Abyss of Fire (Finished)

A Sobering Truth

Disclaimer: I do not own any of art or characters from the  franchises involved in this story, besides the OC.

Ichiraku Ramen Shop

  Kurenai and Raijin still continued to stare at each other while the law breaking villagers were dragged away by the ANBU and other shinobi, a few medical nin remained behind to take away the dead which included the man that Raijin shot who attempted to flee. He knew the man would die without his own medical kit, and he did not help the medical nin with trying to stabilize the man in the spot, 'he attacked a shinobi of the village, he died a traitors death as he deserved.' Raijin thought as he watched them carry away the bodies, breaking eye contact with Kurenai as he did.
  "You realize the Hokage will know of this, right? That also means the clan heads who voted to allow you to stay." His gaze turns to her once again, in his mind the only one with true power was the Hokage, not the clan heads and certainly not the peasant populace as he saw them.
  "Matters not, the Hokage is who decides my fate and no one else. His orders are what matter, everything else is a mere suggestion." Kurenai gazed hard at him for those words, still finding it hard to believe that there is a man underneath all that combat gear and not a machine. The conversation ends as Raijin starts to walk away from her, obviously not caring if she has anything else to say, which irritated her as he was supposed to be apart of her team within the next three days. Naruto, who was standing off to the side, decided to finally talk.
  "Hey Raijin, you wanna have some ramen with me? Those jerks ruined the record I was going for." Stopping and looking at the boisterous blond, Raijin seems to stare at him from what Naruto can tell.
  "What is 'ramen'?" Silence reigned with those words, Kurenai looked between the two as she knew from talking with Kakashi that the kid practically lived off the stuff. The fact that Raijin didn't even know what it was, must've sounded like blasphemy to Naruto, and blasphemy it was.
  "What?!?! You don't even know what ramen is?!" With a strength that greatly surprised Raijin and even made Kurenai laugh, Naruto hauled the bigger man into the shop, almost sending him tumbling against the counter.
  "Teuchi, Ayame! I need ramen for this man stat, he doesn't even know what ramen is!" The blond shouted, silence reigned in the shop before the clatter of a ladle hitting the ground echoed, Teuchi seemed to grab at his heart.
  "Never heard of ramen, what kind of horror do you come from." Raijin was about to speak but was silenced by the clattering of cooking tools, everything was moving so fast he didn't even know what was going on. Before he knew it, a fresh bowl of ramen was sitting before him at the counter. He stared at it quizzically before looking at the chopstick holder, he reached over and grabbed a pair, not paying attention to the three sets of eyes watching him.
  "Hey Naruto, what's going on?" The voice of one Kiba Inuzuka draws the blonds attention, he sees all of Team 8 entering the shop alongside Kurenai.
  "Hey guys and Kurenai-sensei, I was introducing Raijin to ramen." Turning his attention back to Raijin he sees the man setting his helmet aside before slowly taking off his gas mask, this was the first time that all of them saw his face. Naruto honestly thought he looked like Iruka-sensei but with shorter hair, paler skin and green eyes. Setting his gas mask on his knee he takes the chopsticks and slowly raises the first bit of ramen to his mouth, Naruto watched anxiously, as does Teuchi while Ayame has heart shaped eyes at seeing his face. Taking the first bite his eyes actually seemed to widen, having never tasted or eaten anything like this before. After the first bite he says nothing and keeps eating, causing grins to widen on Naruto and Teuchi's faces. The rest of team 8 sit down including Kurenai, she thought now was a good a time as any to introduce Raijin to the team.

  Looking at all three of her genin, she can only imagine how they would respond. Kiba more than likely would be the most loud mouthed of the group, Hinata will be polite and she knows Shino will be polite as well, given his relative silence a majority of the time.
  "Kiba, Hinata, Shino, I would like to introduce you to your new team mate, Raijin Krieg."
  "So you're the guy my mom was talking about." Kiba says aloud, causing Kurenai to shake her head as she knew he'd be the first one to say something.
   "Who is your mother?" Raijin asks between taking bites of ramen.
   "Tsume Inuzuka, she's the head of our clan." Raijin stops eating to turn and look at Kiba, finally allowing Kurenai to get a full view of his face not a side view, his emotionless green eyes seeming to study Kiba.
   "You're the son of the woman who wanted to fight me. I am glad the Hokage said she couldn't." Kiba raised a brow at that, his ego slowly getting the better of him.
  "Why's that, afraid she would send you running with your tail between your legs?" Kiba slightly smirks, Kurenai slightly glares at her student as she doesn't think Raijin is the type for jokes.
  "No, because as your Hokage stated to her, I am not at the training level needed to fight her. With the training that I do have, a fight with her would be a fight to the death unless it was stopped. I have been trained to kill more than you kids could ever realize." Kiba glares at him before barking out in indignation at the man.
  "What's that supposed to mean?!" Raijin seems to stare into his eyes, which unnerves Kiba.
  "How many people have you killed?" Kiba goes entirely silent at the question, as no one on the team besides Kurenai has ever actually had to kill someone.
  "Because I have killed more than I can count, unlike you who are trained to kill but then also be compassionate, I am only trained to kill." Turning back to his food and continuing to eat marks the end of the conversation, at least for Raijin. Kurenai looks at her students and notices their crestfallen looks, Naruto on the other hand has been chatting away and Teuchi and Ayame, not really paying attention to the conversation that took place, 'What a great way to bring the team together.' Kurenai sarcastically thinks to herself as she continues to stare at Raijin who pays no mind to her.