The Secret life of Uzumaki Naruto

Mornings, Naruto’s least favourite time of day. First she has to wake up, Second she has to put on a complicated Henge (to keep up the illusion that she’s a boy), and the third and final reason Naruto hates mornings, is that she has to go out and face the world as the blond demon brat she’s supposed to be.

Stepping into the flowing water of the shower, Naruto began performing her daily morning ritual of cleansing herself of as much dirt from her body as humanly possible. After 20 minutes she finally turned off the stepped out of the shower, grabbed her favourite pink towel and dried herself off. When she was done she wrapped the towel around her waist and stretched.

After stretching she just stood there for a few minutes looking at herself in the man sized wall mirror. She looked like an average twelve year old girl, standing around four foot ten with narrow shoulders and a fairly slim build but not unnaturally slim. But there are a few thing that set her apart from other girls, the most prominent being her hair and attitude. Her hair is exactly the same as her henge she uses every day… because when she made the changes to the henge to make it suit her needs it stopped affecting her hair for some inexplicable reason. Plus whenever it gets much longer then it is now the tips slowly fade to orange. And as for the attitude, what girl would have a normal attitude if they had to act as a loudmouth slightly obnoxious blond boy for their entire life?

It had been a good ten minutes that Naruto had been standing in her bathroom absently staring into the mirror, mentally going over things in her life she wished she could change but couldn’t. She snapped back to reality with a sigh, and started running through the hand signs for a henge, but added three extra ones. When she landed on the last sign she muttered “Advanced Henge” while mentally telling herself that their will be a day when she wouldn’t have to do this.

She disappeared in a poof of smoke, when the smoke cleared Naruto was gone and in her place stood a blond haired blue eyed boy of about the same age. Not having anyone’s appearance to copy for the henge, Naruto needed to pick someone to base it on. For this she chose the yondime because he looked a lot like she thought she would as a boy, it was mostly the blond hair and blue eyes. Her henge is exactly as she saw him in his genin team photo, except a little shorter and with the whisker marks on the face.

Inspecting the results of the henge, she searched over herself for any flaws. Finding none, she unwrapped the towel from her waist, chucked it in the laundry bin and left the bathroom to put some clothes on.

Entering the Kitchen/Bedroom part of the two room apartment Naruto glanced at the clock, which read 4:30 am. Seeing that she’s ahead of schedule she walked over to the stove to heat some water for ramen then turned to her desk to find clothes that are clean. The only presentable clothes she could find were a black sleeveless shirt and a pair of orange pants.

After applying her clothes and pouring her ramen she made her way to the ninja academy pausing only to lock the door.

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By now it was nearly seven and Naruto was holding sparring matches with anyone who want to try to beat her up. Surprisingly, all but a few of the boys were present and even a few girls joined in on the “Naruto beating”, even though it was Naruto doing all the beating. The reason most of them wanted to fight Naruto was to prove that they are better then the “top of the class” that nearly everybody, teachers included, refuse to help.

Naruto knocked down her most recent opponent, declaring that she had had enough for the morning. Sighing and looking around she realised that only five of the academy boys weren’t in the crowd of people that wanted to beat her up. The missing ones were, Choji, Shikamaru, Shino, Kiba and Sasuke-niisan. Choji, Shikamaru and Shino because its Choji, Shikamaru and Shino. Kiba because he’s late… again. And Sasuke, well Sasuke and Naruto are like siblings, and seeing as they are orphans it is the closest they can get. Iruka would call their relationship sibling rivalry, because they’re constantly competing for the top grades of the class.

The girls in the crowd on the other hand were there to try to beat information about Sasuke out of her; being the closest person to him in the class this is quite normal

Deciding that she could wait for Iruka she went to the entrance of the academy. When she reached it though she noticed a light on it her classroom, and decided to investigate. She slipped in quickly as to not be followed, and found none other than Iruka, alone, furiously working through a small mountain of paperwork.

“Hey, Iruka” Naruto said after walking into the room and sitting on a desk.

“Hey, Naru-chan” Iruka replied, looking up from his paperwork.

Naruto was going to continue, but froze when she herd a stifled sniggering from the back of the room. But she breathed a sigh of relief when she turned and saw raven coloured hair that was styled in the most awkward and complicated style possible for hair its length. It was the hair of Sasuke-niisan.

“Naru-chan, Eh? Why didn’t I think of that?” Sasuke asked while descending the steps to the front of the class. “Maybe I should call you that in class.” He continued with an evil smirk.

“You wouldn’t dare!” Naruto countered in a voice that positively oozed rage “besides the only in the academy who know are you two and I would like to keep it that way for the last two days.” She finished in a more cheery voice.

“Fine but if we’re on the same genin team then I’m making you tell the sensei” Sasuke said in a forceful voice.

“Why?” Naruto asked sounding a little confused.

“What happens if we’re on a long mission or something happens to get you knocked unconscious? That’s how I found out.” Sasuke explained, with a bland expression on his face.

“That’s also the day you found out that their’s a girl other than Hinata in this class who isn’t completely obsessed with you.” Naruto observed.

“Really, who?” Shikamaru asked as he strode into the room.

At this Naruto froze and Sasuke narrowed his eyes.

“How much did you hear?” Sasuke demanded with a hint of warning in his voice.

“Just what Naruto said about the girls.” Shikamaru replied, surprised by the threatening tone in Sasuke voice.

After hearing that both Naruto and Sasuke visibly relaxed, seeing this Shikamaru realised that they must have been talking about a big secret they have between them. Glancing at Iruka, who was still doing paperwork when he came in a d currently stretching. ‘He was here the whole time so he obviously knows too.’ thought Shikamaru as he stored this information away in the “investigate later” file in his mind.

Just after Shikamaru sat down the rest of the class entered, and every girl with the exception of Hinata swarmed around Sasuke as soon as they saw him.

Sasuke was trapped, he looked to Naruto in search of help. Naruto one the other hand, stood about two feet away from the swarm. She just stood their watching impassively for a minute before mouthing “If you promise” at him. When he nodded, Naruto reached through the crowd grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled. As soon as he was free of the crowd she placed herself between the girls and Sasuke, then pushed him off to their seats.

“Everyone to your seats, its time for the graduation exam” Iruka yelled from the front of the class. At the same time Mizuki was passing out the paper portion of the exam.

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The paper test took nearly an hour for everyone to finish, and by the end of it the test and by the end Naruto was nearly bored to sleep. The only thing keeping her awake being an iron will built up over years of not sleeping in public. But she perked up when Iruka stepped up in front of the class and cleared his throat, demanding everyone’s attention.

“We will now start the second half of the exam. For this portion we will be doing two ninjutsu of my choice.” Pausing for a breath, Iruka looked around the room to make sure that everybody was paying attention before continuing on. “Those jutsu will be the Kawaminari no jutsu and a bunshin.”

“We’ll start at the bottom of the list today,” Mizuki said as he snatched the clipboard out of Iruka’s grasp. Glancing at it he called out the name on the bottom “Yamanaka Ino”

Ino performed both jutsu almost perfect though she was nearly out of chakra when she finished.

“Uzumaki Naruto”

Naruto stood up and walked to the front of the class, right up to Iruka and said, “I can’t perform the bunshin no jutsu.”

“And why might that be?” Iruka demanded, though he could probably guess what the answer was going to be.

The bunshin no jutsu requires such a small amount of chakra that I can’t focus it properly and the jutsu fails. As soon a she said it about half the class looked at her like she was crazy, they had trouble performing the jutsu and having enough energy to do anything else.

“Do you have something else you could do instead?” Iruka asked, hoping that she would because he really doesn’t want to fail someone he regards as a brother. She may be a girl but she acts more like a brother then a sister.

“Well I do, but you didn’t let me get there yet.” Naruto responded while performing hand signs, ending on a cross shaped seal. “Kage bunshin no jutsu”

When the smoke cleared their now stood seven where one stood only moments before.

Upon hearing the name of the jutsu Iruka felt a little worried for Naruto but when he saw the results he was a little amazed. Even he had some trouble with the kage bunshin no jutsu.

“Hey, Naruto who taught you that jutsu?” Iruka asked wondering who would teach that technique to someone her age.

Six of the Narutos disappeared in a poof of smoke and the remaining one simply replied “Dog.”

This caused everybody to look at a currently sleeping Kiba. This made Naruto chuckle “not that dog, an AMBU with a dog mask who I met up with a few times.

Forming a hand sign Naruto performed a Kawaminari, using Sakura as the object she switched places with, who was conveniently located in Naruto’s seat.

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When everyone finished they were handed a sheet of paper with their final mark and a bandana with a metal plate bearing the symbol the hidden leaf village, on their way out of the class. When Naruto received hers she was so happy she could have hugged someone, but considering the company she was in and what most people thought of her, she decided that it would be better if she didn’t.

Her cheery mood didn’t last long though, for the instant she stepped outside and noticed the crowd of parents waiting for their kids. It didn’t help that when they noticed the hitai-ate around her neck, they started accusing her of cheating or stealing.

Naruto was about to retaliate, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Glancing back she saw that it was Sasuke-niisan.

“Just ignore them,” he told her in a quiet voice as he grabbed her by the hand and forcefully dragged her through the crowd.

As they made their way out of the crowd of parents Naruto heard some of the comments of the more bold villagers like, “What’s the last Uchiha doing defending the demon boy?” and “The monster has poisoned the Uchihas mind, it should be dealt with!”

“So why do they call you a monster, Naru-chan?” Sasuke asked when they were a good distance from the academy.

“Sasuke-niisan! I thought I told you not to call me that.” Naruto replied angrily, while nervously checking behind her to be sure that nobody was behind them “and if you’re on my team tomorrow than I will tell you the answer but you won’t like it.

With that Naruto turned down an alleyway and disappeared. It took a few seconds for Sasuke to realise that Naruto was gone, and when he did he just sighed and took to the rooftops when he spotted fangirls.

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Naruto woke and abruptly sat up to check the clock, only to have her shirt’s collar to slip off her slight feminine shoulders and stop about halfway down her upper arm. The only thing stopping it from falling farther was that she was trying to raise her arms and stretch.

Pulling up her shirt and glancing at the clock she saw that it was almost four o’clock, meaning she was up early. Climbing out of bed she had to catch her shorts to keep them from imitating her shirt, at the same time cursing the fact that her female form is so much smaller than her male and that she has almost no clothes that fit her male form anyways. Waistband in hand, she made it about halfway across the room before giving up and letting go, letting them fall to the floor. Grabbing a towel she stepped into the bathroom for her daily cleansing.

Leaving the bathroom just over twenty minutes later, with a towel around her waist, clean and under a henge same as everyday. Arriving at her clothing pile she began searching for something presentably clean, finding a pair of dark blue shorts and a black sleeveless shirt she decided that that was adequate for meeting her new sensei.

Now fully clothed, Naruto made her way to the door, grabbing a muffin from a basket left by her mystery admirer.

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Naruto was half way to the ninja academy before she remembered that nobody would be their to train with today. With that in mind Naruto turned towards the Uchiha district, and walked off in the direction.

While on the way Naruto was contemplating when and how to tell Sasuke about the kyuubi. At the same time she was running through the possible and desired reactions of said Uchiha. The most likely and least desired reaction would be fear and anger, but the most desired and least likely would acceptance.

Naruto was so wrapped up in her thoughts that when she snapped back to reality she had walked past the entire Uchiha district into the woods, all the way to the lake on the woods. Naruto hadn’t been here in a while, but she still remembered the last time she was here. That had been the day that she had met Sasuke as well as the day that he learned that she is in fact a she.

Speaking of Sasuke and secrets she had decided that he was going to learn another one here and now.

Walking over to where the Uchiha was seated, she flopped down next to him and looked out in the direction that he was starring

“You know that a fan-girl would kill to trade places with you right now, Naru-chan.” Sasuke said with an amused expression on his face.

“I came to answer yesterday’s question.” Naruto replied, not justifying his fan-girl joke with a response.

Hearing the seriousness in Naruto’s voice Sasuke looked over at Naruto and nearly fell into the water when he saw no orange. After recovering from his momentary shock, he waited for her to continue. When she was silent for a few minutes, he finally asked, “So why do the villagers call you a monster, and a demon?”

“First tell me what you know about the Kyuubi.” She requested in response.

“It’s the demon lord the Yondaime hokage killed at the price of his life.” Sasuke said, simply stating textbook facts learned in the history part of class.

“That’s only the half truth, not even someone as powerful as the fourth could kill a demon lord. The only option for stopping something is to seal it into a newborn child. Unfortunately for me I the only person was born on the day that the Kyuubi attacked.” When she finished explaining, she turned away from Sasuke and waited for his reaction to this massive secret. When none came she looked back at him and saw that he was starring off into space, apparently deep in thought, not even responding to a hand waved in front of his face.

“So can you see the seal through the henge?” Sasuke asked, nearly scarring Naruto off of the dock with his sudden outburst of speech.

“Yah, it shows up no matter what I henge into, why?” Naruto asked a little confused.

“Then can I see it?” Sasuke inquired, looking at her with a face that showed no fear or anger, just interest.

When Naruto heard Sasukes request she starred at him like he was crazy. The thing that most people hated her for, and he wanted to look at it. Not seeing a reason not to, she decided to comply. Lifting up her shirt, she concentrated some chakra, causing the seal to become visible surrounding her naval, first the swirl in the center then two four point half moon seals, one on top and one on the bottom.

“Go ahead and use your sharingan, it’ll show you the flow of chakra.” Naruto said when she noticed him trying to figure out how it worked.

Hearing permission Sasuke closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment. When he opened them they were red with one black tomoe in each.

As soon as he activated his sharingan Sasuke could see the flow of chakra running through her body. And what he saw answered some of his questions and raised some more. But what interested him the most about the seal was the dull orange glow, which he assumed was the kyuubi’s chakra, slowly leaking from the seal, into the would be blue chakra, turning it a transparent purple color.

“Uh, Naruto?” Sasuke asked without deactivating his sharingan.

“Hmm?”

“Could you concentrate some chakra to your hand, please?”

“Okay,” she replied before a transparent purple glowing aura formed around her hand. “And why am I doing this?”

“So I can see your chakra better.” Sasuke replied as if it were obvious.

“What about it?”

“The color.”

“Its purple, what color should it be?” she asked, fairly confused at this point.

“Well, I’ve never seen a person with chakra any color other than blue.” Sasuke explained while concentrating chakra to his hand to emphasise his point, before continuing his explanation. “This is caused by the seal constantly leaking small amounts of the reddish orange chakra into your chakra circulatory system, and it being red turns your natural blue chakra purple.”

“Oh.” Was Naruto’s only response before she looked up and saw light on the horizon, “The sun is rising, we should go.”

As soon as she said it they both stood up and walked off in the direction of the ninja academy, not saying a word the whole way.

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They arrived at the same time Iruka opened the doors to let the students into the academy. He along with everybody waiting to enter were amazed as Sasuke had been with the fact that Naruto wasn’t wearing orange. But she ignored them as she entered the classroom, took a window seat and began waiting for Iruka to announce the teammates she would be working with. Shortly after Naruto the rest of the class took their seats and Iruka stepped up in front of the class and began a speech about how important teams and teamwork were to the survival of ninja’s on the field, literally boring some people to sleep.

“Attention class,” Iruka called after finishing is speech, “I will now be assigning you your genin level team. Genin teams are groups of four, three genins lead by one jounin. The teams are designed to be as balanced as possible, evening out skills and test scores. With a well balanced team one team member will have a strength to cover up another teammate’s weakness. Team one will be…”

“Team seven will be Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto.”

Naruto zoned out until she heard her name, and she was completely clueless as to who her teammates were because her name was called last in that cell. But she caught on pretty quick because Iruka had yet to call another team and Sakura was glaring at Naruto while trying to hug Sasuke at the same time.

“Alright class you have half an hour break for lunch,” Iruka said after he called out the last team, “Come back here after to meet your jounin sensei.”

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Lunch passed uneventful, with Naruto eating under a tree and Sasuke hiding in the tree and Sakura searching for Sasuke. When lunch ended all the genins returned to the class, with their jounin sensei waiting already or arriving shortly after, with the exception of the instructor of team seven, and after two hours their patience was wearing thin.

“This is stupid,” Naruto complained loudly, “I wanna go home!”

“Grow up Naruto, waiting is part of being mature.” Sakura said as if she were correcting a small child. But her inner self was on Naruto’s side of this argument.

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Kakashi was always late, and anyone who knew him that. But these three genin have never met him before, and he wasn’t liking the feeling he was getting room where they were waiting.

Kakashi had been through many doors without knowing what lies on the other side, but nothing could have prepared him for what came next. The instant he slid the door open the door he heard the words “Oikoke no jutsu” and their was a poof of smoke. When the smoke started to clear Kakashi found himself starring at an attractive young woman with long blond. That wasn’t what got him though; it was that she was covered with nothing but her long blond hair and some smoke, and smiling seductive in his direction. It took Kakashi to realize it but he recognised this jutsu.

“Looking better Naruto,” Kakashi said after recovering from the shock. “But you still need to work on a few things.”

In response Naruto poofed back to normal every day boy Naruto and starred with a stupefied expression on her face. The reason being, she suspected that she had spent a lot of time with this person. Clues being; one he resisted the jutsu that took down the hokage on more than one occasion, two he knows her name and acted familiar towards her, and three she recognised his gravity deifying silver hair and lazy sounding voice. Adding together these three elements together and their was only one possible person that he could be…

“Dog!!” Naruto exclaimed, then lunged at, and hugged Kakashi, with enough force to knock him to the ground.

After getting over the shock of being tackle/hugged by a little twelve year old boy at full force, Kakashi stood up and said “Follow me.” before walking off towards the stairs.

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Kakashi was sitting on a railing on the roof looking at his newly appointed genins, taking in as much information as observation would allow. The pink haired one, named Sakura, seemed to despise Naruto but showed affection bordering on obsession for Sasuke. Sasuke on the other hand showed no interest in Sakura, but seemed quite protective of Naruto, somewhat like an older sibling. Naruto filled that role perfectly, often getting himself into situations he needed saving from and constant looked to Sasuke for help. Deciding that he had observed long enough, Kakashi began the introductions.

“Now, I’d like you all to tell me a little about yourselves.” Kakashi said in a bored voice

“Like what?” Sakura asked, saying what the other two were thinking.

“Well, I was thinking something like your favourite thing, what you dislike most.” Kakashi began listing off in the same bored voice, “Dreams, hobbies, things like that.”

“You go first.” Naruto demanded

“Why should I?” Kakashi demanded in return.

“Well, isn’t the saying; it’s best to lead by example, besides those two don’t know you at all.” Naruto explained

“Ok, you two listen up. My name is Hatake Kakashi; I have many likes and dislikes that I don’t fell like sharing at the moment. I’ve never really thought of my dreams for the future. As for hobbies, I have allot of them.” Kakashi listed off, raising a finger for every point. “Your next “Blondie.”

Naruto growled at that comment then started her little mini speech. “My name is Uzumaki Naruto, I like training, and I like it even better when its with Sasuke-niisan, because its more fun, and ramen! The only thing that I really dislike is cleaning my apartment, because it’s really boring. My dream for the future is…” Naruto paused suspense fully while grinning. “To become hokage, making the villagers acknowledge my existence at last. My hobbies include training and studying from books I can get from the hokage or the library before they kick me out.”

“Hmmm, interesting… next.” Was all Kakashi said, but he was truly amazed by how much Naruto’s life revolves around becoming a better ninja.

“My name is Uchiha Sasuke,” Sasuke stated with an uncaring voice, “There are many things that I like and dislike and I’d like them to stay personal. I consider my plans for the future more as goals then dreams they are; to resurrect my clan, and to bring justess to the one who destroyed it. As for hobbies, the closest thing to a hobby I have is training with Naruto.”

“You next Pinky.” Kakashi said in his normal bored voice, though he was amazed that Sasuke revenge driven as he could have been. He attributed this to his family like relationship with Naruto.

The comment made Sakura growl much the same way as Naruto before she started her introduction. “My name is Haruno Sakura, what I like is…” instead of saying anything she looked over at Sasuke with a blush, “Well, um, my dream for the future is…” looking back at Sasuke her blush deepened. “I hate… Naruto.” This made Naruto huff and look in the opposite direction but Sakura pretended that she wasn’t there. “And my hobby is cooking.”

“Alright, now that we know each other a little bit better, tomorrow we will meet on training grounds three at six in the morning. Bring all of your ninja equipment.” Kakashi said while handing out sheets of paper “All the details are on that sheet of paper. And I would suggest against eating breakfast tomorrow. With that he disappeared in a poof of smoke.

As soon as he was gone Naruto and Sasuke got up and left in the direction of their homes, leaving Sakura sitting their for a minute before she caught on, then she ran after Sasuke.

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Kakashi didn’t arrive until almost eight, and he was greeted by two angry genins and one practicing kunai throwing kunai on a Kakashi dummy.

Alright you three, as said on the sheet of paper, this is a test, and if you fail you go back to the academy for another year. Now, this is a test of your skill, so come at me with all you got or it won’t be a fair evaluation of your strength. Your objective is to get one of these two bells from me before time runs out. Time runs out at noon, anyone without a bell then fails, is tied to a training post and gets no lunch.” Kakashi explained while placing an alarm clock on a training post and then revealing two small bells on his belt. Before anyone could complain about their being only two bells Kakashi started. “Go!”

As soon as he said go Sasuke and Sakura leapt off in opposite directions and Naruto disappeared in a poof of smoke.

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Sakura was crouched in the bushes, waiting for Sasuke to come out and kick Kakashi’s ass. She was quite comfy under her bush, until an arm wrapped around her neck and another covered her mouth. She tried to scream, but that’s what the hand was for. She was about to lash out at her captor, when they turned her around, revealing Naruto with a very serious look on his face.

“Keep quiet, and follow me.” Naruto said releasing Sakuras mouth and casting off into the bushes.

Sakura followed Naruto all the way to a clearing deep in the woods. When they reached the clearing the Naruto guide dispelled in a poof of smoke alerting the original Naruto and Sasuke.

“Naruto, why’d you bring her along?” Sasuke asked with a disappointed look in Naruto’s direction.

“Well, we’re up against a jounin and we’re just genin, so it’s obviously a test of our teamwork. Plus I have a plan that requires her talents with traps.” Naruto explained in a matter-o-factory tone.

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Kakashi was getting bored and was about to go searching for the genins, when a Sasuke jumped out if the trees in front of Kakashi, at the same time as another Sasuke on his left. As soon as they started hand-signs a Naruto poofed into existence between the two and another behind him, trapping his arms and one of his legs. Having been distracted by the Naruto on his back, Kakashi failed to notice the jutsu cast by both Sasukes at the same time. But he looked up in time to see the two fireballs collide halfway between him and the Naruto to his front left. Kakashi saw that the jutsu would miss, but when he heard the name of the next jutsu, he became a little worried.

“Futon Fuufuu no jutsu!” the Naruto behind the combined fireball yelled before they blew a massif breath of compressed air in the direction of Kakashi. The result of the air jutsu combined with the two fire jutsus was frightening: The fireball tripled in size in a matter of seconds while traveling in Kakashi’s direction at a terrifying speed.

Being held down, Kakashi only had one option to get out of this unburnt. “Seton endai mizu tama!” Kakashi yelled shooting multiple large spheres of water from his mouth, barely stopping the massive fireball. But it failed to stop the blast of air and steam hot enough to dispel the kage bunshin on his back.

As soon as they saw that that attempt had failed the three attackers disappeared back into the forest.

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It took almost half an hour, but they were back and with a new plan. It started with Naruto and Sasuke running at Kakashi from opposite directions and jumping to punch him on both sides at the same time. As they expected Kakashi ducked, so Naruto and Sasuke caught each others fists in the air and pushed off to put some distance between them and Kakashi’s hands and feet. Looking at each other they nodded and Naruto summoned a kage bunshin between the two, creating a triangle around Kakashi, when the clone was in place all three attackers raised one of their hands and waited.

Sakura saw this action from her hideout in the trees, and recognised it as a sign to fire the trap. Pulling one the piece of ninja wire leading to the launchers, she released multiple kunai aimed at Kakashi.

Kakashi saw the three kunai coming out of the trees in his general direction. He had expected a trap of this kind might be used against him, but he hadn’t expected the genins surrounding him to catch the kunai and run circles around. It wasn’t until they wrapped tightly that he noticed the ninja wire attached to the kunai.

As soon as they had him wrapped, Sakura dashed out of the trees dashed at Kakashi and leapt high over his head. When she was directly over Kakashi, she performed a Kawaminari with Sasuke, who made a dive for the bells while Naruto caught Sakura. Sasuke would have got the bells if Kakashi hadn’t loosened the wire just enough to leap away at the last second. The instant landed the bell signalling the end of the test rang, signifying failure to the three genin who didn’t have a bell.

“I must admit, I’m impressed.” Kakashi said as he was removing the ninja wire. “Your better than genin just out of the academy should be, and that’s the best teamwork I’ve seen in a while. I know I’m going to regret this, but although none of you acquired a bell I’m going to pass you anyways.”

For a minute none of the genin believed their ears, it took Naruto’s excited yell to snap the other two out of their shock.

Sakura was so excited that she ran towards the exit of the training of the training grounds saying something about telling her mother.

“Well good, she left first, because I don’t think that you want to tell her yet, do ya?”

“No, I don’t but I don’t want to tell him right now either.” Naruto said pointing at Kakashi, who had no idea what they were talking about.

“You’ll tell him or I will, your choice.” Sasuke threatened, and Naruto knew he would too.

“Fine, I’ll tell him.” Naruto gave in. turning to Kakashi she started talking as if he had been part of the conversation to begin with. “Kakashi, since your going to be my jounin sensei, their are some things I need to tell you”

“Such as?” Kakashi inquired.

“Well the first one I’d like to show you.” And as soon as she said this she started hand signs for a jutsu that Kakashi didn’t know, but Sasuke apparently did because he was at her side the instant she initiated the jutsu.

The jutsu turned out to be a forced sleep jutsu, and Kakashi was quite surprised by the result. Naruto fell back onto Sasuke, and his body and facial features quickly transformed from the well known appearance of male Naruto, to that of a girl very similar in appearance and approximately the same age. When she opened her eyes he saw that even they had changed a little, the pupils were much more narrow and elongated. But the similarities were numerous and some things were actually the same, the hair and whisker marks for example. Kakashi was going to have to remind himself to ask about that later.

“Now explain to me why you disguise yourself like this.” Kakashi requested.

“The main reason was to protect me from assassins from other countries who held a grudge towards my father, because many would kill his family to get revenge on him. And the other reason was to protect me from the villagers here, ‘cause there are some pretty evil things some people would do to a little girl that almost everyone hates or ignores.” Naruto explained with a sour look on her face.

“Who was your father to have so many enemies from foreign lands?” Kakashi asked. He was pretty confident that he knew, but he needed proof.

“I’ll give you a few hints,” Naruto said as if she were a trivia master asking others questions. “He was really famous and had hair and eyes like mine but he wasn’t related to the Yamanaka family.”

“So your father was the Fourth?” getting a nod from Naruto he continued with his other question, “I don’t understand how this protects you from the foreign ninjas though.”

“Information of my birth somehow reached the ears of someone who was willing to divulge the information to the foreign countries. As a result their were two assassination attempts on me before I was one year old. They were never made public but they convinced Oji-san to disguise my gender as well as my identity.

“Now that I know that, you hinted that their was more you wanted to tell me.” Kakashi said

“There is, but to get it you have to come eat dinner with me, so I can introduce you to Ayame-nee-chan and Ichiraku-ji-san.” Naruto said before performing a henge Kakashi had never seen before, and running off in the direction of town.

AN- - - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -AN

Well that’s chapter one, I want to put a pairing in but cant decide which one, so I’m taking votes for someone to be pared with Naruto and possibly one with someone else.

Also if you spot any major errors of any kind please tell me, it will help a lot.

Jutsu!

Futon fuufuu no jutsu air style heavy breath technique the user exhales a massive breath of condensed air. Useful for stirring up large amounts of dust, drying things off, and fanning large flames.

Kage bunshin no jutsu shadow clone technique if you don’t know what this is your not a Naruto fan.

Seton endai mizu tama water style grand water ball technique the user fires one or multiple large spheres of water from their mouth. Often used for putting out fires or immobilizing small enemies.

That’s all, later.

The Secret Life of Uzumaki Naruto

Chapter 2 – C ranked?

Four ninjas, three Genins and one Jounin instructor, had just returned from their first mission of the day and looked ready for another.

The Jounin was known as Hatake Kakashi, he wore a long sleeved black shirt under a standard Jounin vest, along with black ninja pants and blue ninja sandals. On his face was the ever present mask covering the bottom half his face and his forehead protector that covers his right eye and “holds up” his gravity deifying silver hair.

To his left was Sakura, she was garbed in a red battle dress outlined in white with matching circles on the bottom and shoulders. Through the split sides, skin tight black shorts were plainly visible. On her head was her forehead protector, worn on top of her head instead her forehead so that it kept her long pink hair out of her face.

On Kakashi’s right stood Sasuke, the “Dark” member of the team, was wearing the usual blue shirt with the Uchiha crest on the back and white shorts. To accompany his usual clothing, He had bandages wrapped around his forearms and shins. Breaking the team mold, Sasuke was the only parson on the team who had his headband in the proper place, on his forehead.

In front of him was Naruto, and although Kakashi and Sasuke had convinced her to put away the orange jumpsuit, she refused to wear normal Ninja attire. To replace the orange uniform Naruto somehow acquired a long-sleeved skintight black shirt, which she wears under a light blue jacket. The right sleeve of the jacket hangs down a few inches past her fingers and the end is almost five times wider then the shoulder, in contrast the left sleeve is completely nonexistent. To go with her new shirt and jacket she found a pair of gray ninja pants. Along with this she wore a ninja headband around her neck, hung by a gray band instead of the standard blue. The final and most noticeable change was that her hair, no longer the spiky mess it used to be, she now kept it smoothed down on the top of her head and if she let her bangs free they would reach almost down to her lips. She was also carrying a small brown cat named Tora, the objective of their mission.

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“Congratulations, Team 7 on successfully completing your fortieth D ranked mission.” Said the old man wearing a white hat and robes decorated in red with Kanji for fire in various places. This man is the Hokage, champion of the village and leader of the village and its ninjas. “We still have a few more jobs for today; babysitting for the Daimyo, or…”

“Hey, wait, stop!” Naruto exclaimed loudly before the Hokage could suggest any more boring jobs that Kakashi would agree to. “Gramps, I became a ninja because you told me that I would get to fight people, not do chores.”

As soon as she said that, Kakashi’s face took on an “Oh Great” expression, while Sakura gave her a “You Idiot” kind off look and Sasuke, surprisingly had a look of slight agreement on his face.

The Hokage just sighed and looked down at the list of C ranked missions, Iruka was out to lunch and he was confident in their abilities, so with nobody to protest the matter he gave in without protest. “I guess I can make an exception and give you an escort mission.”

This earned glares from Sakura and Kakashi as well as cheers of joy from Naruto, then various questions the client’s identity. As if on queue the door opened and an old man wearing worn looking brown pants and gray shirt with a rope tied around his head.

“You will be escorting him” the Hokage said pointing to the man.

“You mean to tell me that I’m supposed to be protected by these kids?” the man said, pulling a sake bottle out of his backpack and opening it. “And what’s with the short one, he’s dressed like a weirdo.”

“I’m gonna kill you!” Naruto yelled before she was caught by Sasuke. Unable to attack she just yelled various threats while waving a katana she pulled out of her sleeve.

“No killing the person you’re supposed to protect Naru-chan” Sasuke in his normal bland voice while pulling the katana from her grip then releasing her.

“I’m master bridge-builder Tazuna,” the old man said after Naruto calmed down. “I’ll be requiring your protection on the journey home and until the completion of the bridge I’m building.”

“Alright team meet at the east gate in one hour.” Kakashi said before disappearing in a poof of smoke

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“At last, freedom from the glaring people.” Naruto exclaimed wandering off ahead of the group.

“What’s with him?” Tazuna asked Kakashi.

“He’s had a hard life.” Kakashi replied.

“I still don’t believe that he’s fit to be a ninja” Tazuna complained.

“Don’t worry these three are better than they look, these three were the top three in their class.” Kakashi reassured him.

After that they walked for a few hours in silence, until they passed a puddle and the puddle seemed out of place because they were miles away from water and it hadn’t rained for days. Both Sasuke and Kakashi noticed the suspicious puddle and were on their guard.

Once the whole group had passed the puddle, two figures rose from the puddle. They were clothed in short tattered robes, camouflaged shirt and pants and matching gas masks and gauntlets, although they one each and they were on opposite sides. When they were completely out of the puddle, one of the enemies jumped high over Kakashi, wrapping him in the bladed chain attached to both gauntlets.

The instant the flying ninja’s feet hit the ground, they both sprinted at Naruto tearing the wrapped Jounin to shreds in the process.

As soon as Naruto noticed the two attackers her personality switched from happy unpredictable every day Naruto to cold, calculating ballet Naruto. And when they made a move to attack her, she didn’t do anything more than slide her left hand up her right sleeve. At the same time Sakura and Sasuke took defensive positions on either side of the client, Tazuna.

When the two enemies were about to pass on either side of her with the chain behind her, she drew her arm from her sleeve revealing two long narrow metal spikes with, each with a loop on one end. In one swift movement she had the chain pinned with one spike through a loop in the chain into the ground on a steep angle and the other through the loop on the first pointing the opposite direction.

Seizing his chance Sasuke ran forward and kicked both enemies in the face. As expected they fell back, but without warning they both broke the chain off at the gauntlet and rolled away.

When they were back on their feet one made a mad dash for Tazuna while the other one launched at Naruto. The first one only made it half way before being caught by the neck and knocked out by Kakashi.

Once he was sure that the ninja, which he noted was from mist country, was out cold, he looked back at Naruto to make sure she had the enemy taken care of. What he saw made him reconsider pissing the blond off in the future.

The unfortunate attacker was trapped by a fuma shuriken stuck in the ground with one of the blades pressed on his throat. To stop him from removing it his armed were held by several kunai through the sleeve on his ungloved arm and a katana through the gauntlet, barely missing his arm.

“I think I went a little overboard.” Naruto said with a sheepish grin.

“Tazuna, we need to talk.” Kakashi said in a deadly serious voice.

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After a long discussion between Kakashi and Tazuna, with some input from Naruto, they decided to continue the mission, although it went form C ranked to B ranked and the rest of the money would be paid when available. That conversation happened a while ago.

The whole group was currently traversing the great channel separating Wave country and Fire country. The Genins had been told to keep as quiet as possible, and to everybody’s amazement, Naruto was the quietest of them all. The only sound coming from her position was the occasional noise of a page being turned. She stayed there the whole trip, while Sakura sat next to Sasuke, occasionally whispering something at him, and Sasuke just sat there like a brick and ignored it all.

When they got to the shore they continued their walking, this time through the woods, and everybody was tense for an attack. They made it a considerable distance from the boat before Kakashi’s ears picked up the nearly inaudible sound of metal cutting air and he ordered everybody on the ground.

They were warned just in time, less than a second after they were all on the ground, a giant sword came flying through the space that Naruto and Tazuna been occupying. The sword continued on its path strait across the trail and into a tree on the other side. When every body looked up they saw a bazaar looking man standing on the hilt of the now stuck sword. The man was wearing light blue pants with vertical black stripes, camouflaged arm bands, a headband from the country of mist wrapped around his head at an odd angle and bandages wrapped around the lower half of his face, somewhat like Kakashi’s mask.

“Who the hell are you!?” Naruto yelled as she drew a katana from seemingly nowhere and pointed it at the newcomer.

“Hey brat you don’t look particularly skilled with that sword, so I would advise you to stay out of this fight.” The odd man said before grabbing his sword and jumping out in front of the group.

“He’s right Naruto, you stay out of this.” Kakashi warned, putting his hand on her shoulder and pushing her back with the others. “You three guard Tazuna, I’ll take care of this guy.”

“So, Kakashi of the Sharingan wishes to challenge me?” the stranger asked with a smirk that could be plainly seen through his facial bandages.

“You started this fight Zabuza, not me.” Kakashi said before grabbing his headband at the same time Zabuza cast a jutsu that covered the aria in a thick mist.

“Kakashi of the Sharingan?” Sasuke whispered to Naruto.

“I’ll try to make him explain later.” Naruto whispered back before handing him the katana she had taken out earlier and saying, “Here he comes.”

Seconds later, Zabuza appeared between Sasuke and Tazuna, sword held high, prepared to swing down and cut Sasuke in half. Sensing unfamiliar chakra behind him, Sasuke flipped the katana in his hand and thrust it backwards, into Zabuza’s chest. The stabbed ninja stopped mid swing, and slowly the sword fell from his grip. But before the sword hit the ground, both Zabuza and the sword liquefied into a puddle of water.

After that, minutes passed where the only sounds were the occasional clang of metal on metal or yell of a jutsu, until they heard a yell of “Your finished!” from both of the fighters. Shortly there after, their was a loud crashing sound accompanied by a large gust of wind that cleared out most of the mist.

Peering through the thinning mist Naruto saw Zabuza pinned to a tree and Kakashi on a branch above him.

“Can you see the future?” Zabuza asked in a voice full of fear.

“Yes and I foresee your death.” Kakashi said ominously, preparing a kunai to stab him with. But before he could do anything else two long thin sebon needles came flying out of the woods and pierced the trapped ninja’s neck.

“How right you were.” A young masked ninja said as they appeared in a swirl of leaves next to Kakashi.

“A Mist Hunter-nin, I’m guessing you’re here for the body?” Kakashi asked while checking Zabuza for a pulse.

“Yes and thank you for your assistance in capturing this dangerous criminal.” The newcomer said before grabbing the body off the tree and hoisting it onto their shoulders. “I must go now.” They said before disappearing in a swirl of leaves.

“Now that that’s over with...” Kakashi said as he appeared in front of the group, “Let’s get going.”

Turning to Tazuna to lead the way, they resumed their journey, until they heard a loud thump behind them. Looking back they found Kakashi, face down in the dirt.

“I’ve exhausted my chakra supply,” Kakashi said, “Somebody will have to carry me.”

- - - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -

‘Yesterday was an interesting day.’ Naruto thought as she picked herself up off the floor.

“Stupid small bed” Naruto growled at her bed, which is located on the side of the room opposite to the one she woke on. When she was awake enough to stand she went over to her backpack to grab a towel and left her clothing there in a heap.

Desperately wanting a shower and not knowing where the bathroom was she began wandering the house with nothing but a towel in her hand and the bandages she usually wore wrapped around her chest and right arm.

After a few minutes she found herself in the kitchen. As she was passing through the middle where their were no available objects to hide behind, somebody switched on the lights, causing Naruto to freeze and when they saw Naruto they gasped.

“Who are you?” the person asked and Naruto recognized by their voice as Tsunami.

‘Great, now I have to explain this to a stranger, while I’m naked, this is going to be a bad day.’ Naruto thought, turning around slowly in hopes that she would be recognized.

“Naruto?” And those hopes were not misguided. “I thought that you were supposed to be a boy.”

“I’m supposed to be but I’m not, and theirs a good explanation for that.” Naruto said before beginning the general explanation of why she has to do certain things, and it wasn’t until the sun started to shine through the window that she realized how late she was. “OH NO! I’m late, quick where’s the bathroom?”

“Over there.” Tsunami said pointing at a door behind Naruto.

Naruto started towards the bathroom but stopped about half way turned back to Tsunami and said, “Sakura doesn’t know, and I want to be the one to tell her, ok?”

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Tsunami was tending to the unconscious Kakashi, about to pull down his mask to give him some water, when a hand caught her wrist, looking down she saw that Kakashi had a firm grip on her arm. Looking back at his face Tsunami found two mismatched deep blue and fiery red eyes starring back at her.

She just sat there, starring onto his eyes, completely mesmerized by the mismatched orbs. Tsunami would have there all day, if a another fight hadn’t broken out between Naruto and Sakura. Blushing in embarrassment Tsunami turned towards the door, while handing Kakashi the glass of water and moving towards the door.

Seeing her leave, Kakashi pulled down his mask and emptied the glass of water and climbed out of the bed. Once put of bed, he made his way to over to his stuff to get dressed in his usual Jounin outfit.

Once he was fully clothed he made his way his way to the door, supporting himself on the wall. Just as he was about to open the door, Naruto burst in with blood on her hand and tears in her eyes.

“Sakura bit me!” Naruto complained, wiping tears out of her eyes.

“Sakura, why did you bite Naruto?” Kakashi asked Sakura with a sigh, as she walked into the room.

“He was being stupid!” Sakura yelled pointing Naruto, who stuck her tongue out in response.

“Naruto, tears don’t get a ninja anywhere,” Kakashi said to Naruto who sighed and looked ashamed of herself, then turned to Sakura who had a victorious look on her face and said, “and Sakura, no biting.”

“Yes Kakashi sensei.” They said in unison.

“Now go find Sasuke, we’re going out to train.”

- - - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -

“You three are exceptionally skilled for Genin, and this week I will be introducing you to some techniques not usually taught to ninja your age.” Kakashi said before handing each of the three Genins a blank sheet of extra thick paper. “This is chakra paper, channel chakra through it and it reacts to your elemental orientation.”

“Sakura you go first.” Kakashi said motioning for her to start.

Without a word, Sakura began forcing as much chakra as she could to her hand holding the card. After a few seconds the card and the hand holding it began to glow a barely perceivable light blue color and without warning the paper shriveled to about half of its original size.

“Well Sakura it would appear that your chakra element is electricity.” Kakashi observed before handing her three scrolls and taking the chakra paper. “The first scroll is a list of minor lightning jutsus; the second explains the basics of creating elemental chakra and the third is an exercise to build your stamina and chakra capacity.

As Kakashi turned to him, Sasuke just nodded then applied his chakra to his card and the end result was similar to that of Sakura’s. When the chakra began to glow the card shriveled but only two thirds as much as Sakura’s, then singed around the edges as if burnt.

“Sasuke is also lightning type, with a hint of fire.” Kakashi said taking out three more scrolls and handing them to Sasuke. “The first two are the same as the Sakura got, and the third contains instructions for an advances chakra control exercise.”

Turning to Naruto, Kakashi motioned for her to proceed.

Complying with the unspoken command, Naruto concentrated chakra to her to her hand holding the card, causing her hand and the card to glow a feint lavender color. After a few seconds the card reacted to her chakra, but the reaction was completely different than the other two, the paper split cleanly in two leaving one half in her hand and the other half floating lazily to the ground. After the first half fell away, the second half became limp as if wet.

All three Genins looked at Kakashi, waiting for him to explain this phenomenon. But Kakashi just stared at Naruto’s paper as if it came from another planet.

“Uh, Kakashi sensei?” Naruto asked, wondering if she had done something wrong.

Shaking his head to free himself from his stupor, Kakashi sighed. “This is quite something, Naruto, the card is trying to indicate that your chakra is wind type, but it’s also trying to indicate that your chakra is water type. What this means is that your chakra is split evenly down the middle into two different elements, namely wind as the splitting card would indicate and water as the other reaction indicates.”

“So?” Naruto asked, not understand why that was significant.

“Naruto,” Sakura started in her know it all voice, “The last known ninja that had two types of elemental chakra that lived in Konoha was the first Hokage. He had a combination of water and earth, making wood, and is responsible for the massiveness of the trees around Konoha.”

“Putting that aside, I don’t have any air technique scrolls so I’ll give you a scroll for your other affinity, along with a scroll that explains elemental chakra and how to generate it. I’m also giving you a special chakra control exercise that will make use of your massive chakra stores, summoning shadow clones without hand seals.” Kakashi said while handing Naruto two scrolls and a small black book.

Looking down at the book Naruto read the title, “The How’s Why’s and What Ifs of Hands Free Jutsu.”

- - - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -

They had been “guarding” Tazuna on the bridge, and practicing techniques and jutsu for three days without any Naruto related mishap. But on the third evening Naruto decided she needed more training and disappeared into the forest.

That was over twelve hours ago, but nobody was particularly worried because they either didn’t care or knew that she could take care of herself.

Deep in the forest, Naruto was sleeping happily in a patch of grass in the forest, when she was woken by the sound of soft footsteps and the sent of flowers that hadn’t been there before. Readying herself least the newcomer was a hostile one, she remained in her position waiting for them to make a move. Waiting a moment she heard footsteps approaching and tried to maintain the illusion that she was asleep although her ninja instincts screamed at her to move.

She fully expected the newcomer to grasp her by the throat and strangle the life out of her, but instead they grasped her by the shoulder and shook her in an attempt to awaken her.

Opening her eyes, Naruto was greeted by the sight of an androgynous face belonging to somebody of approximately the same age looking back at her.

Sitting up and sliding back to put some distance between her and the mysterious intruder. After getting a short distance away, Naruto took note of the other person’s attire and current positions; a pink kimono with flowers on it and a small basket hanging from their arm.

“It’s not safe to sleep in the forest, you know.” The stranger said before turning to a patch of flowers and kneeling next to them.

“You don’t seem too worried that I might be a violent stranger.” Naruto observed, attempting to gauge weather the stranger was friend or foe.

“You don’t seem like a dangerous person,” They replied, absently picking plants that Naruto recognized as medical herbs. “And not many people intent on catching you by surprise would warn you.”

“I am so dangerous!” Naruto said loudly, unconsciously cooling the air with elemental chakra.

The sudden display of power caught the stranger off guard, so much so that they proceeded to avoid that topic.

“So what are you doing sleeping in the forest, anyways?” they asked, now keeping an eye on Naruto.

“I fell asleep while training.” Naruto responded, sounding somewhat embarrassed before she realized that this was someone that she could try to impress. “Do you want to see what I’ve been working on?”

“Okay.” They said, sounding quite interested.

Naruto closed her eyes and concentrated, after a few seconds, a blob of water condensed, floating between her outstretched hands, and a visible swirl flowing around them. After a few more seconds, the swirling wind began closing in on the floating water until they contacted, creating a violent reaction that Naruto apparently had somewhat under control. Although initially protesting combination, once further fused, the wind began to disappear and the water began to solidify.

The process took nearly a minute and the results were Naruto with a floating ball of ice between her hands and a triumphant grin on her face.

“That’s amazing.” The stranger said in an awed voice.

“You really think so?” Naruto asked as if she had just been galled the greatest ninja ever. But Naruto, not being used to praise let it distract her and her control slipped. The wind chakra began to overpower the water chakra and in a matter of seconds the ball of ice exploded, imbedding chunks of ice into Naruto’s hands.

Naruto just stared dumbly at the injuries on her hands, her mind still not comprehending what just happened. The stranger on the other hand jumped into action, pulling a roll of bandages out of her basket and begins treating Naruto’s injuries.

While having her injuries bandaged, Naruto and the stranger got into a conversation about what it means to be truly strong. By the end of the conversation, Naruto understood the stranger, who was named Haku, and what they meant about being strong by working to protect those you care about.

When Haku had finished bandaging Naruto’s hands, Naruto realized just how long she had been away from the house. Jumping her feet she quickly performed her version of the henge, said good bye and ran off towards the house.

When she arrived at the house, she was told that Sasuke Sakura and Tazuna had gone to the bridge and she was to stay here and rest for the day. Naturally she didn’t agree to sleep so she just practiced jutsu in bed. The schedule returned to normal the next day and Naruto was relived to not be confined for another day.

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The next two days were boring and uneventful in Naruto’s eyes, but on the seventh day, Kakashi had recovered enough to go to the bridge, unfortunately that was also the day Naruto choose to sleep in and was left behind.

Naruto sat bolt upright, instantly alert, woken by a loud crash in the kitchen.

Forging getting dressed, Naruto crept down the stairs in a pair of short sleeping shorts and her usual bandages. Peaking into the kitchen, she saw a samurai ready to cut down Inari, and his mother being held captive by another.

Acting quickly, Naruto pressed her left hand against her right wrist, forcing some chakra into it, this caused a katana and a kunai to appear. Placing one in each hand, she then summoned two shadow clones, consciously placing one in front of the samurais and one behind. The clone in front caught the sword swings from both samurais with the blades in her hands, while the other clone places a blade at the neck of both attackers.

“Don’t move.” The Narutos said in unison, before the original Naruto walks out and sais, “And hand over those swords.”

Both samurais complied by slowly sheathing their katana and dropping them on the floor. The clone in front of them picked up the fallen swords and brought them to the original, while the clone behind the enemies released their necks and knocked them out with a swift blow to their heads.

“Hey Inari,” Naruto said, dispelling the clones and while shrouded in the smoke she ‘put away’ her weapons and the newly acquired swords. “Get some rope and be back here in two minutes, I’m going to get dressed.”

Naruto walked back up the stairs and Inari went over to his mother.

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Naruto waved to Tsunami and Inari, who were tying the attackers to a post. She was going to check on the situation and what she found alarmed her greatly.

A thick grey mist covered a large portion of the bridge and to the edge of the mist stood Sakura and Tazuna. Wanting to know the situation, Naruto moved to their position to ask them.

“What’s happening here?” Naruto whispered to Sakura.

“Naruto? Thank god you’re here.” Sakura whispered back in a voice full of relief. “Zabuza’s back and the hunter-nin is on his side.”

Sakura was about to say more when a cry of pain from both Sasuke and Zabuza heard further down the bridge. Seconds after the yells, the mist cleared up considerably and Naruto could see Sasuke, surrounded in floating glass-like panels.

Moving closer, Naruto saw Sasuke was in quite bad shape, so, without a second thought, Naruto ran into the dome of panels, not stopping to consider any threats.

“Niisan, are you ok?” Naruto asked, helping him to his feet.

“Careful Naruto, the hunter-nin uses the mirrors for some odd technique that lets them move very fast.” Sasuke warned before their was a flurry of motion and the hunter-nin appeared in the mirrors in front to them.

“Are you ready?” the hunter-nin said in a voice that came from all sides as the image spread to all of the mirrors

Preparing for a fight, Sasuke activated his Sharingan and Naruto summoned shadow clones, but before they could do anything, they were hit from every direction.

It was all they could do to avoid getting hit in the face and vital organs, and they were forced to do so for what seemed like hours.

They were both nearing the end of their stamina, ready to collapse, when the waves of sebon needles abruptly stopped. Looking up the mirrors, Naruto sees the hunter-nin leaning half out of one of the mirrors.

“Sasuke, I’m going to try something.” Naruto whispered to Sasuke while pulling some needles out of her arms and chest.

“Be careful Naruto.” Sasuke said through his labored breathing, voice full of concern.

Naruto moved up to the mirror the hunter-nin was half in, wincing as the needles in her legs and back tore her rapidly healing muscles. Being as stealthy as she could, she created a ball of ice between her hands and pressed it against the mirror. To her amazement and relief, the mirror assimilated the smaller piece of ice with little resistance but now she was sustaining the mirror, just as she had wanted. Remembering her encounter in the forest, Naruto pulled the hand pushing in the water chakra away from the mirror and stopped pushing chakra with it. Like last time the wind chakra flowing through the ice without the aid of the water turned sharp and destructive. The outcome wasn’t instant, it took a few seconds but when the strain on the mirror become too much for it, it exploded, sending Naruto and the hunter-nin in opposite directions and cracked the mirrors on both sides.

The instant Naruto hit the ground, the image of the hunter nin was back in all of the undamaged mirrors, a bit bloodied with torn clothing.

After moments of staring, the hunter-nin leapt into action, aiming not for the still active Sasuke, but for the exhausted Naruto. Acting without thinking, Sasuke sprang forward, placing himself between Naruto and the oncoming attack.

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Seeing the oncoming attack, Naruto covered her head with her arms and steeled herself for the attack to hit. She sat there and waited, but when it didn’t hit when the thought it would she opened her eyes again and looked up.

Domination he field of vision was Sasuke, with needles visibly piercing through both her neck and arms.

The sight of her only real friend take a fatal blow meant for her caused her mind to shut down.

After a few seconds, Sasuke’s strength failed him and he toppled backwards, onto the stunned Naruto. The impact of Sasuke falling on her and the pricks from hundreds of needles kicked her mind back into action and tears welled up in her eyes.

“Why, Sasuke?” Naruto sobbed in a weak voice that seemed completely out of place coming from her, tears now flowing freely from her eyes and dripping onto Sasuke.

“Because, it I ever passed up a chance to save your life when I’m able, I would take my own. Your all I’ve got left for family and I like you alive not dead.” Sasuke said softly before sighing and going limp.

White hot fury began growing in Naruto’s chest, burning up all of her sadness and fear and quickly becoming too much to contain. Gently laying Sasuke’s body on the ground and stood to face the one who had caused this.

The image of great metal pillars that obviously restrained great evil flashed through her vision, accompanied by deep sinister laughter that didn’t sound at all human.

Seemingly triggered by the strange vision, all of her fatigue and injuries of the battle vanished. Her vision seemed sharper, the hunter-nin seemed to move slower and above all she felt Stronger. But as she felt these changes, everything felt more distant, her vision clouded over with a red haze and her instincts took control.

Growling loudly, Naruto launched herself at the nearest mirror, aiming to shatter the hunter-nin within the mirror itself. She was about to make contact when a blur flew past her and the image of the hunter-nin disappeared from all the mirrors.

It took Naruto a moment to notice but the mirror above her still held the image of the hunter-nin. As soon as she noticed them she took in a massive lungful and blew a massive breath of wind chakra laced air directly at the mirror. The mirror, under the stress of the wind chakra began to bend and crack all over.

Panicking, the hunter-nin launched herself strait out of the mirror, only to be caught in mud air by the ankle and launched with great force through one of the remaining mirrors. Continuing the assault, Naruto appeared next to the hunter-nin, lifting them by the thought, but what she saw made her freeze. Visible through the crumbling mask of the hunter-nin was the face the one that she had met in the forest, Haku.

Releasing Haku, Naruto stumbled backwards, all of the power brought on by the rage disappeared. Suddenly incapable of keeping herself upright, she slowly fell forward, the last thing that she saw before everything faded to black was the ground rapidly approaching her face.

-_-AN- - - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -AN-_-

That’s it for chap 2 and sorry for the long wait but I’ve got more then one story on the go. This will be the quickest updated story if I can help it.

Still taking suggestions for pairings for Naruto and Sasuke.

Also I was wondering if I should change the matches for the prelims of the Chunin exams.

The first thing Naruto noticed was that she was standing upright, this was significant due to the fact that last thing she saw before being where she was, was the ground rapidly approaching her face. The second thing she noticed was the room she was standing in.
High stone walls lead to a great arched roof, supported by enormous stone pillars. On every wall their were many hallways of varying sizes, branching off in many different directions. Flowing from some of the hallways was a pale blue mist, which upon entering the room combined with the red mist flowing from the center of the room before exiting once again through different passageways.
Deciding she had nothing better to do in this mysterious building, Naruto wandered towards the other end of the room, towards the center of the red mist.
"That technique you made is quite impressive." A deep rumbling voice said, followed by a deep sinister sounding chuckle that seemed somewhat familiar.
"Who's there?" Naruto demanded in loudly, reaching for her kunai holster. It wasn't until her hand brushed bare leg that she realised her kunai holster, along with the rest of her clothing, was absent.
She suddenly felt very embarrassed for not noticing earlier as well as very exposed and vulnerable in the presence of an unknown intruder without her weapons.
"Who's there?" she demanded again, in a much smaller more timid voice that was an almost feminine squeak. But as soon as the words left her mouth, she felt ashamed of them; they had been weak, pitiful and worst of all girly. None of those traits she felt embodied her at all, and that's nor how her voice was supposed to sound, ever.
This time, using a trick she had learned years ago to stop from being found out, flowing chakra through her vocal chords. "I'm going to ask one more time, who's there?" she demanded in a large deeper masculine voice that she was more familiar with.
"It Is I!" the voice said loudly.
"That's not very helpful." Naruto replied flatly, still using her altered voice.
"Your voice no longer matches your form little one, maybe you need to work on your shape shifting technique." the voice said, this time noticeably more behind her than all around.
"What shape shifting technique? You still didn't answer my… What the?" were the words that came out of Naruto's mouth as she slowly turned around. Covering the most of the wall she had just turned to were two giant doors made of enormous metal bars and an equally as massive frame, and where the frames met at eye level in the middle, connecting the doors was a single piece of paper with the word seal written on it in Kanji. Behind the door was the great shadowy hulking form of a beast that looked big enough to crush Konoha in a matter of minutes. Mustering up as much courage as she could, she dropped the fake voice and addressed the beast. "Are you the Kyuubi?"
"Ah so it seems you have more backbone than any of my previous captors." The beast replied almost cheerfully.
"Why am I here?" Naruto demanded with as much authority as she could, attempting to get a strait answer from the beast.
"I was woken up by your powerful rage, and I wanted to meet the one so bold as too demand my power in such a harsh manner." The beast said, this time sounding quite amused, "Not at all what I expected."
"And what were you expecting?" Naruto demanded, sounding somewhat insulted.
"Something a little closer to what I saw of you when you first called upon my power." The beast replied offhandedly, "And somebody with a little more common sense than to be walking around without any clothing on."
"Never mind." Naruto muttered in response, blushing in embarrassment, before remembering something else that the beast had said. "Now what was it that you wanted to talk about?"
"I have a deal I want to make with you."
"I'm listening, but if it has anything to do with setting you free, you can forget about it." Naruto said warningly.
"I wouldn't expect you to willing release me. No I'm interested in keeping you alive until I can discover how to escape this prison."
"So what do you want to do?"
"I find the human body and senses to be far too weak for their own good."
"So what do you propose? The human condition is not so easily cured." Naruto said a little worried.
"You'd be surprised, with my power; I will enhance your senses as well as your strength and stamina. I only ask for a few things in return." The beast proposed.
"And what would those conditions be?" Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow and arms crossed over her chest.
"First, you must allow me access to your senses, so I can see what you see and hear what you hear, and second, I would like access to your thoughts, allowing me to speak with you at any time."
"Deal," Naruto said without a second thought, "But you're going to have to help me with my part, I have no idea how to do that."
"Alright lets get started." The beast said sounding quite excited to do this.
"Wait" Naruto said, remembering what the Hokage had told her about demons. "How do I know that you won't trick me?"
"Two reasons, first, if I could escape, I wouldn't need to ask your permission, and second, as a demon lord, I'm bound by my word. If a demon breaks his or her word in a contract such as this, they are to be killed in one of two ways, one by being offered to the god of death or two, if they are sealed within a human, all of their powers are to be gradually transferred into that human and they assume the position of demon lord. And trust me; you don't want to be one."
"Oh" was all Naruto could come up with after being bombarded with facts about a subject she knew absolutely nothing about.
"Get ready; this is going to hurt…" the beast said before changing the type of chakra flowing through the bars as well as the amount flowing out. "A lot."
The instant the chakra started flowing from the bars; the seal on Naruto's stomach began glowing a deep crimson color and her abdomen exploded in pain, which quickly spread across her entire body. The pain was too quick and intense, within a matter of seconds she was falling again, this time backwards, and her vision quickly faded to black.
- - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -
Kakashi and Zabuza had each other by the throats, both ready to deliver the killing blow when they were hit by a wave of suffocatingly powerful chakra that carried a great anger and evil.
Zabuza froze in fear and awe of the sheer quantity of the power, unable to imagine what creature could posses such power. Kakashi froze as well because he knew exactly what creature possessed that power.
Mere seconds after the explosion of power came a massive gust of razor sharp wind from further down the bridge, clearing most of the mist. The clearing of the mist allowed Kakashi and Zabuza to see down the bridge to there the others were. Down the bridge a slightly bloodied Naruto holding was holding a beaten and ragged looking hunter-nin by the throat like a rag-doll.
Naruto just help the hunter-nin there for a moment before lowering them to the ground, stumbling back a few steps and pitching forward onto her face.
Kakashi was torn between the need to help his student and the need to defeat his opponent. Putting some distance between him and his opponent, Kakashi leaped backwards and fell into a fighting stance, watching his opponent warily.
His opponent on the other hand stood relaxed and lazily regarded him before their gaze drifted past him to something behind him. Kakashi thought this was a ploy to get him to look away which he didn't plan on falling for, keeping his eyes on his opponent Zabuza. Both parties held their positions for a moment before Zabuza stepped forward, pointing down the bridge.
"Looks like we've got company." he said, and as on cue the angry voices and stamping feet of a small approaching mob of people reached an audible level to the two fighters at the end of the bridge.
Kakashi dropped his fighting stance and stepped off to the side, looking down the bridge at the mob, while keeping Zabuza in front of him, still expecting an attack.
The approaching mob was a band of around forty armed men marching purposefully down the bridge, lead by a man who was barely up to Kakashi's elbow. The man wore a tuxedo, carried a cane and carried himself as he were the biggest and baddest person in the mob.
Zabuza began walking down the bridge towards the approaching mob, passing the genin and stopping facing the still approaching mob. Kakashi followed closely behind, passing the hunter-nin who was tending to a downed Sasuke, stopping to crouch down and check the condition of Naruto, ensuring she was still alive before taking a place next to Zabuza facing down the mob.
The mob halted a short distance in front of the two experienced ninjas and the short man who was apparently the ring leader stepped forwards and said "I knew I couldn't count on you to get the job done."
"So what do you plan on doing now, Gato?" Zabuza asks, gesturing broadly to the bridge. "Construction has been halted, there are no workers here today."
"I'm going to start by eliminating you and these other bothersome ninjas." Gato said with an evil smirk.
Zabuza lifted his sword up out at arms length and dashed towards Gato at incredible speed. Before Gato had a chance to move or even react, Zabuza swung his sword around, cleanly cutting through Gato's neck, spraying blood on the fist line of men in the mob. Zabuza landed in a crouch with his sword out to his side and the mob stood frozen, only the sound of Gato's head hitting the ground shortly followed by his body falling in a heap.
Nobody moved for a long minute before an angry murmur rose through the crowd as they readied their weapons. Kakashi realized that if they intended to attack it wouldn't end well for either party, so he decided to try an intimidation tactic. Taking a few steps forward, he summoned a couple dozen illusion clones with a few shadow clones mixed in and had them all take stances like they were ready to take on the mob.
The mob responded with fright showing in their battle stances, a few members backing away. Seeing that his intimidation was working, Kakashi and the few of his shadow clones tossed warning kunai that landed all around the mob. As soon as the blades hit the bridge, some of the members turned and ran, quickly followed by the rest of the mob.
The army of clones marched forward as the mob retreated, forming a line farther down the bridge in case anybody else approached.
As the mob retreated, Sakura ran up to an exhausted looking Kakashi, dragging Tazuna with her, "Sensei, what happened to Sasuke and Naruto, are they OK?"
Kakashi scanned across the bridge, spying Naruto laying in the middle of the bridge, and a short distance further, two figures; the hunter-nin beaten and sore looking with a half dead looking Sasuke using their shoulder for support. Just as he spotted them Sakura let out a shocked gasp and pushed passed him, running towards Sasuke.
Sasuke and the hunter-nin stopped next to Naruto, Sasuke kneeling down over her and checking her injuries. The hunter-nin remained standing, looking down at Sasuke and how he put great care in making sure Naruto was alright.
As Sakura got close the hunter-nin took a few steps back and Sakura ran up and crouched next to Sasuke, grabbing his chin and turning his head to check for injuries, then checking his chest. Sasuke tried to shrug her off, his attention fixed on an injured Naruto, but Sakura persisted until she was sure that he was not badly injured before giving Naruto any notice.
When she finally gave Naruto attention something seemed odd about them, their cloths seemed extra baggy and their face was more delicate looking. Sakura hesitated for a moment, then began checking Naruto for any major injuries. She quickly checked their face and arms, noting their daintiness and smoothness, finding nothing under the blood and dirt, she moved on to the torso splitting Naruto's tattered jacket up the front. Sakura was shocked when she revealed Naruto's chest tightly wrapped in tattered bandages.
"Umm, well she's not injured..." Sakura said, looking at Sasuke, too shocked to say anything else.
Sasuke ignored Sakura and grunted as he slipped his arms under Naruto's back and legs and attempted to lift them. Sakura grabbed Sasuke's shoulder and forcefully pushed him back to down.
"You are hurt, you shouldn't be walking, much less carrying people around..." Sakura said to him gently, still holding his shoulder down.
Sasuke conceded and set Naruto back down, allowing Sakura to pick them up while Sasuke rose unsteadily to his feet behind her. Sakura was amazed by how light Naruto was, and how small she seemed when she thought of the Naruto she had known for so long. Sakura took Naruto and walked over to Kakashi, she found him standing between Tazuna and Zabuza.
"We're not enemies anymore, I am no longer getting payed," Zabuza said with a grin.
"You will have to excuse me if I am not reassured by that statement..." Kakashi replied, looking over his shoulder to see Sakura holding Naruto and Sasuke shortly behind her.
"Come Haku, we should be going." Zabuza said as the hinter-nin appeared by his side and the two of them began walking down the bridge.
"Take Naruto, and I will help Sasuke," Sakura said to Kakashi, transferring Naruto into his arms and rushing back to help Sasuke along.
- - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -
Naruto expected to hit the floor any second now, but the hard impact never came, instead, she landed on a soft surface that she recognized as a bed. For a moment, she just lay there; pulling the covers in tight and admiring the softness that made her sheets back home feel like sandpaper.
Naruto groaned, she didn't want to get up, but it was hard to ignore the throbbing pain in her head. Try as she might, she couldn't stop it from bring her to full awareness, and once there, there was no point in trying to go back. Rolling over in bed, she opened her eyes and looked up, only to hiss in pain and surprise curl up in a ball with the sheets pulled up over her head and her eyes screw shut to keep the blindingly bright light out.
She didn't know exactly why, but the blinding multicolor glare she saw reminded her of the dream she had just had. In that dream she had been in a large mist filled chamber, talking to her demon about a deal to enhance her senses, or something like that, then he forced some extra thick red chakra into her then she was suddenly in a bed.
As soon as she ran through that in her head, she realized that it had actually happened and cursed herself for being so stupid before wondering what the extent of the changes would be and if they had all happened or if they were still happening. While in the process of imagining what things have and will change about her, she tried to remember exactly what happened before she had the "dream". While replaying the hazy seen back in her head, she was hit by a sudden and very startling realization. Last time she saw Sasuke, he was looking very… dead.
Springing to life, she lept out of the bed in a single fluid motion and while keeping her eyes shut tight, made her way to the door, bumping into the walls a few times on her way. When she found the door she paused momentarily and ran her hands across her chest and hips to ensure that at least the essentials were covered.
After ensuring that she had at least the minimum required clothing on and keeping her eyes shut tight, she made her way quickly but carefully down the hall to the kitchen, where she heard the voice of Sakura coming from. Stopping outside of the kitchen, she experimentally opened her eyes, starting with squinting. It took a few minutes for her eyes to adjust to the light in the house, but eventually she could open them normally, and she was amazed by the sharpness and definition of everything. Her doctor had once told her that her vision as it was had been almost as good as an Uchiha's, but what she saw now made what she used to see seem colorless and blurry.
Still marveling at the clarity of her vision, she peeked into the kitchen, only to be blinded once again by the natural light that was shining in her direction. The light had caught by surprise and as she was trying to retreat to the shadows, she tripped over her own feet and landed flat on her backside just inside the door to the kitchen.
By the time she was able to see what was going on in the kitchen, she notice the one she had been looking for sitting at the table looking at her with an amused expression on his face. The joy and relief were so overwhelming that she failed to notice the other two in the room or the fact that Sasuke, though alive, was covered in bandages and didn't look to be in the best condition. Leaping to her feet, Naruto launched herself at Sasuke faster than the eye could follow and tackled Sasuke off of his chair, enveloping him in a tight hug.
"Ow!" Sasuke exclaimed in a pained voice, "You're squishing me."
"Sorry," Naruto replied, quickly rolling off of Sasuke and sitting up. Glancing over at the two still sitting at the table she said, "Good morning."
"Naruto, its evening." Kakashi said in a flat unconcerned voice.
"Really? How long was I out?" she asked, helping Sasuke to his seat before taking her own next to him.
"You've been unconscious for two days now, and for most of it you had a nasty fever." Kakashi said, setting down his book and looking intently at Naruto, what concern that was lacking in his voice showed on what little you could see of his face.
He was about to say more but Sakura butted in, and she wasn't too happy. "You still haven't explained to me what is going on here. This is not the Naruto I know and I want to know who she is what she's doing all over MY Sasuke." She demanded, standing and pointing at Naruto, who frowned at her claiming the position of Sasuke.
"If you want my brother, then you have to prove to me that your worthy of having him, and it's not all about looks." Naruto said defiantly, wrapping her arms around Sasuke's nearest arm and pulled him towards her.
"Brother?" Sakura asked with a dumbfounded expression on her face. "Kakashi-sensei, who is this?"
"That's Naruto, Sakura." Kakashi replied, keeping his eyes fixed on a partly visible mark on one of Naruto's wrists.
Sakura's jaw fell open as she turned to stare at "Naruto", this was not the loudmouth blond that always hung around with Sasuke. No this was an attractive young girl that had just denied her access to Sasuke. She would have to act quickly to get her approval before a different girl won her favor.
Unable to restrain his curiosity, Kakashi pointed to Naruto's wrist and asked, "Naruto what's that mark on your wrist?"
"Nothing." She said quickly, releasing Sasuke's arm and turning her arm so the mark was hidden from view.
"Don't try to fool him Naruto, he saw something and you're going to show it to him." Sasuke said, grabbing Naruto's arm and pulled it out before Naruto could protest or resist, revealing a tattooed pattern on her arm.
The pattern was a black rectangle covered in a multitude of thin white lines beginning and ending in white circles and surrounded in seeming random pattern of black lines.
"Naruto! Experimenting with seals is dangerous." Kakashi said, frowning at Naruto.
"But this is just a storage seal, it's perfectly safe." Naruto explained, somewhat timidly.
"Where did you learn such a complicated seal, in fact, where did you learn anything about seals? That information is supposed to be restricted to Genins." Kakashi said, sounding a little less scolding.
"I learned it from a book that I stole from the library before I got kicked out just before we left school." Naruto explained before placing her thumb over the center of the mark. "Here let me show you the book."
In an attempt to activate the seal, she tried to summon her chakra to her thumb, but instead of her desired result of a pulse of chakra to open the seal, her chakra flared up jagged and flame-like around her hand and began to climb rapidly up her arm.
All she could get out of her mouth was "Uh-oh…" before the flame like chakra reached her torso and her entire body exploded in pain so intense that her vision went black and she collapsed onto the table. But as suddenly as it began, it disappeared, along with the flame like chakra, which had spread to cover her entire body.
Opening her eyes, she half expected to be blinded by the setting sun still coming in the window, but instead it seemed quite dull. This had her slightly confused but not as confused as the utter lack of color in her surroundings or the fact that while she was almost 100% sure that Kakashi was in front of her and the door was behind her, but for a reason she didn't quite understand, she could see both of them at the same time, along with everything in every other direction as well. It was somewhat disorienting to be looking in every direction and be unable to focus on one specific thing, but for some reason she could tell exactly what direction she was facing no matter what direction she turned her head.
Through this amazing newest vision, she could see the expressions on the faces of the others around the table and decided to clarify something.
"That had nothing to do with the seal, I have no idea what happened." She said, turning to face the three, though it didn't matter to her, she could see them anyways but they probably didn't know that.
"Hey what happened to your eyes?" Sasuke asked, sticking his face close to Naruto's for a better look.
"I dunno, but everything looks weird. What do they look like?" Naruto asked, seemingly unfazed by the closeness of Sasuke's face to hers.
Instead of explaining, Sasuke pulled off his headband and held it close to one of her eyes. From what she could tell, her iris was plain white surrounded in a thick black outline with a half circle that reached two thirds of the way across the inside that ended in a black dot that was noticeably thicker than the line attached to it. While observing the appearance of her eye, she noticed color seeping into her vision while her range of vision began shrinking back to normal proportions.
It took a nearly a minute for her vision to return to the way it had been when she first entered the kitchen and with the return of her more normal vision came the resumption of her eye to its normal appearance, with the exception of an elongated pupil.
"So what was that all about?" Sakura asked, saying it as if Naruto had done that just for attention.
"I don't know, that's never happened before." Naruto replied, completely ignoring the tone of Sakura's voice.
"Naruto, you should go get some more rest, we'll talk about this tomorrow." Kakashi said picking his book back up and resuming his reading.
"Alright, I'll go back to bed." Naruto said with a sigh before getting back up and quickly walking back to her room and climbing back into her bed. She was wide awake until she got back into her bed, then she felt suddenly exhausted to the point where she couldn't keep her eyes open.
- - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -
"So what exactly happened back there?" Naruto asked the great caged red beast from her seat, safely outside of the cage.
"Your body is still undergoing changes, and that includes your chakra." The creature explained in a loud rumbling bass voice. "It shouldn't happen again if you avoid heavy chakra use for a short while."
"You're an eternal demon, define short while." Naruto said sarcastically before changing the subject to what she was actually asking about. "What about the thing that happened with my vision?"
"The sharper vision was the desired effect, but the other result had me surprised almost as much as it had you." The beast replied as this kind of thing happened every day.
"So what exactly was it? Because it was kinda cool." Naruto asked, hoping it had not been a one time thing.
"It would appear that I inadvertently activated your potential bloodline limit when I initiated the changes to your body." The beast said, the rumbling voice sounding thoughtful.
"Which means?" Naruto asked, not quite sure what it meant.
"Every human alive in your world today who doesn't have a clan ability has a dormant ability waiting to be activated." The beast explained.
"So why don't I hear about new clans and clan abilities appearing all the time?" Naruto asked,leaving the amazement of her potential abilities in favor of pursuit of more information.
"Because bloodlines don't just happen for no reason." It replied, sounding somewhat impatient.
"What do you mean?" Naruto asked, still doing her best to tolerate the moody beast that claimed to be a demon lord.
"A bloodline under normal circumstances takes generations to develop and often times doesn't get passed on to the next generation or develops into something utterly useless. For example the Sharingan was just a lucky act of evolution, similar to blue eyes but more advanced visual properties." The beast explained, sounding almost happy to explain this to someone. "But in special cases such as yours, prolonged or intense exposure to unnatural chakra can unlock the potential power hidden in your genes."
"That's cool, so if somebody got hit by a concentrated blast of your chakra they might develop a bloodline?" Naruto asked, interpreting the explanation as best she could.
"No, if anybody but you got hit with what I hit you with, they would be no more than ash or, if they were lucky, nearly dead, though it probably wasn't too good for you either. You have had my chakra flowing through you since day one, and because of that you can survive its poison like properties." It explained, sounding amused.
"Oh." Naruto said with a sigh, "So what do you think my bloodline is, and what can it do."
"Well going by what happened in the kitchen, I'm going to say that it's a doujutsu, but as for what it can do, that's for you to find out."
"Aw, that's no fun," Naruto said playfully sticking her tongue out at the beast, "I thought you were supposed to know all about that sort of thing."
"You just be thankful that its not something totally useless like the ability to sense cheese or something." The beast said with a growl.
"Well as much as I would like to sit here for a few more hours and talk, its morning and I've some work to do." Naruto said, focusing to the real world to pull herself out of her little dream world. "Besides, you should be able to speak to me whenever right?"
Naruto had had some disorienting moments in her life when entering and leaving the part of her mind that held the Kyuubi, but this one topped them all. When she was aware enough of the outside world, she immediately opened here eyes and what she could see of her dream world split open with her eyelids. Though she could orient her self visually, it took a moment for her body to recalculate which direction was down, so in one of the scariest moments in her entire life, her vision was rimed in a dull red glow and she was falling towards the wall.
After getting over the shock of the transition, she climbed out of bed, stripped off her sleeping cloths and set off towards the bathroom, pausing along the way to look out one of the windows to verify that it was indeed night time, because the moon shone as bright as the sun used to in her eyes.
- - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -
"So you made a deal with the Kyuubi to enhance your physical capabilities and ended up with a bloodline as well?" Kakashi asked aloud, recapping to himself what Naruto had just told him.
"That's what I just said." Naruto replied from her seat across the table from him. Today she was in a confident mood, she hadn't applied her usual transformation, or even her everyday tomboyish clothing. No, today she wore a tight fitting black tank top that showed off her figure, and a matching pair of short track pants that came to just below the knee.
Today was Sakura's turn to guard the bridge, so Naruto took advantage of the time and explained the situation to Sasuke and then Kakashi and after some gentle coaxing, she managed to get permission to get to know her bloodlines abilities, via training in the forest with Sasuke. A few hours before supper time she and Sasuke found a clearing within yelling distance of the house and began to practice.
- - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -
"Naruto, wait," Sasuke commanded, dropping his fighting stance and dusting himself off.
"Yes Sasuke?" Naruto asked, cutting the flow of chakra to her eyes to return them to normal.
"So far we've confirmed that, much like the Byakugan, your vision can extend a full 360 degrees, but unlike the Byakugan, you can only see in gray scale and not through or around things." Sasuke listed off, counting the pluses and minuses on his fingers on his fingers.
"uh-huh." Naruto puffed, wanting to keep training. "So what do you want to try now?"
"We'll see if you can do anything else, of course." Sasuke said in an obvious "No duh" tone.
"And how do you propose that we do that?" Naruto asked, only being slightly sarcastic.
"I explain, you do, simple as that." Sasuke said, activating his own bloodline. Eyes glowing like evil pools of fire, he focused them on Naruto until he could see her chakra, noting as always the harsh violet red hue of it. Once the chakra came into view, he could follow the flow and, if he wished, copy it. "Alright, flow the chakra through your eyes like I told you earlier."
Complying, Naruto loosed a flow of slow moving chakra to her eyes, once again plunging her world into colorlessness and seamless panorama. After activating her bloodline, she looked over to Sasuke for further instruction.
Sasuke watched as Naruto's regular chakra flow suddenly diverted a small percentage towards the front of her forehead and down through her eyes. It amazed him to see, though the amount of chakra flowing through her eyes was only a small portion of her chakra, that small portion was more than likely equivalent to what was flowing through his entire body. Once he was sure she was ready, Sasuke began explaining things to try.
"Start with trying to change the speed at which the chakra flows through your eyes, and see if you get any different results." Sasuke suggested, keeping his focus on the chakra flowing through her head.
Concentrating hard, Naruto increased the flow to her eyes as much as she could and for a moment she thought it had worked.
"Naruto careful!" Sasuke yelled, leaping over to her to catch as she began to collapse, "That was way overboard."
"Huh? What happened?" Naruto asked in a weak voice.
"You forced most of your chakra to flow through your eyes at an unnatural rate, any more and you would risk killing yourself." He explained helping Naruto to her feet, for it was obvious that she couldn't stand alone, much less walk. "Come on, let's go get some supper."
Too tired to complain, Naruto merely sighed and leaned on Sasuke, trusting him to get them back in one piece.
- - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -
It took all of Sakura's self control not to maul Naruto as she and Sasuke returned for supper, here was an attractive girl looking exhausted and content, leaning up against Sasuke, though they claimed it to be a brother sister relationship, she didn't completely trust Naruto. It wasn't fair, the second best, who always came up just short of Sasuke turns out to be his adopted sister and to further add to the insult, she was more attractive and well developed than herself. But Naruto had given a challenge, if she were to beat it, then maybe she would have a better chance at Sasuke.
"Naruto overdid it again." Sasuke said, taking her to a seat at the table, before turning to the group. "When's supper, Naruto and I are famished."
"Actually…" Kakashi started before he was cut off by a loud thump.
Everyone jumped to the ready, startled by the noise and prepared for an attack, but when they turned to face the source of the noise, all they found was Naruto collapsed at the table, sound asleep.
- - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -
"Naruto?" Sakura asked tentatively as she intercepted Naruto on her way back to her room.
"Yes?" Naruto responded, caught with her hand on the nob, she turned it and opened the door, waiting to see what Sakura had to say.
"I uhhh... was just curious about... well, this," Sakura said, gesturing to Naruto's untransformed self covered by nothing but an oversized t-shirt she was using as a nightgown.
"In here," Naruto said, entering the room and flopping down on the bed. Sakura followed, closing the door behind herself and seating herself on the food of the bed. "So do you want to hear the full story?"
"Well it seems like I'm the only one on the team that wasn't informed, so yeah, I would like to know." Sakura answered, sounding a little hurt.
Naruto sighed and started her explanation, starting with who her parents were and going right up to how she met Sasuke. Going into extra depth on the necessity of the disguise, and ending with the subject of the nine tailed fox and her duty in carrying it.
Sakura remained silent and thoughtful for a few minutes, looking at the floor.
"So the villagers hate you for something you have no control over?" Sakura finally asked, getting a nod from Naruto, looking thoughtful again for a moment before asking, "And what about Sasuke?"
"We're the only family the other has," Naruto replied with a sigh, "It's been that way pretty much since we met."
Naruto looked up at the sound of footsteps, seeing Sakura walking to the door.
"Sakura," Naruto said as Sakura reached the door, "Want a word of advice?"
Sakura stopped, the door open and looked back at Naruto.
"Brush up on your skills," Naruto said casually, "He's fond of a girl who can take care of them self."
Sakura immediately turned and stomped out of the room, slamming the door and stomping down the hallway. Naruto just grinned to herself an closed her eyes, trying to get some sleep.
- - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -
To Naruto, being confined to bed was a fate worse than death, she had recovered from her chakra exhaustion hours ago and she wanted to do more training. But no, sensei had said to stay in the room and in bed. So in bed she was, practicing what Sasuke had told her to try, but this time with more restraint.
She had tried different amounts of chakra, but that hadn't yielded and results, so now she was experimenting with altering the flow of chakra through and around her eyes. She was convinced she was on to something, because she started to get a result before she lost it, but she was having trouble figuring out exactly what she had done the last time to start the change.
She was about to give up, when on her last try, she did something just right and her vision returned to its normal size and shifted from gray to what she thought might be negative colors. At first, she couldn't see anything special, but as she turned her head, she caught sight of a dull blue glow in the shape of a person coming from the direction of the kitchen.
Wanting a closer look, she got out of bed and stepped closer to the door, but just as she was about to open it, another of the glowing blue silhouette walked past the door at almost arms length. This time though the silhouette was more defined, when looked at closely, it was a series of blue tubes that seemed to branch and reconnect in random places with a higher than usual concentration of tubes in the hands and the abdomen.
Waiting until the person had passed by, Naruto reached for the door knob, but froze when her hand entered her sight. She froze because it wasn't a hand that entered her view but instead a similar series of tubes that she saw on the passer by, but her hand was a pinkish purple color as opposed to the light blue of the others.
After recovering from the surprise, she quietly opened the door and snuck to the end of the hallway. Keeping tabs on what she assumed was the chakra of the other residents of the house, she slowly made her way out of the house, sneaking into an empty room and out through a window, doing her best to not be seen.
Once outside, she fled into the woods with out any particular objective other than to put some distance between herself and the residents of the house. She kept running for nearly twenty minutes before she finally decided that no matter what she did they wouldn't be able to hear her. Searching her surrounding area, she found a small clearing that was just big enough to perform minor jutsu in.
Once in the clearing, she found a seat at the base of one of the surrounding trees and began to think of what she could do to test her new ability. The instant she had an idea, she leap to her feet and summoned a shadow clone and activated her doujutsu, moving in close and observing in detail every angle of the human shaped series of tubes, noting where the brighter spots were and how it left the tubes and swirled in a peculiar manner near where the eyes were.
After observing the formation of tubes until she felt their was nothing else to observe, she cut the flow of chakra to her eyes and turned her focus to the eyes of her clone. They were different than before, this time they were divided into to perfect halves, one pure black and one pure white, and they were constantly spinning. After feeling she had seen enough, she dismissed her clone and reactivated her doujutsu, conjuring elemental chakra to her hands and watched how it acted differently than regular chakra.
After observing both of her different types of elemental chakra she could conjure, she tried combining them again, this time watching them carefully and trying to see how they react together. Taking the fact that she could see what was happening within, she tried to hold it stable, without much success. After a few tries she got bored of just doing that and began to perform minor flame jutsu, watching the swirling chakra in them.
Just after performing another flame jutsu, Naruto noticed something out of place, visible through the mist of chakra left over from the jutsu was a feint greenish glow that didn't seem like it came from the jutsu itself. Growing curious, she set off through the trees, on a quest to find the source of the greenish glow. She didn't have to look far though, in a clearing a short distance away, Naruto found a small child who's chakra was green and flowed in strange patterns on their hands and the left of their chest. Sneaking as close as she could, Naruto deactivated her doujutsu to get a good look at the child, Naruto gasped, the child was clothed in an oversized shirt that came past their knees and both the child and the child and their shirt were filthy. The child was crying until Naruto caught their attention with her gasp, the child looked up with tear filled red eyes at Naruto. The child just stared at Naruto for a moment, as if they couldn't believe their eyes, before quickly getting to their feet and running at Naruto.
"Mommy!" the child cried as they grabbed onto Naruto's leg with more strength than their skinny arms looked like they possessed.
Naruto, meanwhile was too surprised to even react and merely stayed where she was until she was roused from her shock by a low rumbling chuckle in the back of her mind. Unable to think of anything better to do, she pried the child's arms off of her leg before picking them up and set off back towards the house.
When she arrived at the house, Naruto completely forwent all stealthy measures she used to escape, and walked right in the front door. She didn't care what her sensei or teammates would think about her sneaking out or returning with mysterious child, the child looked starved and probably wouldn't survive much longer on their own.
- - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -
"What are we going to do with her?" Sasuke asked, pointing with a thumb towards the room Naruto and the child were in.
"Who? Naruto or the kid?" Kakashi asked, not looking up from his book.
"The kid, she seems awfully attached to Naruto." Sasuke replied flatly.
"I'm sure we could take her back to Konoha with us." Kakashi said with a sigh, setting down the book.
"Huh…" Sasuke sighed.
"There we go, all clean." Naruto said cheerfully, carrying the child into the room and over too the table, the child now all cleaned and now clothed on one of Naruto's shirts.
"What do you think, Naruto?" Kakashi asked Naruto, turning to her as she took a seat at the table.
"I'm not leaving her here, she's way too cute." Naruto said, hugging the child close, "But she does bite."
"Really, she doesn't look like a biter." Sakura said, walking into the room, passing a barely perceivable glare at Naruto, who chose to ignore it.
"You have no idea, look at this." Naruto replied, holding the child's hand out, palm up and traced a finger across a deep line that ran parallel to the child's knuckles and reached almost all the way across the palm. "That's a mouth."
"What?" Sakura exclaimed with a look of disgust, edging away from the child. "That's gross."
"I think their cute," Naruto said defensively, sticking her tongue out at Sakura, "She has one on each hand and one on her chest"
"Well, that certainly is interesting." Kakashi said, not showing much interest.
"Then you wouldn't mind me telling you that she has horns as well." Naruto said with a grin.
"You can't be serious." Sakura said, casting a glance at the child's forehead for any obvious signs of horns.
"Here, look." Naruto said, brushing the child's hair back over one of her ears, causing the child to cast a nervous glance up at Naruto. Now clearly visible in front of ear was a small slightly pointed white lump protruding from the child's temple.
"She seems nervous with everybody looking at her." Sasuke said, leaning back and stretching. "Kinda reminds me of you."
"I'm sure she had good reason." Naruto replied, her voice and mood suddenly sour.
"What makes you say that?" Kakashi asked, alerted by Naruto's sudden change in mood.
"When I was getting her all cleaned up I found bruises, old and new, and they were caused by people, not clumsiness." Naruto explained grimly. "The people here obviously don't like her."
"Well then we have no choice than to take her with us." Kakashi said, standing up. "Now I think its time we all go to bed, we are returning to Konoha in the morning."
"But I've spent like the last three days in bed, I'm not tired." Naruto complained, trying the "Puppy-dog eyes" look on Kakashi.
"Too bad Naruto, you'll complain about being tired tomorrow if I let you stay up, besides, I think you need to find a bed for your little friend before she falls asleep on your lap." Kakashi pointed out, motioning to the child, who looked exhausted.
"Fine." Naruto said, setting the child on the floor and standing up and turning to the child, "Come on, let's get a bed set up for you."

"Be seein' ya now." Tazuna called, waving from the porch to the four ninjas as they rounded the corner on the lane that took them out of sight into the forest.
"Can't wait to get home." Naruto said from her position in the front of the pack, now back in her usual ensemble and the nameless child sitting on her shoulders.
"For what? To stuff your face with ramen?" Sasuke asked, from just behind and to the left of her, no longer bandaged up but still wore a sling for his right arm.
"I was looking forward to showing the old man what I've learned, but now that you mention it, I've been craving some for the past week." Naruto said, licking her lips in anticipation.
"Is that all you ever think about?" Sakura asked, from her position next to Sasuke, sounding somewhat disappointed in Naruto.
"Pretty much." Sasuke said, jokingly answering the question for Naruto.
"Hey! Not true." Naruto said with a growl. "I think about a few other things, thank you very much."
"All of you quiet for a moment." Kakashi said from the back of the group, book away and looking very much alert. "Up ahead."
Looking up ahead, Naruto could clearly make out two people sitting on the side of the path, one of them wearing civilian clothing with a bandana around their head, and the other in a pink floral patterned kimono. The first was leaning up against a giant sword that looked very familiar and they were both looking over a scroll that was spread out on the ground.
They slowed their approach and prepared themselves for a fight, but their was no chance of them escaping into the woods to avoid them, they had been loud enough that those two would have to be deaf to not hear them.
As they got closer, Naruto recognized the sword as belonging to Zabuza. Not to mention the person next to him looked awfully like the Haku person she had met in the woods and later on the bridge. Lowering the child to the ground and taking them by the hand, Naruto dropped back next to Kakashi and said, "I know one of them, I'm pretty sure they mean no harm."
"You still never know if you can trust someone who nearly killed you and your comrade." Kakashi replied, ordering the group to halt before stepping forward to confront the two. "Zabuza, state your purpose here."
"Why, waiting for you of course." The one in civilian clothing replied, standing and pulling his gigantic sword from the ground, resting it on his shoulder.
Kakashi was instantly ready for an attack, kunai suddenly in one hand and the other grasping his headband.
"Well isn't she cute." Haku said, standing up and moving over to see the child passing Kakashi with no concern about his actions.
"She's cute alright," Naruto said smiling at Haku's disregard for the kunai wielding Jounin crouched in a battle stance right beside them. "But be careful, she bites."
"Oh, that's alright." Haku replied, reaching out to pat the child's head, but drawing it back in surprise when the child shied away in fright, clinging onto Naruto's leg.
"Well are we just going to stand here or are we going to get going?" Zabuza asked, looking impatiently at Kakashi who was still crouched and ready to attack.
"Go where?" Kakashi asked cautiously; slowly straitening and lowering his arms, but keeping the kunai in hand.
"Konoha, where else?" Zabuza replied turning and slowly beginning down the path.
With that they resumed their journey, plus two members, and Naruto reclaimed her position at the front to the pack, joined in short order by Haku and shortly after, Sasuke.
Naruto, having already met Haku, took the liberty of introducing them to Sasuke. Sasuke greeted them with a nod and a slight smile, while Haku returned the greeting with a light blush and a slightly stammered hello. This made Naruto come to the conclusion that, despite their somewhat androgynous appearance, they were definitely female and Sakura wouldn't be too happy about that.
Zabuza walked a slight ways behind the group in front and off to the side of the trail, walking in complete silence, apparently in deep thought. Sakura walked slightly behind Zabuza and on the other side of the path, looking quite lonely and occasionally casting a fearful glance at Zabuza or an angry one up at Haku. Bring up the back of the pack was Kakashi, who looked as if he were reading his little orange book, but he really had his full attention on Zabuza, not trusting the other man for a moment.
Sakura moved up with the others in the front after a few short minutes, introducing herself to Haku and joining in on the discussion. She didn't seem too happy with all the attention she was getting from Sasuke, but she was friendly and seemed to get along with Haku.
When they neared Konoha, Kakashi told the group to stop and they moved off to the side of the path to discuss a few thing.
"I don't know what your trying to do but theirs no way you'll make it into Konoha alive." Kakashi said to Zabuza, his distrust evident in the phrase.
"I'm merely looking to strike a deal with your Hokage," Zabuza replied calmly, "And I was thinking that a simple disguise would suffice."
"The door guards are trained professionals, no chance a basic disguise would make it past them." Kakashi said with a hint of contempt.
"Well, you seem to know what you're talking about, do you know any jutsu that would fool them?" Zabuza asked the 'Know it All' teacher.
"Possibly an S rank disguise jutsu or genjutsu, but I don't know any that would be any use to you." Kakashi stated, now obviously trying to make Zabuza give up and leave.
"Umm, Zabuza-san, I think I know a jutsu you could use." Naruto said, pulling on Zabuza's sleeve.
"Really? Could I see it?" Zabuza asked, sounding surprised that the student knew a disguise jutsu that the teacher didn't.
"Alright, one moment." Naruto said with a smile. 'The cancellation form of this jutsu you made had better work.' She thought to the Kyuubi while going slowly through the hand signs in a sequence she performed almost every day, transforming herself into an exact copy of Sasuke with the exception of her hair. "It's a basic shape-shifting jutsu based off of the basic henge. All you've got to do is change the last hand sign by a little bit and then do the first one again. But because it's an actual physical shape-shift, it doesn't effect your hair."
"It's perfect." Zabuza said, giving the jutsu a quick look over before copying the hand signs and transforming into a middle aged man that Naruto couldn't identify but seemed eerily familiar "We had better get going, I have much to discuss with your Hokage."
The members of team seven exchanged confused glances while Haku and the now disguised Zabuza returned to the road.
"Hold on, what about your sword?" Naruto asked suddenly while at the same time performing the cancellation form of the shape-shifting jutsu, her appearance seeming to melt back to her natural form. "Normal people don't carry those things with them where ever they go."
"I never thought about that." Zabuza said, taking his sword off of his shoulder and planting it point first into the ground. "You wouldn't happen to have a jutsu for that as well would you?"
"Actually, I think I have a storage scroll here somewhere." Naruto said, pulling a few weapons and items out of the tattoo on her wrist before finding a scroll and tossing it to Zabuza.
"Damn kid, you've got a solution for everything." Zabuza said, storing his sword in the scroll.
Naruto smiled ecstatically at the compliment, running to catch up, while performing her shape-shifting jutsu on the run to return to her everyday appearance.
"Wait," Sakura asked suddenly, "How come Zabuza has to wear a disguise and Haku doesn't?"
"Because Zabuza is a registered threat in the bingo books throughout the elemental countries, while Haku hasn't done anything bad enough to draw attention to herself, so she isn't a known criminal." Kakashi answered in a monotone voice that seemed to cast the two in a bad light.
Sasuke humphed at Kakashi's negative opinion of the two and moved up to walk with Naruto, Sakura and Haku, starting up the discussion they had been having earlier.
"Look, there's Konoha!" Naruto exclaimed as they rounded a bend and entered a clearing that brought the gates into view. But for all her excitement, something seemed off about Naruto, the closer they got to Konoha, the quieter and more subdued she became, almost as she were afraid to be returning. By the time they arrived at the gates she was hardly contributing to the conversation, replying to question with the most basic answers and not really looking at any villagers, merely putting up a fake smile for them.
"I thought she loved this place, what's going on?" Haku whispered to Sasuke as the group stopped at the gates to confirm their return, looking at the villagers with disgust with the way they looked at Naruto.
"She does, she'll be back to normal in a day or two." Sasuke whispered back as they started up again into the town, "she was enjoying her week that she didn't need to hide."
"I hope so, I don't like her like this, it reminds me of…" she replied, trailing off at the end, gazing off into the distance.
"Sasuke, Sakura, Naruto… Haku, in here." Kakashi called from a short ways back, pointing to the building between them.
"A bar?" Zabuza asked once they were all in the building.
"Every Thursday at around this time the old man comes by here for a drink or two… or ten" Naruto explained, sounding more relaxed already.
"You see him?" Sasuke asked.
"Found him." Zabuza said, weaving quickly through the crowd to one of the tables in the back before waving the others over.
"Good afternoon Hiruzen." Zabuza said as the others sat down.
"Kakashi?" Sarutobi asked, not looking up from the scroll he had spread out on the table, "Your back."
"No Hiruzen, it's Blue, but he's back too." Zabuza explained as Naruto made the association between Zabuza's disguise and Kakashi, cursing herself for not noticing earlier.
"Blue! What are you doing here?" Sarutobi asked, setting down his drink and looking up. "I told you to send word before your arrival if you ever decided to come. You are a very popular person if I remember correctly."
"I've decided to take that deal you proposed last time we talked." Zabuza said in a most serious tone, placing two unlabeled scrolls on the table. "Do you promise to keep up your end of the deal?"
"A deal is a deal, assuming this information is acceptable, you and your apprentice will be granted Konoha citizenship under surveillance, as will you." Sarutobi stated before turning his attention to team 7. "How went the mission?"
"We ran into them." Kakashi said flatly jerking a thumb in the direction of Zabuza before rolling three mission scrolls to Sarutobi. "There were some odd happenings, they along with Naruto's unbelievable advancements in the field of chakra control are explained in the third scroll."
"Unbelievable advancements?" Sarutobi asked, raising a gray eyebrow at Naruto.
"It's in the scroll, but at the moment we have more important things to discuss." Kakashi said before looking at the other members of his team. "Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, you are dismissed."
"Haku, you go with them too, you don't need to hear this conversation." Zabuza said sternly, motioning for her to go.
"Wait, what about her?" Naruto said, pointing to the little girl in her lap who was playing with something she had found on the table.
"Take her with you for now, we'll find a place for her later." Sarutobi replied, glancing at the child as he said it.
Naruto sighed a sad sigh, exited the bar and disappeared down the street before anyone could pursue, taking the child with her.
- - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -
"Where'd she go?" Haku asked Sasuke as they stepped out side and started walking.
"Home probably, she just needs some alone time." Sasuke said with a shrug before grabbing Haku by the wrist and turning down a street. "Let me show you around town…"
- - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -
Sakura growled at the sight of Sasuke and Haku walking side by side down the street and went her own way, wanting to drop her things off at her house and change into some fresh cloths.
She was greeted excitedly by her mother when she arrived home, forced to sit down and listen to her mothers adventures of the week. When asked how the mission went, she told her it was nothing exciting and they just helped someone build. It took a while to quell her mothers excitement and escape to her room, where she dropped her things and seated herself on her bed, watching the sun set over the city through her window and grumbled to herself about the new girl Haku and about what Naruto said at the end of their chat at Tazuna's house. As little as she liked to admit it, it was true she was falling behind on her skills, and if Naruto meant it, that was putting her farther away from being with Sasuke as much as from being a better ninja.
She stood up and went to the window , deciding that she was not going to get any sleep tonight. Sliding the window open, she hoisted herself out and jumping to the street a story below walking quickly down the street, intent on some good hard training.
- - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -
*Knock Knock*
Naruto groaned, sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes and mentally cursing who ever was at her door. Glaring at the clock with bleary eyes, she read 6:00 and decided that she had slept long enough and the person at the door would be addressed.
Rolling out of bed and quietly walking to the door, she cleared her throat and in the best chakra enhanced voice she could muster that early in the morning asked, "Who is it?" before turning to her desk and searching for something appropriate to put on should they be someone she would let in.
Instead of an answer, the door quietly clicked open and Haku stepped inside, with a multitude of bags hanging from her wrist. Naruto squeaked in surprise and grabbed the first thing she could find to cover up her nakedness, which happened to be her oversized orange towel with a black smiley face on it. Haku giggled at Naruto's frantic actions before grabbing her by the wrist, dragging her over to the bathroom and shoving her into the shower, handing her an unlabeled bottle and saying, "Wash your hair with this."
Naruto just stood there dazed for a moment before following Haku's orders and starting the shower and washing her hair with the mystery solution. When she was finished in the shower, she dried off, looked in the mirror and was astonished to find the solution she washed her hair with had turned it brown. Stepping out of the bathroom, wrapped in her towel, she walked up to Haku and demanded, "What did you do to my hair?"
"Don't worry, it'll come out next time you wash it." was Haku's only response before handing her a gray sleeveless shirt and a black skirt. "Put these on."
Naruto took her time putting the clothes on, not liking the skirt having never worn one before. She skirt fit perfectly, ending just above the knees and loose enough for her to move around easily, but the shirt however did not. It was much too long, ending half way down the skirt, as well as being way too tight around the chest, not leaving much to the imagination, even with her chest wrapped.
"Come here, I want to hide those scars." Haku said after Naruto had finished getting dressed, pulling out a small makeup kit and opening it.
Naruto complied wordlessly, wanting to see where Haku was going with all of this. After Haku was done with her face, she was shown her reflection and staring back at her back at her was a completely different person.
"Alright lets go." Haku said, grabbing Naruto's wrist and pulling her towards the door.
"Go where?" Naruto asked, firmly attaching her feet to the floor with chakra to stop Haku.
"It's a secret." Haku said with a wink and Naruto sighed, letting Haku drag her along.
"Wait, what about her?" Naruto said, resisting once again, pointing to the child who was curled up in her only comfy chair, sound asleep.
"Sasuke said he'd drop by and look after her in a little while." Haku replied quickly, pulling harder. "Let's go already."
- - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -
"Come on Haku, I feel ridiculous. Where are we going?" Naruto complained, picking at her skirt while she walked.
"You can't honestly tell me you haven't gone out without your disguise up before." Haku said, glancing over at Naruto with surprise while they walked.
"Not in a few years and this outfit isn't helping any, people keep staring at me." Naruto replied, glaring at a guy staring at her from across the street.
"Oh, just ignore them, guys tend to do that when they see a pretty girl." Haku said offhandedly as she pulled Naruto into a shop.
Naruto was too stunned to reply, or even look up at the name of the shop she was yanked into but once she was in, all she could see were clothes stacked and hung everywhere. Before she could resist or try to escape, she was pulled over to a shelf and Haku started handing her various articles of clothing of all different types and sizes. After she had more than her own wardrobe stacked on her arms, she was led to the back of the store where they had a series of stalls. Haku turned to Naruto and took most of the cloths, leaving her with only a few handfuls of underwear.
"Start with those and come out to show me when you find a pair that fit." Haku said, pushing Naruto into one of the stalls.
Naruto stood there dumbfounded for a moment, staring at what she was supposed to try on before turning and asking, "What's wrong with what I have now?"
"Well for one thing they're Sasuke's old ones, they're made for a Boy, and they're falling apart, pretty soon you'll need new ones whether you like it or not. And plus, you don't have to try them all on", we just need to find your size. Haku explained, shaking her head in mock disappointment.
Naruto just grumbled and closed the door and began trying on all manner of embarrassing garments emerging periodically whenever she found some that fit, only to grumble in frustration if they were rejected. Eventually, Naruto had a few pares that fit and Haku had given her a multitude of different shirts to try on while she returned the stuff that didn't fit to the shelves. The trying on of the shirts went much the same way as the previous session and shortly after, trying on pants and skirts. It was all going more smoothly than Haku had expected until she decided to hand Naruto a pink dress to try on next time she emerged from the changing room. Naruto flatly refused to take it until Haku forced her to at weapon point, saying it would look cute on her. once Naruto got the dress on though, she refused to leave the changing room, even after Haku threatened to kill her with pointy tools of death if she didn't leave, saying that if she did leave she would kill herself with pointy tools of death.
Glancing quickly around to make sure nobody was watching, Haku jumped onto the space of wall above and behind Naruto's stall, using chakra to slowly slide down the wall and land next to Naruto. Unable to do much in the cramped space, Haku quickly reached past Naruto, undoing the latch and pushing both herself and Naruto out of the stall. Immediately after exiting, Haku pulled the door shut and sealed it shut with some ice in the hinges and latch.
Turning to Naruto, Haku tried to suppress a giggle, realizing that Naruto did look a little ridiculous in a pink dress, but had an idea. Pushing Naruto back unto the dressing room she said, "Take that one off, I saw one you might like."
Naruto struggled with getting the dress off and when she finally did, Haku appeared at the door, handing her a different dress while taking the pink one. To Naruto's delight, the new dress was black and orange, much easier to put on, and fit better. Quickly pulling the dress on, Naruto timidly stepped out of the stall and asked Haku, "How does it look?"
"Its perfect," Haku replied with a smile, "Now take it off, we've got to go pay for this stuff."
Naruto put the clothes she had worn here back on and they collected all of the things Naruto had tried on that fit and they took them to the counter. At the counter the clerk was quite cheerful, but Naruto couldn't help but be nervous because she had encountered this clerk at a different shop a few years ago. That encounter had gone badly, she had gone shopping for something to replace her old worn cloths, but when she went to pay, she was told she didn't deserve do have what she was trying to buy and was then kicked out of the shop.
To Naruto's relief and to a lesser degree her surprise, the clerk merely smiled and commented on having never seen Naruto around before while ringing up the purchases. After seeing the price of all the cloths, Naruto insisted that she pay for them but Haku waved her off saying it was her treat.
"We should be getting back to your place," Haku said with a sigh once they left the shop, "Sasuke said he wanted to speak with you."
Naruto just grunted in response, laden down with numerous bags of clothing, before starting off in the direction of her house.
- - - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -
It took quite a bit longer on the way back, laden down with bags, but when they rounded the corner that brought the apartment into view Naruto decided to have a little fun.
"I'll race you." Naruto said, racing ahead rather quickly and focusing chakra to her eyes so that she could see all directions and keep tabs on Haku.
Haku just smiled raced after Naruto, jumping onto the rooftops and sprinting towards the apartment.
Naruto saw Haku leap onto the rooftops and leapt onto the walkway in front of her apartment and stealthily landed in front of her door.
Just as she landed in front of the door, it swung open and a rather angry Sasuke stepped out and grabbed Naruto by the wrist, pulling her inside.
"What do you think you were doing?" Sasuke asked angrily, looking back and fourth between Naruto and Haku.
"Shopping…" Haku answered timidly, looking at the floor and fidgeting with her hands, obviously not prepared for the overprotective brother.
"And you let her go out like this?" Sasuke demanded Haku, motioning broadly in Naruto's direction with his arm.
"It's alright, nobody recognized her." Haku answered quickly, trying to calm Sasuke down a little.
Sasuke looked at her for a moment before shifting his gaze to Naruto, obviously thinking.
"Then did you at least get her some clothing that fits her better?" Sasuke asked, calming down a bit.
"I said we went shopping, didn't I?" Haku asked rhetorically with a grin, grabbing her bags off of the floor and tossing them to Naruto.
"Naruto, get changed, we have to go see the Hokage." Sasuke said, walking out of the apartment.
"Is he always like that?" Haku asked when he left.
"Oh don't mind him, he's just a little overprotective of me." Naruto said with a sigh, setting down her bags and looking for a place to put them.
"Alright, you should get changed." Haku said, grabbing one of the bags and pulling out an outfit for Naruto.
Naruto quickly changed, tossing her dirty clothing into a pile in the corner, which earned a frown from Haku.
"We should get going." Haku said, stepping to the door and motioning to Naruto.
"What about her?" Naruto said, walking over to her bed where the little girl slept. "We can't just leave her here."
"Well then take her with us." Haku replied, beginning to sound a little impatient.
Naruto reached out and gently touched the shoulder of the child, and the child stirred awake. The child looked up at Naruto for a moment before they recognized her and reached out for her. Naruto picked the child up and walked out of the apartment, setting off with Haku towards the Hokage tower.
- - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -
"What do you mean I'm not capable of taking care of a child?" Naruto demanded before the Hokage could explain.
"Listen, Naruto, the schedule of a professional ninja does not allow for the proper care of a child." The Hokage explained, massaging his forehead.
"He's got a point Naruto." Sasuke said, his arms folded across his chest and a stern look on his face.
"Well then what are we going to do?" Naruto demanded, "I'm not leaving her with people I don't know."
"Its fine, she can stay with my family at the Hokage estate, and you can take her on the days you have off." The Hokage said, getting up from the table. "Now I'll take her back to the estate, you have a mission today."
With that a new routine was set, every bit of free time Naruto had was spent either training with Haku and Sasuke or at the Hokage estate, spending time with the little girl, later named Yuki by team seven.
- - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -
"So what were Zabuza and old man Hokage going on about that day in the bar when we brought you two here?" Naruto asked Haku as they picked up a fallen support beam from the abandoned building they were demolishing.
"What do you mean?" Haku asked, as they tossed the beam into a stack they had of several others.
"The Hokage mentioned some deal he had with Zabuza." Naruto explained as they returned to the building for another load.
"Oh yes, that..." Haku replied, remembering what Naruto was asking about, "Well, it happened when I was still a little kid, and I had been with Zabuza for about a year. I was learning a lot from him, but I couldn't take care of myself yet so Zabuza was keeping us fed by doing jobs at the local task centers they have in little towns. They are a lot like the ninja jobs your teams get each day, but for regular people that need some extra cash and can work for it.
"He would take me on his jobs and I would help out as much as I could without drawing attention to my training, and we would stay at each town for a week or so doing jobs before moving to a new town. But one town we went to just inside the fire country, they wouldn't let Zabuza take me with him to his job, offering to look after me for the day along with the other kids and that I would be safe with them. Zabuza was reluctant, but he let them take care of me for the time he was on jobs that week and I played with the other kids or practiced what he had been teaching me when I thought nobody was around.
"I wasn't as stealthy as I thought I was though, because on the fourth day, their was an old man with the job givers, apparently there on business. Zabuza warned me to be careful around him, and I was, but when I was practicing with making ice mirrors off by myself, he found me. He didn't make anything big of it, and I though he didn't notice anything, but when Zabuza got back he was confronted by the old man in person and they went into a private room for a discussion.
"The discussion took a while and after they let Zabuza out, he was payed more than double what his job that day was supposed to pay. He didn't tell me who that was or what they wanted at the time, but we packed up and left that night, skipping the next few towns. After we settled back into our regular pattern, he told me that it was the Hokage himself, and he had proposed a deal that would mean a better way of life with less running and no hiding.
"As soon as I was able to handle myself in combat, we set out on a different path, tracking down a few different things; a group that made a grab for power in a few different of the elemental countries, even taking down the Mizukage and taking his position, a group that was collecting the Tailed Demons one by one, and what remained of the swordsmen of the mist.
"We still had to take jobs to make money for living, but they weren't our main focus anymore, though we had pretty much exhausted any and all leads we had by the time we took the job that ran us into you, so after some thinking, Zabuza decided to see if the Hokage would make good on his deal after all this time."
"So what is Zabuza going to do here?" Naruto asked, wiping her brow and looking at the piles of debris that remained where the building had been that morning.
"He agreed to be a teacher of various different sword fighting styles as part of the deal he made with the Hokage, and once people got over their fear of him, hes class has become quite popular due to the lack of competition in the city." Haku said with a smile.
"And what about you, how did you fit into the deal?" Naruto asked, thinking of the talents she had seen Haku display.
"I have a bloodline that lets me manipulate water and ice at will, and to a greater degree than molding elemental chakra allows." She replied, summoning a small ball of water out of the air and levitating it between her hands. "So the plan is to introduce a new bloodline into Konoha, to increase the diversity and strength of the clans."
"Come on you two, lets go turn in for the day." Sasuke hollered at Naruto and Haku, the rest of the team starting on their way down the street back to turn in that days mission.
- - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -
It had been a month now since the mission in wave and Naruto was getting irritated with all the D ranked missions and was looking for some action. Though, unfortunately, this time it seemed to be looking for her too.
"Hey Konohamaru," Naruto said, walking up to him and his friends when she spied them on her walk home. "How's Yuki been doing?"
"Shhhhhh…" Konohamaru shushed Naruto, looking around. "She's looking for us."
Naruto just looked around, noticing Yuki stealthily approaching the group from around the corner and stepped back as to not interfere.
Yuki quietly ran around the corner, smiling at Naruto as she passed and stopped behind just behind Konohamaru without anyone in the group noticing. She poked him on the arm and quickly stepped to the other side of him before he had time to turn around.
Konohamaru turned to see who had poked him, looking around he didn't see anyone so turned the other side and jumped back when he saw Yuki.
"You're it…" Yuki whispered timidly with her eyes cast downward, before rushing to the next corner with both of Konohamaru's friends.
Less than a second after they rounded the corner Naruto heard one of them scream rather loud.
The instant Naruto heard the scream she rushed forward at top speed, disappearing from sight and reappearing at the end to the next street, catching the attention of everyone down the street she was on street. What she found here she didn't like, one of Konohamaru's friends was on the ground and one of two foreign looking ninjas had Yuki by the collar. Naruto immediately noticed that neither of the ninja's were from Konoha, but that didn't change the fact that they had Yuki captive.
"Let her go." Naruto demanded, stepping forward and sliding a hand up her sleeve for a weapon.
"I'm just teaching this runt a little manners." The boy in the black cloak said with an evil grin.
"Uhhhh Kankuro…" the girl behind 'Kankuro' said nervously, glancing at Naruto's angry face and battle ready stance.
"Quiet Temari, I can…" Kankuro began before being interrupted by a third person whom Naruto was unfamiliar with.
"Kankuro… put them down…" the voice interrupted, bland but threatening, drawing all eyes to the origin of the voice, a nearby tree. In the tree was a boy around the age of his two comrades, hanging upside down from a branch with a large gourd strapped to his back.
Naruto immediately noticed something off about the boy and activated her doujutsu to its second level to get a better look at the boy. He glowed a bright gold color over his entire body, showing no traces of the natural blue chakra save for at his core where it was produced and quickly consumed.
'Kyuubi?' Naruto silently asked the beast sealed in her stomach, unsure of what she was seeing.
'I would know that chakra anywhere, it's the Ichibi and he's very poorly sealed.' The Kyuubi answered in an amused voice.
'Oh, great…' Naruto thought back to the Kyuubi, watching as the container of the Ichibi disappeared from sight and reappeared next to the Kankuro character.
"I said, put them down." The Ichibi container said, this time sounding more serious than before.
Naruto saw sweat bead on Kankuro's forehead and fear come to his eyes as his fingers slowly began to uncurl. Seeing that he was planning to drop Yuki, Naruto launched herself forward as fast as she could, catching her as soon as she started to fall. She stopped directly in front of the Ichibi container, allowing a little of the Kyuubi's chakra to leak out and looking up to glare at him with red eyes with slit pupils
The boy stared back with surprise evident in his eyes, but he quickly blanked his expression then turned around and walked away.
Once the group of unfriendly ninjas rounded a corner, Naruto relaxed and set Yuki down and went over to check on Konohamaru's friends.
"Having fun disturbing Konoha's guests?" Sasuke called from the rooftop opposite the tree the third ninja had appeared in.
"They started it." Naruto declared before turning to Konohamaru telling him and his friends to take Yuki and return to the Hokage manor.
"Come on, Kakashi-sensei wants to see us." Sasuke said, turning and walking out of sight.
Naruto just sighed and jumped up to the top, landing next Sasuke. "Did he say why he wanted to see us?"
"No, but he said not to be late." Sasuke said, picking up the pace, now jumping from building top to building top.
"And what about those ninjas, they weren't from around here…" Naruto asked, staying in stride with Sasuke.
"Dunno," Sasuke replied before quickly rebounding off of a wall towards a small back ally.
Naruto quickly follow him, launching herself into the ally and sliding down the wall, landing her right next to the rest of team 7 who were accompanied by Zabuza and Haku.
"Now that you're all here," Kakashi started, pulling some papers from his kunai pouch and handing them to the four younger ninjas. "These are application forms for the Chunin exams, if you wish to participate you have to fill them out and take them to the place indicated on the form."
"And this is for you," Kakashi said, turning to Zabuza and handing him a different paper. "It's from the Hokage."
"What about missions for the day?" Naruto asked, putting the paper away.
"You have the day off, to decide whether you want to participate or not." Kakashi said, pulling out his little orange book. "You are all dismissed for the day."

“Let us through!” Tenten growled at the Chunin in front of door 301 as the Chunin pushed her teammate Lee backwards.

“You're pathetic,” the Chunin out front said, laughing at the team trying to get though. “Go back to your training, you are not ready for this exam.”

Tenten tried to push through again, but with a quick swing of his arm, the Chunin who spoke hit her across the face and she fell back into the crowd of other Genin from various countries trying to get through.

“You can drop the act and let us through, we've got an exam to take and you'd be sorry to make us late.” Sasuke said as he Naruto and Sakura walked down the hall side by side, coming up on the scene of them fighting.

“Act? The Chunin asked with a sneer, looking to the newcomers with contempt. “This is a fair warning, not an act.”

“This is obviously a illusion, room 301 is on the third floor, not the second, and the papers on the door have not moved with the draft in the hallway.” Sakura pointed out, not looking too impressed with the Chunin.

“Not too bad,” the Chunin started, and the wall behind him shifted slightly, the sign now saying 201 and the papers gone. The Chunin launched himself at Sasuke winding up for a powerful kick. “But all you did was see through it!”

Sasuke wound up to counter the enemies kick with one of his own, but just as the two were about to contact, Lee appeared between them, catching both their legs mid swing. Once they had both come to a complete stop, Lee released them, the Chunin falling to the floor and Sasuke hopping back to regain his balance.

“Hey,” another Genin in a beige coat with lavender pupil-less eyes said, stepping up to Lee, “Wasn't it your plan not to draw attention?”

Lee ignored him and walked right up to Sakura and said “Hi!”

“Hi...?” Sakura said back, getting a smile from Lee.

“My name is...” but that was all he managed to get out before Tenten stepped up behind him and pulled him away by his ear.

“Come, lets get out of here.” the Genin in the beige coat said as Tenten pulled the Lee along behind him.

“Shall we continue?” Naruto asked a distracted looking Sasuke, watching the last of the fooled Genin filter out towards the next floor.

“It was odd, he managed to move into position and block both kicks with incredible strength, but it didn't look or feel like a ninjutsu.” Sasuke said as they started walking.

The hall lead into a training gym with stairs on the far side up to the next floor. When they were half way across the gym, they were stopped, by Lee from the hallway, a boy dressed in a deep green jump-suit with orange leg warmers and bandages wrapping his arms to the elbows.

“You there,” he called from the balcony at the top of the stairs before jumping to the center of the gym.

“Me?” Naruto asked, unsure of who he meant and she was at the front of the group.

“I mean no disrespect, but no, not you.” Lee replied, pointing to Sasuke. “I meant him.”

“Will you fight me, right here?” Lee said as Sasuke stepped forward.

“Sasuke, wait.” Naruto said, trying to pull Sasuke back.

“It will be fine Naruto, we have time.” Sasuke said, shrugging Naruto off and stepping up to his challenger, holding out his hand for a handshake. “Uchiha Sasuke.”

“Rock Lee, Konoha's strongest Genin.” Lee introduced himself, slapping Sasuke's hand in the form of a high-five. “Be ready to lose.”

The two boys jumped backwards, putting some space between each other, Sasuke sprinted forward as soon as he landed and attempted to catch Lee off guard with a few strong punches. Lee surprised all of team seven, however, by blocking all the blows with little effort and retaliating with one swift kick that managed to slip past Sasuke's guard and send him flying back. Sasuke was surprised, but not discouraged, activating his Sharingan and trying again, this time focusing more on tracking his opponents motions than actually hitting him. It went much the same way as the last attempt though, Sasuke getting thrown back by another kick.

“Even if your eyes can see me, your body can't keep up with me.” Lee taunted as Sasuke got back to his feet again, dropping into a more aggressive combat stance.

Sasuke growled something under his breath and pressed forward once more, faster than before, trying to force his body to match the speed his eyes had seen.

Lee seemed surprised at the sudden improvement and Sasuke nearly broke through his defenses before he retaliated, knocking Sasuke back and catching him under the jaw with a powerful kick sending him flying across the room.

Naruto gasped when she saw Sasuke sent flying, knowing he was in a bad position when Lee appeared behind him in mid air. Naruto summoned two shadow clones between Sasuke and Lee, pushing them apart. One clone stayed with Lee, locking his arms and legs as they fell and the other stayed with Sasuke, cushioning his landing.

“Enough of this.” Naruto said, arms folded, frowning at Lee and Sasuke. “Save it for the exam.”

Dispelling her clones, Naruto walked across the room and up the stairs to the exit, not looking at either Lee or Sasuke. Lee took that as his que and disappeared from the room faster than the eye could follow while Sakura helped Sasuke up and they both followed Naruto out of the room.

“What was that about?” Sasuke asked as he caught up with Naruto.

“What is wrong with you?” Naruto growled back stopping and whirling on Sasuke. “You get mad at me for being slightly irresponsible then turn around and do stupid shit like this?”

“Naruto, I...” Sasuke started, taken aback by the anger in Naruto's voice.

“Think about your own safety for once.” Naruto said, sounding less angry and more worried. “He wasn't holding back, it was a real challenge and he could have killed you. I think he might have if i hadn't stopped you two.”

“Hurry up you two.” Sakura said from down the hallway.

“Come on, we don't want to be late.” Naruto said, catching up with Sakura.

As the three of them rounded the corner in the hallway, they were greeted by a familiar “Yo.” At the door 301 stood Kakashi waiting for them.

“Ah good, you're all here, that means you can take the exam.” Kakashi said as the Genin approached.

“But you said it was an individual choice to take it or not.” Sakura said.

“I didn't want one of you to feel pressured into it by the others, but you are all here, so good luck” Kakashi replied, gesturing towards the door labeled 301.

- - - - - - - -Line break- - - - - - - - -

The entire room turned to look at the sound of newcomers as the double doors swung open. In walked an oddly dressed trio, younger by a few years than the average and while their manner of dress was a little odd, it did not seem out of place next to the rest of them. They were quickly dismissed as uninteresting and not worth noticing after the first glance by most and they lost the rooms attention, groups turning back to what they were doing before. One group, however, recognized them on their entry and moved to meet them.

“Sasuke, I missed you!” a blond haired girl of around the same age as the entering team called out, leaping from the crowd and latching onto Sasuke's shoulder.

“Well we didn't miss you Ino.” Sakura said, glaring at the girl.

“Tch, you guys are taking this stupid test too?” Shikimaru, a skinny boy with black hair pulled back into bunch on the top, giving his head an appearance similar to a pineapple, emerged from the crowd slightly behind Ino. “Troublesome...”

“Hey, it's the idiot trio.” Naruto said with a grin when the third member, Choji, a rather pudgy genin with odd swirls on his cheeks, came forth from the crowd.

“Hey, don't call us that.” Ino said, detaching herself from Sasuke just long enough to bonk Naruto on the top of the head.

“Heh, looks like we’re all here.” another voice said, coming from the leader of another team, walking over with a little dog on his head leading a boy in a long coat with sunglasses and a shy girl in an over sized hoodie.

“You guys too?” Shikamaru asked when he saw the other team.

“Yeah, and we won’t lose to you idiots either, we’ve been training.” the boy with a dog on his head, Kiba, exclaimed in response, aggravating most of the other two teams with his presence and comments.

“Are you ok Naruto?” Hinata asked Naruto with a little stutter, moving to Naruto’s side to help, the rest of the group now arguing loudly about their skills.

“I’m ok, Ino didn’t hit that hard.” Naruto said, looking up at Hinata and smiling. “How have you been, you look good.”

“I.. Uh.... Um...” Hinata blushed deeply when Naruto smiled at her and stumbled over what she wanted to say before she was cut off by someone else detaching from the crowd.

“Tch, Idiots...” Shikamaru said, splitting off from the group and joining Naruto and hinata.

“Kiba always gets everyone riled up.” Naruto said, watching Kiba talk loudly at the rest of the group.

“Not the smartest idea considering the people in the room.” A stranger said, appearing between Naruto and Shikamaru, causing them both to jump a little in surprise.

“What do you mean?” Shikamaru asked while at the same time Naruto asked, “Who are you?”

“I’m Kabuto, Senior Genin of Konoha, and look at all the attention they are drawing with their argument.” the stranger said gesturing to Kiba before standing straight and pushing some of his silver hair out of his face, a head and shoulder above Naruto and Shikamaru.

Looking around, Naruto noticed that most of the room were watching the rookies while chatting amongst themselves.

“If you won’t listen to me, at least listen to this guy,” Sasuke said to Kiba, gesturing to Kabuto having noticed and heard him.

Kiba huffed and quieted down as the group drifted over to where Kabuto had appeared, all wondering what he wanted.

“You taken this test before?” Naruto asked Kabuto.

“I have, but they change the test and examiners every time.” Kabuto answered before pulling out a stack of cards from his back equipment pouch. “Though i have gathered information on the participants to give me an edge.”

“Each of the elemental countries has at least one team participating in the exam this time, though number of participants greatly depends on the size of the country and available ninjas,” Kabuto pulled the top card off the pile and placed it face up in his hand, running some chakra through it. the card displayed a map of the continent with each country labeled with a bar that denoted the number of participants they sent.

Konoha had the most, being the host country this time, but sand and rain had quite a few as well while a few minor villages have sent one or two teams.

“I’ve also got information about most of the genin participating, though some is just speculation and others are new to the test as well. Take the only team from the Sound hidden village, they are a pretty minor village and this is their first team ever sent to this test so i have no information on them, but every konoha genin i have their profiles from official information sources here and i just have to find their card.” Kabuto explained gesturing to the deck he had.

“I have a few i want you to find for me.” Sasuke said after listening to the explination. “Rock Lee, the red haired boy from the sand village that carries a gourd on his back and myself.

“Lets see what i can do,” Kabuto held in one hand and swiped the other hand across it, pulling three cards out without disturbing the rest. setting down the deck and pushing back his glasses he checked the cards before holding up the first one.

“Rock Lee, second year genin, 11 C ranked missions complete 20 D rank, displays no skill in Ninjutsu or Genjutsu but shows exceptional prowess in taijutsu and weapon usage,” Kabuto handed the card to Sasuke after reading the information off and moved on to the next card. “The redhead from sand would be Gaara, not much info on him other than he has exceptional skill in ninjustsu of a unique type, and he has been on 13 C ranked missions and one B rank, all solo.”

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at the info on Gaara, taking his card and looking it over for any additional information.

“And you; Uchiha Sasuke, rookie genin, 17 D rank missions, 7 C rank and one C rank that evolved into a high B rank. Impressive, and for skills, you show considerable skill in Ninjutsu and Taijutsu, both aided by your Sharingan, the legacy of the Uchiha clan.” Kabuto read off the last card, handing it to Sasuke as well.

“Quiet down you worthless bastards!” a booming voice commanded from the front of the room, accompanied by a massive eruption of smoke created by the appearance of nearly thirty ninjas appearing at the front of the room, all wearing vests marking them as the rank of Chunin except for the man at the head of the group who wore a full length black trench coat.

“Thanks for waiting,” said the man in the trench coat, “I am Morino Ibiki, Examiner for the first test of the Chunin Selection Exam.

Most of the occupants of the room straitened up at this announcement, quieting down and turning to face the man. Seeing that he had their attention, the man continued speaking. “I will only say this once so you had better listen up, A rule that persists though the entire exam: No fighting without examiners permission, and even if permission has been granted, killing your opponents will not be tolerated. Those that break that rule will be failed on the spot, no exceptions. Understand?”

The entire room sat silent, until someone from the crowd whispered, “That makes this too easy.” and a chuckle ran through the Chunin at the front of the room before they were silenced by the examiner.

“For this portion of the exam you will be randomly assigned seats by taking a marker from a Chunin and finding the seat with the matching number. Once everyone has been seated, the exam will be distributed.” Ibiki held up a stack of papers as he finished speaking.

The genin sat frozen for a moment after the examiner stopped speaking before almost all at once they got up and went to the nearest Chunin to get a number and finding the matching seat.

Naruto sighed as she found her seat, it was near the front and both Sasuke and Sakura were many seats behind her. Taking deep breaths, she tried to calm her worry and excitement, sitting with her head in her hands staring at the back side of the exam that had been placed on her desk.

“Uh... Naruto...” a voice beside her said at close to a whisper, getting her attention.

“Oh hey Hinata,” Naruto replied, giving Hinata a warm smile.

“Let’s... Let’s do our best.” Hinata returned Naruto’s smile with a slight reddening of her cheeks.

“Yeah.” Naruto nodded, distracted by an announcement by the examiner at the front of the room.

“Now that you are all seated, listen up. Their are a few important rules to this test, I will write them on the board as i say them, but listen closely as their are no questions allowed and any questions you ask will not be answered.” The examiner announced, causing a chatter to rise up form the people seated in the room. “This test works on a points system: You start with a total of ten points, one for every question and every wrong answer costs you a point. Second; this is a team test, so at the end the points of each teammate is added together and your pass will be determined on the total score between all teammates.

“And the most important rule; anyone caught cheating during the test is immediately docked two points. Anyone who reaches zero points during the test will be asked to leave.” the examiner paused, letting the rules sink in as he finished writing them on the board. Sensing that the tension was high in the room, he turned to face the Genin and told them the final rule. “And Anyone who loses all their points or fails to answer any questions correctly fails the test... Along with both their teammates.

“You have two hours, Begin!” He shouted out just after the last rule, and the entire room burst into activity, scanning the papers they were now allowed to flip to read and answer.

Naruto scratched her head as she read through all the questions one by one, finding them all far beyond her ability to answer. Their were a few she could make an effort on, but her chances of reasoning them out was slim and she didn’t have nearly enough time for that either.

‘These questions aren’t anything an average Genin would be able to or even need to be able to answer.’ naruto thought to herself, brushing her hair out of her face and adjusting her forehead protector to keep it out of her face. It was starting to get long and girly looking sasuke had told her when they met up this morning. ‘ And cheating isn’t against the rules, just getting caught is.

Looking around, she could see some people starting to write, and could even pick out a few bad cheaters in the act and decided it would be a good time for her to start as well. Naruto gave the questions another quick scan and decided to look for some good answers, activating her doujutsu to it’s first level, her world opened up in a full 360 degree view or her surroundings, and she could see the papers of people on all side up to almost 5 people away. But picking out individual words and answers was hard when she could see so much at once. Thankfully, in the few weeks since she acquired her power, she had been working on refining and mastering it and could focus in on small areas of her wide vision scope to view the smaller section in greater detail. So now all she needed to do was find a sheet with answers to focus on now.

It took a bit of time to find a trustworthy or complete looking answer, and a bit more time to memorise and copy down the answer on her own sheet, but before long Naruto had more than half the answers filled out and was working on more.

Thunk! Was the sound of a kunai stabbing into the desk in the middle of a persons test paper. It nearly made Naruto jump out of her seat, because it landed right in the middle of the paper she was getting an answer from at the time.

“Take your teammates and leave.” said the chuunin who threw the kunai to the genin that had been singled out as Naruto hastily scribbled down the rest of the answer off the pinned sheet.

Naruto watched them get up and walk out and then to the clock, ‘Half an hour left and only one question to go.’

Looking at her sheet again, at number 10. Not a question, just a box with a statement in it “This question will be given 45 minutes after the test begins, Listen very closely before answering.” Naruto scratched her head after reading this, wondering what could be so important about the final question, though she decided to try and wait patiently for the next fifteen minutes.

After the first got kicked out, more people seemed to be slipping up and getting caught, quickly reducing the number of people in the room. as the numbers in the room started to lower and the time for the final question started to draw near, Naruto noticed Hinata struggling for a few of the answers next to her.

“Hey Hinata, do you want some help?” Naruto whispered, glancing over at hinata out of the corner of her eye.

“Eh?” Hinata looked back at Naruto with a slight blush, seeming unsure what to do for a moment before replying, “I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble...”

“Number 52, you fail!” one of the nearby Chuunin shouted out, causing both Naruto and Hinata to cringe as the person on Naruto’s other side got up and left the room.

“Ok, it’s your choice then,” Naruto said, moving her arm so that it left a clear of her sheet to Hinata. “But the more points the better, and I wouldn’t want you to disappear on me.”

Naruto spent the last five or so minutes before the final question trying to look innocent while Hinata snuck a few sideways glances at Naruto’s paper to fill up the rest of her answers.

“It is now time for the final question.” The examiner stepped up in front of the room once more, his words causing everyone to stop writing.”This one has a few rules of its own.”

“For this question you will have to choose whether you will take it or not.” The examiner continued after a pause, seemingly causing deliberate tension with his words.

“What happens if we choose not to take it?” someone shouted out from near the back of the room.

The examiners eyes snapped to the asker of the question, “If you choose to not take it your points will be reduced to zero and you will fail.”

“What does that mean?!” someone shouted out at the same time someone else shouted “Then why is taking the question optional?”

“Their is another rule” the examiner continued, holding his hand up for silence, “Those that choose to take the question and get it wrong will lose their right to take the chuunin selection exam again.”

Naruto looked at the examiner in shock when he said this, someone familiar sounding shouting from the back of the classroom what she was thinking, “That’s a stupid rule, their are people here who have taken the exam before!”

“You got unlucky this year, My exam, My rules.” the examiner with a subtle smirk, “But I’m offering you a way out, if you don’t think yo can answer the question then you are free to not take it and leave and try again next time.”

The room fell silent, the genin weighing their options and making their decision.

“Now let us begin the tenth question,” the examiner said, breaking the silence, “Those that wish not to take the question raise your hand and once your number is confirmed you may leave with your teammates.”

Naruto sat rubbing her forehead with one hand, debating her outcomes, ‘What kind of question will it be? Will it be one i am able to do? If i quit, my team is out too, but what if one of them can’t do it either?’

Naruto was close to raising her hand and being the first person to quit when she was distracted by someone raising their hand and calling out “I quit, i can’t do it.” from the seat directly in front of her. And with that first hand up, more and more people started giving up, dropping the number of people in the room by nearly a quarter. Naruto was still debating raising her hand after all the un-confident people had left the room, but she made up her mind, this man might try, but she wasn’t letting him stand in the way of her becoming a better ninja.

Jumping up onto her chair, Naruto put one foot on the eve of her desk, one hand on her hip and the other pointed at the examiner and shouted, “I’m not afraid of you, you could stop me from gaining a rank, make me a genin forever, but you will never stop me from becoming a better ninja, and if I can’t be anything but a genin then i will be the best damn genin the ninja world has ever seen!”

Finished her little speech, Naruto dropped back down to sitting in her chair, arms folded and a focused look on her face.

“Is that how you feel young man?” the examiner asked Naruto, glancing around he room at the rest of the remaining genin. “People don’t trust genin to be powerful ninja.”

“I would make them understand, even show off if i had too.” Replied Naruto, no waver in her confidence that the examiner was obviously trying to dampen.

“Very well,” the examiner turned his attention to the rest of the room, “For everyone in the room, excellent choice and congratulations on passing the first test of the chuunin selection exam!”