Naruto he was the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi.

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Better Left Unsaid contains examples of:

• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Thanks to their wind manipulation, Naruto and Asuma can do this.
• Acquired Poison Immunity: Ino has this after she starts working with poisons to increase her versatility in battle. Kankuro has immunity to the same poisons because they come from his country.
• Adaptational Badass: Orochimaru becoming a jinchuuriki makes him quite a bit more of a threat than he was in the original.
• A God Am I: Pain thinks this of himself, which irks Orochimaru to no end. After body-snatching the Sanbi container, Orochimaru also thinks this of himself.
• And I Must Scream: Some of Naruto's seals have the end result of permanently sealing away enemies inside of an airless void, including a post-mortem seal that he can apply to enemies while replacing with them. He's able to defeat Ukon and Sakon with this ability.
• Anti-Magic: The Chakra Disabling Seal. It's described as "the great equalizer" by Jiraya, since it prevents any chakra from being used beyond its natural movement within the body. It's used by Naruto to block Fuu's jinchuuriki powers during the Chunin Exams, and later by Hiruzen to land the killing blow on Danzo without having to care about Izanagi.
• Ascended Extra: Asuma, Shikamaru, and Ino get this a result of Naruto replacing Choji’s spot in Team 10.
• Ashes to Ashes: Asuma can do this with his Fire Release: Ash Burning. During the timeskip, Naruto makes his own Ash jutsu, combining his cigarette ash with Toad Oil to create a sticky, superheated, combustable smoke. This includes designing an ash version of the Clone jutsu and the Rasengan.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: A variation with Gai's team after the Chunin Exam. Despite being the weakest of the team, Tenten is the only one promoted due to fighting smarter than either of her teammates.
• Artifact of Doom: Naruto and Team 7 discover the Shinigami Mask while screwing around in the Uzumaki Clan Mask temple in Konoha.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Naruto and Sasuke escape captivity in Iwagakure and proceed to hold off hundreds of enemy ninja long enough for a rescue team to arrive to help extract them.
• Batman Gambit: Gaara wants to kill Naruto in battle more than anything and he leaves the threat hanging that if Naruto doesn't fight him for whatever reason when the time comes he will kill Ino and Shikamaru just because. After Naruto does a stretcher job following the semifinals and isn't present for the start of the finals Gaara threatens to go ahead and kill Shikamaru and Ino. Shikamaru says that Naruto will be there and that if he kills them while he's absent the battle will end and he'll miss his chance. Gaara sees them as so little of a threat he gives them fifteen minutes for Naruto to show. He goes back on it of course, but for the moment it worked and allowed Naruto to surprisingly show up in the nick of time.
• Battle Amongst the Flames: Naruto against Kisame and Sasuke against Itachi, as the entire city of Sora-ku burns around them.
• Battle Strip: During the Chunin Exam Finals, Naruto takes off his windbreaker and uses it in a strategy to help him float over a sandy death pit to get to Gaara and deal him some serious damage
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Ino, Shikamaru, and Naruto respectively.
• Berserk Button: Try to kill Ino in front of Naruto and prepare to expect a Kyuubi-charged beatdown... if you're lucky.
• Bond One-Liner: Sasuke to Kidomaru after killing him with a Chidori-style attack.
  Sasuke: "Well, don't look so shocked."
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: After running through hotel, diving through a closed window on an elevated story, and finally being cornered by Temari and Kankuro, Shikamaru gives one.
  Shikamaru: "I might be a lot of terrible things. A human sloth, a smart-aleck jerk, a ninja with the lowest sense of drive ever seen in the Elemental Nations, the former number one coward of the Guardian Ninja, and a decent amateur male stripper, but if there's one thing I'm not it's a guy that'll cop out and give up something that'll endanger my mission or my friends."
• Breath Weapon: Naruto's ash techniques have him spewing special material coating his lungs from the cigarettes he smokes that can burn people alive.
• Choke Holds: Naruto puts one on Haku by reflex accident.
  • Neji gets caught in one as well but brutally escapes it.
• Combat Pragmatist: Team 10's most well-known trait. As they say, they're the premier team at running, hiding, and using dirty tricks. It helps that if they weren't, they'd likely be dead by now.
• Combination Attack: It's a hallmark of good teamwork amongst shinobi when they can pull this off... or it's just very good luck.
  • Sasuke and Choji create one that consists of setting Choji on fire to increase his power.
  • Team 10 is well-known for doing at least half a dozen combo attacks in any battle.
  • Naruto and Itachi accidentally perform one during an Enemy Mine situation against Kimimaro, with Itachi's fire jutsu setting Naruto's toad oil alight to trap Kimimaro in a sticky inferno.
• Cooldown Hug: Naruto gives one to Fuu. She gets rather annoyed that he tries to give her another one every time they meet.
  • Post-timeskip, Fuu has accepted that Naruto will hug her whether she wants it or not. So she returns the favor.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Pre-timeskip Guren vs. Team 10. Even a Kyuubi-charged Naruto only makes her break out a bigger-than-average jutsu to put him down like a rabid dog.
  • The rematch between Mizuki and Naruto. Post-timeskip.
  • Orochimaru vs Sasori. With his own abundance of skills and the sheer power he now commands as the jinchuuriki of the Sanbi, Orochimaru was easily able to nullify everything Sasori threw at him all while giving a monologue about the King of Snakes, before striking him and his puppets down with a massive summoned whirlwind and finishing him off with Kusanagi.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: Deidara's able to pretty easily take out Fuu and Sasuke, but they're able to make him get serious, and they ultimately survive the encounter, even without having been able to land a single hit on the mad bomber.
• Cute and Psycho: One of Naruto and Shikamaru's seniors in the Guardian Ninja, Kotoko Suzukuro, is beloved by all of the team and respected for her skills, beauty, and pleasant demeanor. She is also ''extremely bloodthirsty'' to the extent that she randomly attacks her own teammates with her lethal ninjutsu for the sake of "Keeping them sharp." And she'll do it with an ever-present smile.
• Deadly Gas: The secondary effect of Naruto's Ash Rasengan, creating a cloud of burning ash around and inside of the target.
• Death by Adaptation: So much.
  • Gato's bodyguards Zori and Waraji have their necks broken by a grief-stricken Naruto instead of knocked out during their mission to retrieve Tsunami.
  • Kabuto's genin teammates are squashed like bugs by Gaara during the Chunin Exams. One during a tournament match, the other afterwards in the hospital... just to be thorough.
  • Asuma easily kills Jigumo and Kamikiri of the Fuuma Clan (anime), but has a bit more trouble before finishing off Kagerou.
  • Shikamaru kills Jibachi of the Kamizuru Clan while Fuu pulverizes Kamizuru with super-strength. Suzumebachi is unfortunate enough to run into Deidara and Sasori once she escapes.
  • Omoi and Darui royally piss Naruto off by targeting Ino during a battle when they're outnumbered five-to-two and already paired off. Naruto goes Four-Tails on the latter and vaporizes him.
  • Iruka is killed by Kabuto as the latter leaves Konoha due to his cover finally starting to being blown.
  • Ino possesses Fuu (ROOT) and uses him to Trojan Prisoner Naruto into ROOT's hidden Konoha base. When Torune calls her on something being wrong, she detonates explosives set all over the hideout.
  • Jiraya tracks down Orochimaru and is able to fight him on equal footing, even with the Sanbi, through the Sage Mask he got from Naruto. After Tsunade appears to assist, Jiraya finishes off the missing-nin through the use of the Toad Confrontation Chant and the Stone Swords of Mount Myouboku.
• Defeat Means Friendship: After beating Haku and inadvertently killing Zabuza, Naruto gives Haku a talk that ends positively. Following the timeskip Naruto later assists in a serious mission that he volunteers for in order to help Haku.
  • After defeating Fuu she becomes much more docile and receptive to personal interaction from Naruto and others. No hugs though.
  • Averted with Gaara. He and his siblings do not wind up closer with the protagonists after their battle, and in the timeskip Gaara even actively seeks a rematch with Naruto.
• Determinator: Naruto usually, but especially during the second day of the Chunin Exam final rounds.
• Didn't See That Coming: Darui is surprised when attacking Ino to distract Naruto ends up with him face-to-face with the Kyuubi jinchuriki in four-tails mode.
• Didn't Think This Through: The reason why Sasuke hadn't been promoted to Jonin by the time of the timeskip is that he has an unfortunate tendency to fall prey to this trope, sticking to poorly-thought-out courses of action should they have something to do with his vendetta.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: A good number of characters end up dying in new ways.
  • Kimimaro gets stabbed in the back by Naruto's wind-augmented machete, opening up his body for a clone to use Giga Impact, effectively turning his torso into a blender.
  • Sasori has his puppets struck down by Orochimaru using an overpowered wind jutsu to create an instantaneous whirlwind, before Kusanagi destroys his core.
  • Itachi gets killed by a combination of Sasuke's Chidori and Naruto's Ash technique exploding and spreading Amaterasu all over the city.
  • Kisame is killed by being stuck point-blank in the middle of the aforementioned Amaterasu explosion.
  • Kakuzu gets torn apart by Naruto using Four-Tails mode, destroying one of his arms and preventing him from using jutsu, before getting hit by the Ash Rasengan, destroying his original heart. Naruto finishes him off after that.
• Disability Superpower: Sadao of the Ninja Guardians is blind, but developed an ability to feel out his surroundings with a field of his own chakra. He can also set everything within the range of his senses on fire.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Happens several times throughout the story to various characters.
  • Occurs between with Naruto and Ino repeatedly, with Naruto managing to see her naked without negative repercussions on at least two occasions.
  • Sasuke, who actually uses his Sharingan to bore the sight of his 'involuntary' peeking into his memory for life.
• Door Stopper: The story is currently the third longest Naruto on FanFiction.Net, with only the stories Drifting and "Yet again" longer than it
• Duel to the Death: Hiruzen lures Danzo into one with him with the decision that whichever one of them left the duel alive would be the Hokage. While Danzo's able to survive multiple killing blows with Izanagi and use Hiruzen's techniques against him with the Sharingan, he ultimately falls to the God of Shinobi.
• Dynamic Entry: Gaara is about to kill Ino when Naruto delivers one straight through his sand defense and drills him right on the chin.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Naruto and Shikamaru's stripper aliases of "Sergio Butterscotch" and "Shade Jackson", respectively, are definitely these.
• Eviler than Thou: Akatsuki and Orochimaru.
• Exact Words: When learning the Shadow Clone jutsu from his father, Shikamaru is warned he'll only be able to make one or two. Shikamaru thinks his father means that's all he'll be able to make and still fight but when he first uses it in combat, making only one leaves him completely exhausted.
• Fastball Special: Chouji and Naruto attempted this at Shikamaru's urging against an airborne Sai. It worked... more or less. Things turned out as well as they could have given that it missed.
• Fire-Forged Friends: After talking to each other about the events of Darui and Omoi's death, sharing a fist bump, and beating up a dozen ROOT agents together, Naruto and Killer Bee are no longer hostile to each other, and Bee's begun hanging around Konoha.
• For Want Of A Nail: This fic diverges from canon when Mizuki doesn't tell Naruto he's the Kyuubi.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: Done in an omake between Naruto and Shikamaru. Ino switches their bodies while learning a new jutsu. Naruto and Shikamaru spend the entire day making one another's lives as miserable as possible before the technique runs out.
• Friendly Enemy: Itachi effectively lives and breathes this trope around Naruto, being bizarrely casual around the jinchuuriki.
• Flying Weapon: Naruto's machete after the timeskip and he learns how to use Chakra Chains.
  • Also how Team 10 finishes off the first round of the Chunin Exam Finals in the first example in this story.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: Though they go most of the early story as merely functional eyewear, by the time of the timeskip Naruto is good enough with seals that he painstakenly manages to come up with a way to help with his Achilles' Heel in genjutsu. His goggles can block optical genjutsu... so Itachi just breaks them during their first post-skip appearance.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: Kiri asks Konoha for help in searching for Orochimaru's base of operations where he's holding the current jinchuuriki of the Three-Tails in their country.
• The Heavy: Lee serves as this for Team 9 during their Chunin Exam fight against Team 10, besting Ino and forcing Shikamaru to surrender by breaking open the Eight Gates. With Ino's poison and Shikamaru's stalling, however, he's weakened enough for Naruto to easily beat him and then sweep Team 9 right back, netting Asuma's team the win.
• Heroic Rematch: Years after Guren decimates Team 10, Naruto manages to stand up to her and get the upper hand on his own, much to her chagrin.
• Hijacking Cthulhu: Through an extensive series of events eventually involving a jinchuuriki created from a filler arc character in the Shippuuden anime (Yukimaru), Orochimaru manages to take over his body of his own free will and gain full control of the Three-Tails.
• Honorary Uncle: Naruto and Ino demand godparent status for Asuma and Kurenai's child after they find out the couple is expecting.
• Honor Before Reason: Even though Bee's much stronger than Naruto, he's still chomping at the bit to fight the Eight-Tails' container after getting called out. He's able to get alone with Bee using a Henge and the knowledge of the changing shifts for watching Bee... before the two of them team up to fight off the dozen ROOT agents tailing them.
• I Can See You: Naruto's prototype name for the rudimentary sensor jutsu that Iruka teaches him at the very start of the story? "I-see-you-motherfucker jutsu".
• Idiot Hero: Naruto of course.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Sasuke tears Taki nin OC Doroubou's heart out with a Chidori during the Chunin Exams.
• Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!: Asuma pauses his gloating and hip-thrusting into Gai's face after his team wins the match when Kakashi points out that he's in front of two children... and on-camera.
• In the Back: How Naruto kills Kimimaro with his machete after the timeskip.
• Incendiary Exponent: Naruto's ash is really flammable.
• Innocent Innuendo: Naruto and Shizune during the Chunin Exams while she is healing his motionless body in private, in a bit of a compromising, private situation.
  Naruto: Shizune... I don't think this is allowed.
  Shizune: Do you really care if it's legal or not?
• Instrument of Murder: Ninja Guardian Kotoko's shamisen that she uses to launch blades of wind or bludgeon her enemies to death.
• Irony: Tenten is the weakest of her team by far but is the only one to get promoted during the Chunin Exams. Lee is passed over for being too willing to use a forbidden jutsu on a comrade for the sake of a promotion while Neji isn't promoted because for all his skill, he allowed his opponent (Naruto) to direct the entire fight.
• Kill It with Fire: During the Chunin Exam Finals, Sasuke traps Dosu Kinuta in a situation where his only options are to die by fire (straight from Sasuke), die by fire (from the fiery pit he formed around Dosu)... or surrender. Dosu proceeds to choose the first option.
• Killed Off for Real: Dosu Kinuta, Kimimaro, Iruka, Sound Four, Kamizuru Clan, Darui, Omoi, Sasori, Fuu (ROOT), Torune, Danzo, Kisame, Itachi, Kakuzu, and Orochimaru out of canon characters so far in the story.
• Know When to Fold 'Em/Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Shikamaru pulled a particularly epic one of these on Rock Lee when introduced to the Eight Gates.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Sasuke and Fuu share one of these after seeing how both lost to Deidara in embarrassing ways.
  • Naruto and Shikamaru apparently agreed to this after they got roped into a Noodle Incident distraction job as male strippers during their tenure as Guardian Shinobi. Naruto still ends up telling the story to Shino, but, well... it's Shino.
• Love Triangle: Ino and Hinata are competing for Naruto. He has no idea of course.

• Manipulative Bastard: Kabuto... so hard.
• Mêlée à Trois: Naruto (Konoha) vs. Itachi (Akatsuki) vs. Kimimaro (Oto). Game on.
• Mix-and-Match Weapon: Naruto's machete on a chain.
• Mundane Utility: Naruto has his clones clean up the Uzumaki Clan Mask Temple and set the foundation for the house he plans to build. He still has to supervise them to make sure they don't goof off.
• Never Be Hurt Again: Fuu's motivation for being a ninja of Takigakure and developing her jinchuuriki abilities, as well as her general Hates Being Touched attitude... at least until the aforementioned Cooldown Hug.
• Noodle Incident: Apparently Shikamaru is a decent amateur male stripper, and Naruto's personal stage name in the same situation was Sergio Butterscotch...
• No One Could Survive That!: In the post-timeskip battle between Naruto, Itachi, and Kimimaro, the latter endures an accidental team-up between Naruto and Itachi that results in the entire hollowed out interior of a mountain turning into a death storm oven of black scalding ash and fire. He then survives an Odama Rasengan that brings down the entire weakened mountain on top of him. After all of that, Kimimaro still reappears and manages to gravely wound and nearly finish Naruto off.
• No-Sell: Fuu can nullify attacks thanks to her jinchuuriki powers, but her powers work in proportion with how threatened she feels. If she isn't afraid of how strong an attack can be, she won't be protected. Whereas if she is overly fearful of an attack that is weaker than she thinks it will be it does absolutely nothing. No attack has directly overpowered this ability in the story yet.
• Not So Above It All: For however stoic any of the Konoha nin are, they're still able to get silly from time to time.
  • Shino is only barely able to keep his laughter in when Naruto's telling him about him and Shikamaru becoming male strippers during a mission.
  • Neji is incredibly amused by Naruto's plan to teach Konohamaru and Hanabi the exact same jutsu before their Chunin Exams.
  • Sasuke is in awe and thanks Fuu profusely after she backhands Naruto into a mountain.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Gaara wants to fight and kill Naruto to such a degree that several times in the story he's made things more difficult for himself and his allies for the sake of reserving Naruto for himself.
• Pet the Dog: Despite constantly hurling insults back and forth at each other for the duration of thier appearances, after randomly slaughtering an entire team of ANBU, Hidan helpfully carves out the heart of one and offers it to Kakuzu for his supply. You know... because he knows his partner is into that kind of stuff.
• The Plan: Basically the reason Shikamaru exists.
• Post-Victory Collapse: Naruto has one of these after defeating Fuu in the semifinals of the Chunin Exam. After taking a hell of a beating from her super-strength, he negates her chakra-based techniques and walks away after she has a break-down... only to fall out in front of the ref right after being announced as the winner.
• Pyrrhic Victory: The first mission following the timeskip. Despite accomplishing the mission of ridding Mizu no Kuni of Otogakure influence and surviving a run-in with Akatsuki, in the end Orochimaru manages to arrive and leave with the big prize; the jinchuuriki of the Sanbi.. who is completely devoted to him.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking:
  • While the Team 10 youngsters tend to have the more important battles story-wise, whenever ass needs to be kicked in earnest on their missions prior to the timeskip, it's usually Asuma doing the heavy lifting. And he does it well.
  • Hiruzen Sarutobi. He's not known as the professor for nothing.
  • Jiraiya proved quite pointedly why he was considered Kage-level by preparing to destroy the entirety of Iwagakure when Naruto and Sasuke were kidnapped. He mentions having destroyed Hidden Villages before.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Sasuke gives one of these to jerkass OC character Doroubou during the Chunin Exam before killing him off with a Chidori for trying to use Sakura as a human shield and threatening to harvest Sasuke's eyes for himself.
• The Reliable One: Although his enthusiasm is usually lacking even in serious situations, Shikamaru. Gets. The. Job. Done. No matter what. If Team 10 winds up winning a battle that they all know they have no business being a factor in, it's going to usually be due to a Shikamaru brainchild. He's also the one that keeps things on the level when things get tense, even when he and Naruto go off to join Guardian Ninja. Especially then, because he becomes the Only Sane Employee in that mess.
• Retractable Weapon: Naruto's machete on a chain, post time-skip.
• The Rival: Sasuke to Naruto.
• Shout-Out: Has several.
  • Orochimaru has a tendency to paraphrase abridged Frieza quotes.
  • In listing his qualifications to be godfather of Asuna and Kurenai's baby, Naruto includes that his "apartment smells of rich mahogany".
  • While herding cattle, Naruto yells out "I drink green tea every goddamn day! I pray to Kami every Sunday! Ya'll bring out the demons in me!"
• "Shut Up" Kiss: Naruto senses observers during a moment with Ino just before they kiss, but Ino thinks he's using paranoia as an excuse to put off actually doing it. Just as she starts to get on a roll about how he's scared he plants one on her.
• Smoking Is Cool: At first it's just Asuma, but thanks to Kurenai's meddling due to a misunderstanding early in the story she sends Naruto down the slippery slope. At first it's just once every so often, but by the end of the timeskip he smokes just for leisure. Oh... AND because the byproducts of Naruto's cigarettes become an integral part of his fighting style.
• Spanner in the Works: Orochimaru is this to the Akatsuki after becoming the Sanbi jinchuuriki, forcing them to go after him to claim the biju, and later having to wait for the Three-Tails to reform after Jiraya and Tsuande kill him.
• Spell Book: Naruto finds a guide on sealing written by Jiraiya in the library.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Half of Team 10's more awesome plans involve the fact that Naruto learns how to make explosive tags for himself, is fully willing to use his clones to do the grunt work of making them in mass quantities, and thus no one on the team is ever at a shortage of portable explosives.
• Switch-Out Move: Shikamaru and Naruto pull this off during the Chunin Exam. While fighting Rock Lee, Shikamaru manages to trap him with his shadow, prompting Lee to begin releasing the Eight Gates to overpower the jutsu and escape. After Lee activates the last one needed to break free, Shikamaru surrenders right before Lee can tear him apart. The reason? The round is a series of one-on-one matches and next Lee has to fight Naruto, who takes his time walking onto the battlefield and stalls further, long enough for the Eight Gates to wear off.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Naruto's final attack of the entire Chunin Exam on Gaara. Hundreds of clones... with explosive tags stuck to them... all going off at the same time. Good lord.
• The Thunderdome: The Land of Iron's big ass arena where the Chunin Exam Final Rounds takes place. Big and deep. Elevated walls. multiple settings for combat on one battlefield. Yeah.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Naruto abuses this trope.
• Took a Level in Badass: All of the students after the time skip, Naruto and Shikamaru in particular after their tenure as two of the 12 Guardian Shinobi.
  • Not that he wasn't already badass enough, but Orochimaru effectively put himself head and shoulders above just about everyone in the world after taking Yukimaru as his host and becoming the Sanbi's host, showing off his new power by delivering a Curb-Stomp Battle to Sasori.
• Tournament Arc: Come on... it's a Naruto fan fic. Do you really thing there isn't a Chunin Exam in this thing?
  • But it is the biggest one ever apparently, and there are differences that don't really happen in others.
• Unperson: Sasuke essentially wants this for Itachi. After killing him, he wants to ignore every aspect of Itachi's existence for the rest of his life and let him fade from everyone's memory. He wants to live a happy life knowing people eventually forgot everything about Itachi. He considers this the ultimate form of revenge against such an infamous ninja.
• Variable-Length Chain: The chain on Naruto's machete post time-skip, due to it being a chakra chain.
• Villain No Longer Idle: The difficulties faced by Akatsuki cause Tobi and Nagato to start taking care of the issues themselves, with Tobi capturing Gaara and Nagato trying to take down Orochimaru.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: A few examples.
  • Juugo is still in jail after being defeated in Mizu no Kuni and being used by Kabuto.
  • Sai is captured along with a small contingent of ROOT ninja. After ROOT is destroyed, they and the others that may or may not have survived are not heard from or spoken of again.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Naruto is fond of suplexing his opponents.
• Your Mom: Naruto delivers one of these in the first phase of the Chunin Exams while tied helplessly to a chair for interrogation purposes. It ends exactly how he expects it to. Not well.