Welcome to my Naruto fanfic. This is a story I've been working on for about a year and a half now, and it's going to be a massive undertaking. I hope you can stick with me for the long haul. Reviews and follows always welcome! :D

"We're all stories in the end, just make it a good one."

-Steven Moffat

PART 1: OF PEACOCKS AND SERPENTS

Chapter 1: Daughter of the Peacock

Somewhere far away, through the mists and the fields and the sands and the storms and the sea, there was a strange land where strange people lived.
In this land, there was a village shrouded in the shadows of a large cliffside and surrounded by a dense forest. The people that lived in this village, while usually serene and peaceful, were currently in a bit of an uproar.

Another shop owner screamed in rage as a cloud of frothy white slime exploded all across his produce stand, splattering his once pristine display of fruits and vegetables in icky, gooey fluid.

"Come back here, you brat!" the man hollered furiously, face as red as his apples as the perpetrator of this crime bolted down the dirt path, sandals eagerly slapping the packed earth.

A young girl stumbled through the crowd at a feverish pace, practically becoming a blur amidst the startled pedestrians who all scrambled out of her path to avoid getting run over.

As she raced down the narrow roads, people walking about only caught glimpses of her thanks to her frantic pace. She was small, very small, smaller than most kids around twelve years old. Her skin was dark, darker than most people found in this region. It was the color of milk chocolate and there was a splattering of even darker freckles across her nose and cheeks. It mirrored the pearly white shaving cream that exploded across the glass of the bookstore's display window as the wooden bat the girl clutched in her fist connected with the paper lantern hanging from the store's rafters.
The bookstore owner shrieked in fury at the mess, her well-manicured nails made a grab for the girl, fingers just barely brushing the tips of her dreadlocks: flowing long and black as night.

The girl's large teal eyes, so bright against her darker skin and hair and too big for her face, twinkled as she laughed and raced away, swinging her bat through every lantern she saw, spilling more and more of the shaving cream she'd stuffed into them under the cover of the previous night across the streets and walls of Konohagakure's shopping district.

Finally ducking into a side alley as her pursuers got a little too close for comfort, the girl paused to catch her breath, leaning against the wall and sliding down under the shadow of a fire escape.

She giggled quietly to herself, clutching the shaving-cream-covered bat to her chest, feeling her heart hammer in her ribs.

"Hey, Shi!"

The girl's head snapped up, thinking for half a moment that she'd been discovered by someone more unsavory that the person that actually greeted her.

However, the first thing she saw, was a pair of blue-sandaled feet dangling just above her brow as the boy that addressed her was sitting on the rim of the fire escape she was currently crouched under.

He laughed at her momentarily bewildered expression. "I've heard the uproar all afternoon-dattebayo! What did you do this time, Shi-chan?"

The girl called Shi giggled as she looked up into an equally cheery face. She held her bat aloft, "I filled all the shop lanterns with shaving cream. One good whack with this, and it splatters everywhere in a very satisfying explosion." Shi grinned proudly at her handiwork, "Pretty great, right?"

The boy above her merely shrugged, "Eh, it's alright."

Shi's smile faltered. "Alright?! Just alright?! It was the best prank ever! You could hear the commotion it caused all morning! I'd say it was better than alright."

The boy then jumped down from the edge of the fire escape, landing in front of Shi and turning around to face her. He continued to look unimpressed, raising his blue eyes towards the equally blue sky as though he was pondering something. Shi watched him, fuming slightly; the boy was about her age but a head taller regardless. He appeared to stand even further above her with his thick spikey yellow hair. His face was still chubby with youth, and his round cheeks were marked with curious black lines that spread across his face like whiskers. From head to toe, he was dressed in orange and blue with a pair of thick goggles on his brow, nestled amongst his spikey locks.

"I'd like to see you do better, Naruto," Shi finally ground out.

The boy called Naruto looked back at her, and a smile as sunny as his hair spread across his round face. "Ok then-dattebayo!"

Before Shi could utter another word, he'd abruptly jumped over her head and back onto the fire escape behind her before vaulting further upwards until he'd disappeared over the edge of the roof and out of sight.

Shi watched him go, slightly bewildered. "What-? What is he going to do exactly?"

Shi woke up the following morning just as the sun was starting to rise. The sky was grey and daunting outside the window of her apartment.
The young girl was lying spread-eagle on her bed, annoyed at the early hour her body had chosen to rise in; however, it couldn't be helped. She could already feel the beginning of a migraine.

Her brow furrowing, Shi stared up at the ceiling, especially at the large crack in the plaster that had slowly spread out from the center of the ceiling and across the edge of the wall, creating a noticeable dip.

Maybe today would be the day the crack finally caused the ceiling to collapse and crush her, sparing the inevitable splitting headache.

No such luck. Shi sighed dramatically as she finally pulled herself from her bed and padded across the room to the kitchenette and began fumbling through the drawers for her medication.

The only good thing about it being so early was that she didn't have to go to the Academy yet, so she could spend the first hours of the day rocking back and forth on her loveseat and trying not to die from the what felt like nails being knocked over and over into her skull.

Migraines were fun.
However, if she managed to make it through the ordeal, maybe she could go play baseball with her friends in the afternoon after class. It was supposed to be a pleasant day, and she'd finished cleaning all the shaving cream off her bat.

After pouring herself a glass of water and taking a dose of her pills, Shi moved back over to her bed, fussing with her dreadlocks. She debated for a moment whether or not to pull them back into her usual half up/half down hairdo, but then remembered that would probably make her migraine worse, so she opted to leave them down.

Flopping back onto the bed, on her stomach this time, Shi settled into the mattress as its springs bounced under her weight. She glanced up at her alarm clock, which was shaped like a bluebird, and saw that it read a little after 4am.

Shi sighed, suddenly remembering that she'd have to go across the street and cook Naruto breakfast once the kid woke up.

She was determined to get him off his habit of instant ramen first thing in the morning. That could not be good for one's cholesterol.

Feeling the migraine starting to knock against her skull despite the medication, Shi closed her eyes with a groan and tried to think of nothing.
They found their way back open regardless, because even in pain, Shi could not sit still and focus for more than a few seconds. Such a demeanor certainly helped with her reflexes during training but were piss poor for her written test scores.
Shi was average at best.

Rolling onto her back with a sigh, she tried to calm down, wiping sweat off her brow as her other hand groped for the canister of water she kept by her bed. However, her fingers instead brushed a faded piece of paper that was propped next to her alarm clock.

Gently pulling it off her bedside table, Shi unfolded the paper to reveal it was a faded old photograph; the edges were torn and yellowing, and there were heavy creases in the center from the amount of times it had been folded and unfolded.

The photo was of four people, but Shi's eyes always exclusively went to only one of them: the woman on the end who looked just like her.
She was older, taller and more muscular than Shi would probably ever be, but her skin and hair and eyes were all identical to the young girl. The same warm brown complexion, big teal eyes, a spotting of freckles across the center of her face, even the same deceptive beauty mark under her left eye, bigger and darker than the other marks on her face. The woman even possessed the subtly strange shape of Shi's ears: slightly pointed at the ends. She was wearing the black and purple armor of a high-ranking shinobi of the Konohagakure as well as the standard Konoha hitai-ate tied across her brow with a black ribbon. Her hair was twisted up into a series of thick boxed braids that wrapped around her shoulders elegantly despite the grime of an obvious battle that had just transpired, judging from the mud and blood on her face and clothes.

This woman…Shi reached out and her fingers pressed the faded photograph, the features of the woman's face were starting to go fuzzy with age, but the resemblance was still there.

This woman, Shi had been told, was her mom.
Of course, Shi had never met her mother; she had only been told about her by the Sandaime Hokage, the leader of Konoha. According to him, her mother was a legendary warrior, a powerful shinobi who had been instrumental in both the Second and Third Shinobi World Wars. Her name has also been Shi and her daughter had been named after her following her death. However, Shi's surname was Kujaku and her mothers had been Sarutobi. Shi didn't know who her father was, and the Hokage would not speak to her about it, so he had given her the surname 'Peacock' inspired by her mother's legendary animal summoning partner. The Hokage most likely thought that giving her the first name of a powerful kunoichi with probably many enemies was bad enough. A faux surname would suffice. Sarutobi wasn't even her mother's true clan of origin as she looked nothing like its members. From what little information Shi had been able to press out of the Hokage, who had become her guardian following her mother's death, Sarutobi Shi had been a 'gift' from Takigakure following the death of the Shodai Hokage, Konoha's first leader nearly fifty years ago. In order to prevent a war between the two villages, the leader of Takigakure had sent a powerful and promising child from a prominent clan. The child had been taken into the house of the Sarutobi clan and raised primarily by the Sandaime Hokage's family. That child would grow to be a kunoichi feared by nations until the day she died and left her daughter behind.

Shi didn't know very much about her mother beyond that, let alone her faceless father. She tried not to think about it too much though, because it made her head hurt even more than it usually did. She instead opted to fill her time with sports and card games with her friends, training in the Academy and playing pranks on the unsuspecting villagers. Shi pushed down the sour feelings and burning questions about her origin and heritage deep into the recesses of her mind, no longer bothering the current Hokage with incessant question about Sarutobi Shi.

Instead, she kept all of them stuffed in the back of her brain no matter how badly she wanted them answered.

No wonder Shi got migraines.

Shi didn't even realize she'd fallen asleep again until she was waking up to see that the sun was shining much higher in the sky. With a small gasp of surprise, she bolted up on her bed, dark dreadlocks flopping everywhere around her head as she whipped it from side to side.

Crap, she'd long since missed breakfast time.
Scrambling off the bed, Shi hurriedly got dressed in the first pair of shorts and T-shirt she'd tripped over while on her way across the room. Pulling on her blue sandals and tying her hair a green tie-dye bandana across her brow to keep her hair back, Shi grabbed her bookbag and bolted out of her apartment and down the hall.

"Shit! Shit! Shit! Iruka-sensei is going to kill me!" was her mantra as she scrambled down the stairs of her apartment building.
During her rush, she hadn't even noticed that something was obviously wrong with the view outside her window.

Shi's apartment was rather appealingly located near the epicenter of Konoha, and therefore she had a rather nice view out her home's main window, which more than made up for the shoddy craftsmanship of the building. From her window, she could see the lush green trees that grew between speckled-white homes with roofs painted bright colors. It also gave her a nice view of the Hokage-Iwa, which was the most striking landmark of the entire village.

At the edge of the valley that the shinobi village spread out from the center of, a massive cliff rose over the horizon of Konoha and carved into the warm brown rock were four faces. These faces were representations of the four Hokage that had served as the leaders of Konohagakure since its inception nearly a century before Shi was born.
Now that she was a little less panicked after making it outside, Shi allowed herself a passing glance at the structure. She'd always liked the Hokage-Iwa; however, this morning something was so immediately wrong with the landmark that it made the young girl stop dead in the middle of the road.

"That's…" Shi's mouth dropped to her shoes in utter shock.

The massive stone faces carved into the cliffside were covered in an obnoxious and utterly gaudy paint job. Bright green, red, blue and white paint were splattered across the once distinctive faces whose features were now covered in a myriad of spirals, squiggles, dots and curly-Qs. There was even a bright yellow turd painted on the image of the Sandaime Hokage's right cheek. Before Shi had even been able to fully drink in the sight before her, a flash of orange and yellow sprinted past her peripheral vision. It was followed soon after by a pair of chunin shinobi, marked by their distinctive forest-green vests.

"Come back here, you miserable brat!" one of them shouted. "You've really done it this time!"

"It's fantastic, isn't it-dattebayo!" the brightly colored flash they were pursuing called back with a shining smile amidst splattered paint that Shi instantly recognized.

"Naruto?!"

The boy then caught her eye, and his grin grew impossible wider. "Told ya I could do better Shi-chan!"

Before the girl could respond, Naruto was forced to keep running off down the street as the two chunin were still in hot pursuit.

Shi watched them go until they rounded a corner and vanished from view before turning to glance back up at the Hokage-Iwa.
"Sandaime-sama is going to be so pissed."

When Shi arrived in class that morning, a large smoothie serving as her belated breakfast clutched in one fist, Naruto was nowhere in sight, which she supposed was to be expected. However, Iruka-sensei also wasn't in class yet, so her late arrival wasn't noted by anyone of importance.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Shi settled into her usual seat towards the back of the class and took out a pack of cards from her backpack, slurping down the last half of her drink as she laid out the deck for a game of solitaire.

As she spread the cards out, she pondered what could be keeping Iruka-sensei. She supposed this meant that Naruto was either still being chased by the chunin from earlier and their teacher had been called to assist, or he'd caught the troublesome boy himself and was currently dangling him from the flagpole outside.

A hand suddenly reaching around her ear jerked Shi from her thoughts; she watched as its fingers plucked one of the cards from her hand and placed it onto one of her solitaire rows, creating an effective move.

"Hey!" Shi whipped around to glare at the boy behind her. "Why'd ya do that, Shikamaru?"

The addressed person sitting behind her was a lanky boy with a long neck and a noticeable slouch. He had narrow, dark eyes that always seemed to either be inquisitive or half-asleep, no in-between. His black hair was yanked tightly into a high, spiked ponytail at the back of his scalp that looked almost painful at the way it tugged at his jagged hairline.

"You seemed stuck," the boy called Shikamaru replied in an apathetic drawl, "Last time I try to help. Mendokuse…" With that, he put his head down into his folded arms and went to sleep.

Rolling her eyes, Shi turned back to face the front of the class, noting a curious murmur that had started to ripple amidst the other students. Everyone was clearly wondering what was keeping their teacher.

Shi glanced out the window in the direction of the flagpole, half-expecting to see an angry orange and yellow figure hanging from it. However, there was nothing there but the Ninja Academy flag flapping in the early summer breeze.

What could have happened to Naruto…? Shi mused to herself as she chewed on the paper her smoothie straw had come wrapped in. Glancing down at said item nestled in her now empty cup, she pondered rolling the paper up into a spit ball and taking potshots at Sasuke sitting in front of her.

Then again, after last time, he might actually kill her.

As Shi was shooing these dangerous thoughts from her mind, the door to their classroom finally slid open, and everyone immediately fell silent.

However, the quiet was short lived as Iruka strode into the room with some difficulty as he was lugging a thrashing, screaming orange blob along with him. Their teacher arrived bearing Naruto, wrapped up in a coil of rope that Shi recognized from their rock-climbing exercises the other week.

That Naruto…At least now I know what happened to him, Shi mused as she watched Iruka set the boy down in the front of the class, staring down at him with his hands on his hips. He was a tall, lean man with golden-brown skin and brown hair pulled into a ponytail almost as high and tight as Shikamaru's. His eyes were dark but warm, and he had a rather nasty scar stretching horizontally across his nose and cheeks.

Shi liked Iruka well enough. He was a good teacher and a genuinely kind person. He certainly had a lot of patience to put up with the antics that went on in their classroom, most often courtesy of Naruto.

Right now, their teacher was once again scolding the boy. "You shouldn't be cutting class and pulling pranks at a time like this," Iruka was saying, "You failed the last two opportunities for the graduation exam. It's clearly not the time to be goofing off."

From his spot on the floor, Naruto turned up his nose. "Hmph!"

Iruka's eye twitched. He then turned and announced to the class: "Attention, everyone. We will be having a re-test on the Henge no Jutsu. Everyone will be taking part even if you've already passed."

"What?!" There was a loud exclamation from the seated students followed by groans and clamors of disapproval.

Behind Shi, Shikamaru woke up with a snort and questioned his friend Choji sitting beside him about what was going on.

Shi sighed, pulling at her bandana, Usually, she was capable of putting up with Naruto's antics, but like Iruka-sensei, she had her limits as well.

Most of the time, she tried to be understanding. She knew that Naruto didn't necessarily have it easy. He'd been orphaned around the same time as Shi and didn't have any relatives or friends in the village that he could turn to.

To top it off, Shi was pretty much the only person his age that willingly spent time with him on a regular basis. While some of the other boys in their grade would play with him during school, after class was done, they were often quietly shooed home by their parents while being chastised in hushed voices for fraternizing with "troublesome" children.

Shi didn't know why everyone, adults and children alike, avoided Naruto the way they did. When she'd asked the Hokage about it, he told her not to ask anymore questions pertaining to the matter.

As Shi was a fellow orphan, she didn't really have anyone telling her to give Naruto a wide berth like everyone else, so she played with him as often as she pleased: usually getting into trouble together and running about the village being pursued by disgruntled chunin or angry shopkeepers.

Both Shi and Naruto had crossed paths early, even before they'd been placed in the same class at the Academy. They were both wards of the Sandaime Hokage after all, even if only in the loosest sense of the word. They had been raised by nurses since infancy, but as soon as they could be taught to be self-sufficient, they were peddled from the hospital to small, dingy apartments and allotted weekly allowances courtesy of the Hokage to buy food and any other necessities they might need.

Shi dreaded the day she would have to ask him for extra money, so she could start buying tampons.

As Shi begrudgingly got into line along with the rest of her classmates at the front of the room, she kept glancing over at Naruto.

Despite the fact that she enjoyed spending time with him, she couldn't help feeling a little worried for her friend.
After all, he continued to pull bigger and more lavish pranks in what he claimed to be some kind of contest with her, but Shi knew better. She was smarter than she looked and could recognize the loneliness Naruto felt in his heart, even if he'd never show it, not even to her.

She recognized it because she'd experienced it herself. Shi also knew that she wasn't much to be relied on exclusively, and that Naruto sought the acceptance of everyone in their village and not just her and Iruka-sensei. That's why he devised schemes as lavish as defacing the most sacred Konoha monument: in order to get attention from the people who typically regarded him with nothing more than disgusted glares and harsh whispers.

The young girl shook her head, her dreadlocks dancing around her shoulders, in an attempt to clear her thoughts. She couldn't worry about that now: the re-test was about to begin.

The first person up for the exam was a girl called Haruno Sakura. She was the second prettiest girl in the class, according to the boys Shi hung out with, behind only Yamanaka Ino.

She was a slight girl with a round, cheerful face, jade green eyes and bubblegum pink hair that trailed halfway down her back. It used to be shorter, but she'd started growing it out recently. Sakura was very proud of her hair and always wore it tied up with a bright red ribbon that also then exposed her rather large forehead.
Shi wasn't being mean, it was just a fact, and she'd been told, it was the reason Sakura remained in second place in terms of the most attractive girl.

Shi didn't really know where she figured in the roster, but it couldn't be especially high. Shi was small, smaller than she should be. Her knees were knobby and always scraped or covered with dirt, and she had an annoying habit of flapping her arms when she got excited. Her freckles were a bit too obtuse, and she had a noticeable white scar on the bridge of her nose. Her slightly pointed ears were a funny shape. Her eyes were also a bit too big for her face, and her dreadlocked hair was perhaps a little too wiry. No one made comments about it though since Iruka had made one boy stand in the hall for nearly half the day with a heavy bucket of water in each hand following a rude remark. Shi blinked, wondering when she'd started caring if people found her attractive.
All of her friends in their class were boys; Shi didn't have a single female friend, so she'd never really had those kinds of bubbly conversations about boys and hair and clothes.
Shi made a face. Yeah, she didn't care. She'd rather go play volleyball or cricket on the field with Kiba and Naruto.

As Shi's thoughts continued to go a mile a minute, Sakura finished her presentation of the Henge no Jutsu: she put her fingers together in a series of hand-signs going in the order of Inu-I-Hitsuji, there was a puff of smoke and suddenly Sakura had vanished, and Iruka-sensei stood in her place.
Of course, it was only a replica as the real Iruka was watching her perform the jutsu closely. The techinque was meant to transform a person into something or someone else as a means of disguise or confusing the enemy. It was also one of the hardest jutsu the class had been taught up until that point, and therefore made a pretty good pop-quiz. The students had to learn to think on their feet if they were to become full-fledge shinobi upon graduation.

That was, after all, what Konohagakure was: a shinobi village. Its chief export was human beings: people who were trained within their clans and by the elders of the village to perform fantastical techniques that enabled them to become unbeatable in combat. Children were ushered by their parents into the Ninja Academy, many eager to please and uphold centuries of tradition. They trained until their early teens when they graduated and become genin who would then go out on missions given to them by the Hokage or the higher-ranked jonin. The missions would give them money and experience that would aid them and their village in gaining strength and power against their enemies, especially in times of war.
Of course, there hadn't been a war for nearly two decades so there wasn't anything to worry about there.
Despite that, shinobi saw battle a lot, even kunoichi, which was the female equivalent. Shi was going to become a kunoichi like her mother; she had decided that fact when she was young. Perhaps, somewhere in her migraine-racked mind, she'd believed it might make her feel more connected to the elusive woman, who was her only known relation.

Sakura cheered as Iruka announced she'd passed the pop-quiz. "Shannaro! I did it!" the girl jumped up and down, her pink hair bouncing lightly around her shoulders. "Did you see that, Sasuke-kun?" she eagerly asked the boy that was standing next in line.

He didn't respond.

"Uchiha Sasuke, you're next," Iruka then said to him.

The boy stepped forward without a word. Uchiha Sasuke was a strong presence in their class; he had a lean, pale, almost feminine face pleasantly accented by dark eyes and blue-black hair that was parted on either side of his face and jutted out the back like it had been cut unevenly. Aside from being considered handsome, Sasuke was also very smart: he had the highest test scores of their class and was the most skilled in ninjutsu out of all of them. He'd pass this test no problem.

Sure enough, after going through the same motions as Sakura, Sasuke turned into another exact duplicate of Iruka-sensei.
"Ok." Their teacher nodded in approval, marking Sasuke down on his clipboard as the boy changed back and stepped to the back of the line.

After Sasuke, Nara Shikamaru went, managing to perform the jutsu adequately despite the fact that Shi was pretty sure he'd been asleep when they'd learn it. After him, came Yamanaka Ino who was the aforementioned "prettiest girl" in the class.
She was indeed very beautiful: her skin was clear and bright and pleasantly paired with ice-blue eyes and long platinum blonde hair pulled into an elegant ponytail. She also radiated confidence as she stepped up to take the test, wearing a stylish purple two-piece set accented by white wraps and silver earrings.

After she passed the test, Iruka looked down at his clipboard to call the next name.

"Kujaku Shi."

Shi blinked, startled. Oh right, I'm next.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward and placed her hands together before performing the series of seals: Dog…Boar…Ram

Bang! Puff of smoke, and the jutsu was a success.

"Good job." Iruka commended her, marking beside her name to show she passed.

Shi exhaled. She'd been so scatter-brained today; she'd thought it might not have worked.

As she then made her way towards the back of the line, she passed Naruto and jerked her hand to get him to meet her eye. When he did, she gave him a thumbs up.

He just looked back at her, disgruntled, and Shi fell back into line disappointed.

"Uzumaki Naruto."

Grumblings reverberated along the line of students as the addressed slumped forward.

"This a real pain," Shikamaru muttered from beside Shi.

"And it's all his fault," Ino added pointedly.

"Like I care what you guys think!" Naruto snapped at her. He then placed his hands together in a series of seals that looked odd compared to everyone else. Shi leaned forward and squinted, trying to see.
"Transform!" Naruto called as a curious blue light consumed him, followed by a burst of white smoke.

The figure standing before them, however, was not Iruka-sensei. Rather, it was a lanky, curvaceous girl with a 'full set' that was clearly on display due to the only thing covering her naked skin were the smoke clouds. She had long yellow hair pulled into pigtails and lustful blue eyes. She giggled as she blew a kiss at Iruka.

The teacher's face went white as chalk, and he almost fainted on the spot as most of the class burst into peals of laughter.

"Like that?!" Naruto jeered, transforming back, "I call it the Oiroke no Jutsu-dattebyo!"

"Stop making up useless jutsu!" Iruka thundered, his face now red as a beet with both anger and embarrassment.

Shi, meanwhile, couldn't seem to get a hold of herself. She was among those that were laughing themselves into a stupor; she gripped her stomach, trying to breathe.

Perhaps the boys in their class were wrong; it seemed Naruto was actually the prettiest girl in their class.

Uzumaki Naruto spent the entirety of their lunch break as well as the after-school study period washing his handiwork off the Hokage-Iwa under Iruka-sensei's supervision.

Meanwhile, the rest of the class didn't have a whole lot of studying to do as were just waiting for the formal school year to end, so they could take the graduation exam tomorrow.

True to her word, Shi played a rowdy game of baseball with Shikamaru, his friend Akimichi Choji, and Inuzuka Kiba.

However, the game was cut abruptly short when the latter's ninja hound, Akumaru, snatched a pop fly out of mid-air and scampered away with it, gnawing at the baseball with his slobber-covered fangs.

Now that the game was effectively ruined as not even Kiba could get the puppy to 'drop it', the boys all decided to head home, and Shi opted to as well.

As she walked the streets of Konoha, hands stuffed into the pockets of her hoodie, Shi glanced up at the Hokage-Iwa and saw that all of the paint had been scrubbed off.

Quirking a brow, Shi wondered where Naruto had gone after finishing his punishment chore. Did Iruka-sensei have him do something else once it was done?

Just as she was pondering this, she passed a small shack-like ramen shop that was nestled on the corner of downtown Konoha. The place was called Ichiraku and was really nothing more than a covered bar with a curtain for a door that almost seemed to wave in potential customers. Now that the sun had started to set, the lanterns were all being lit, and the warm glow from Ichiraku looked particularly inviting.

As Shi passed the stand, she fished into her pockets for her wallet and pulled it out, hoping to find enough funds for dinner, but only a few measly ryo fell out.
"Damn it…"

"Shi-chan!"

The girl glanced up at the familiar, enthusiastic voice to see Naruto waving at her from a stool inside the Ichiraku stand. He was grinning from ear to ear as he slurped away at a massive bowl of ramen.

Beside him, Iruka leaned over to greet her as well. "Ah, Shi. Are you hungry?"

The girl gave a sheepish smile. "A bit…" Her stomach growled loudly just then, betraying the half-truth.

Iruka chuckled as Shi flushed. "Come on in, I'll treat you to a bowl."

Shi's face lit up. "Really?!"

"Yeah, come on in, Shi! Iruka-sensei's paying tonight." Naruto eagerly called to her as he finished his bowl and waved to the man behind the counter, whose name was Teuchi and the owner of Ichiraku Ramen, for a refill.

Shi quickly slipped through the faded curtain and sat down beside Naruto.

"What can I get you, sweetheart?" The woman behind the counter, who was the owner's daughter, asked her, smiling broadly.

"Whatever Naruto ordered is fine with me, just maybe a bit less meat."

"You can't take off any of the meat!" Naruto exclaimed, looking horrified as another of his protein-packed ramen dishes was handed to him by Teuchi.

Shi just laughed before leaning around her friend to address their teacher. "Thanks for doing this, Iruka-sensei."

Their teacher smiled warmly back at her. "It's the least I can do. I know you kids could probably use a big meal like this every so often."

"Uh huh!" Shi agreed as her own bowl was passed to her, and she quickly broke apart her chopsticks and dug in.

Iruka then turned to Naruto, who was already halfway through his second bowl, "So Naruto, why exactly did you deface the Hokage statues?"

"We were having a contest," Naruto replied simply. "I wanted to pull a better prank than Shi." He then grinned at her. "I think I won."

Shi scowled. "I'll give this one, but there's always a next time."

"That hardly seems an appropriate target for a simple prank," Iruka chastised them. "Have you forgotten the importance of the men those stone carvings represent?"

"Of course not!" Naruto scoffed.

"It would be impossible to forget," Shi added. "The Hokage is an integral part of the village. They're the strongest shinobi of their time."

"Especially the Yondaime Hokage," Naruto added, "He was a hero; he saved this village from the Kyubi."

Shi nodded in agreement. While the Sandaime Hokage was still technically ruling the village, a few years before she and Naruto had been born, he'd retired and appointed another person as Konoha's fourth leader. However, sometime later, the village was attacked by a massive foxlike beast with nine tails. The creature killed many people, including Sarutobi Shi, Shi's mother as well as Iruka-sensei's parents and many other people. The only way to stop the Kyubi was for the Yondaime Hokage to sacrifice his life in order to seal him away.

It had been a true act of heroism and Yondaime-sama would always be regarded as a hero.
Shi sighed, flicking her chopsticks through her fingers.

"If you knew all this, then why did you deface the carvings?" Iruka continued to press Naruto.

"Because one day I'm going to be the Hokage," Naruto declared, "And I'll be the greatest Hokage of them all!"

Shi nodded as she went back to slurping her noodles. As his friend, she'd heard this spiel before.

"When I become Hokage, everyone will finally have to accept me," Naruto continued.

Iruka's expression was unreadable as he regarded the boy. Glancing back up, Shi met his eyes and gave him a pointed look.

"Sensei?" Naruto jerked his attention back to him. "Can I ask a favor?"

"What? Do you want another bowl?"

"No... Can I borrow your hitai-ate? Just for a little while?"

"Oh this?" Iruka tapped the blue and silver headband tied around his brow. "No, I'm afraid not. These are only for ninja who have passed the graduation exam. Tomorrow another test is being offered, if you pass it, you'll get your own."

"Alright, alright," Naruto harrumphed, looking disappointed. "Then I'd like another bowl please."

"Me too!" Shi called, finishing her noodles as she spoke.

Iruka groaned at the expense. "Fine."

The following day, Shi made it to class on time, and settled down into her seat beside Naruto, who actually seemed to be early that day, which never happened.

The tension in the room was so intense, it could be cut with a kunai, and it was no wonder. Today was the day of the last graduation exam of the year; today was the day that decided if everyone present had what it took to go on to become proper Konoha ninja.

After what felt like an eternity, Iruka stepped into the room with his clipboard, and everyone once again stopped talking, although this time with burning anticipation rather than curiosity.

All eyes were on their sensei as he took his place at the front of the class beside his desk. Clearing his throat, he read from the clipboard: "Today is the final Graduation Exam of the year. It will be on the Bunshin no Jutsu.

Shi swallowed. Damn, that one's even harder than the Henge no Jutsu.

Beside her, she felt Naruto silently lose it. She knew how piss poor at this jutsu he was. She barely had a grasp on it herself.

Exhaling, Shi patted her hair and hoped for the best, trying to send her friend beside her good vibes as their teacher continued.

Iruka then went on to explain that the students would be called into an empty classroom where they would perform the jutsu and be judged by himself and another chunin. If they passed, they graduated. If they failed…Well, he didn't have tell them.

Shi swallowed again, her heart hammering against her ribs.

After giving the instructions, Iruka stepped into the neighboring classroom leaving his students to stew in anxiety and egg one another on.

Once he was gone, Shi leaned over to Naruto. "Are you okay?"

He gritted his teeth. "Me? I'm fine! I'll pass this exam no sweat-dattebayo!"

Shi couldn't help but smile at his confidence. "Sounds good to me."

The next half hour passed at both the speed of light and the pace of a crawl simultaneously. Before Shi knew it, her name was called, and she slowly got up to make her way next door.

As she turned to go, she glanced back in time to see Naruto give her a winning smile and a thumbs up.

Feeling a little better, she returned it with a half-hearted wave before stepping into the hall and then the neighboring classroom.

Almost all of the furniture had been cleared out of the room; all that remained was a large desk against the chalkboard. Iruka and another chunin were sitting behind it and a couple dozen blue and silver headbands were lined neatly before them.

At the sight of them, Shi's blood pounded in her ears.

So close…

"Kujaku Shi," Iruka called to her, jerking her attention back to him. "Please begin the exam."

"Uh, right." Taking a deep breath, Shi assumed her stance and placed her hands together into the proper sign.
She felt the surge of chakra, her natural energy, gather and fold around her body before she managed to grasp hold of what felt like a torrent within her. A second later, she'd siphoned it off two separate ways, and when she opened her eyes, there were two exact copies of herself flanking her on either side.

Shi released a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding before looking back to Iruka and the other chunin, who was a lean, pointed face man with chin-length light blue hair.

Iruka looked down at his clipboard and wrote something down on it.

The other chunin smiled at her. "Two clones. That is an adequate performance. What do you say, Iruka-senpai?"

Shi puffed out her cheeks. Adequate…Good enough.

"It's a pass from me," Iruka replied without looking up before finally meeting Shi's anxious gaze, and he smiled. "Congratulations, Shi. You've graduated."

"Really?!" Shi's face burst into the broadest of grins as she jumped up and down, flapping her arms, "Hell yeah! I-I mean…" she faltered, "Thank you, sensei." With a quick bow, she then scampered up to the front of the classroom to accept the shinobi hitai-ate from Iruka.

Shi giggled with glee as she made her way out of the classroom, the forehead protector clutched tightly in her fist. "Yes!" she pumped the air as she made it outside, amidst a few of her classmates that had gone before her and already passed. Their parents were also there: proud mothers and fathers that exclaimed happily at their children's success.
"You're a ninja now! That's my boy."

"Come on, I'll cook us something special for dinner tonight."

Shi watched a mother lead her daughter across the courtyard and felt a small pang in her chest. Shaking it off, she looked the other way and spied Choji, who was already wearing his headband nestled in his auburn hair and was scarfing down a bag of 'celebratory potato chips'.

Choji was a pudgy boy, most members of his clan were. He had lean dark eyes that usually curled up when he smiled or was angry. Shi thought his face was shaped like a dumpling, and he also had cute little red spirals circling his cheeks.

"Shi! You passed!" he exclaimed upon seeing her.

"Somehow," the girl agreed with a laugh.

"My dad's gonna treat me and Shikamaru to barbeque when he inevitably passes," the boy continued between potato chips. "Wanna come?"

"I should probably wait for Naruto," Shi replied, slightly sheepish. "He'll be dead last, so everyone will be gone by then."

"Well, if you're sure," Choji brushed her off. "I hope he does well."

Shi sighed. "Me too."

One by one, students came out of the hall to greet their parents, each of them holding a hitai-ate in their hands and some already tied it across their brows.

Shi stood off to the side as her classmates gathered in clusters of friends and families, all commending their success.

She held her headband tightly in her fist as she leaned against the school wall, rocking back and forth on her heels as she waited.

Over time, the crowd began to thin until only a few families were left lingering. After what felt like forever, the door opened, and Naruto stepped out.

"Naruto!" Shi pushed herself off the wall and waved to him, but her exuberance instantly dissipated when she saw that her friend did not have a headband anywhere on his person.
"You…" she trailed off as the boy slowly brushed past her, his eyes downcast, and made his way to the old tree at the edge of the courtyard.

Without a word, he settled himself onto the old, wooden swing that hung from the tree's largest branch, clutching the ropes tightly in his fist and gazing down at his shadow.

He looked so utterly crestfallen, it broke Shi's heart, and any feelings of relief or excitement she'd felt at having passed the exam now tasted bitter in her mouth.

"Naruto, hey…" she cautiously made her way over to him. "Why don't we-Why don't you come over to my place tonight. I can cook you dinner…whatever you want to eat. Ramen, maybe? I can put on as much meat as you'd like!" She tried to sound as reassuring as possible, but her friend's expression didn't change, so it didn't seem to have worked.

"Shi?"

"Yeah."

"No offense, but I'd like to be alone right now."

Shi jerked back, affronted. "Oh…I mean, ok. That's-That's fine, I guess." Slowly, she stepped away from him before turning and walking at a rather quick pace towards the gate, glancing back only once to give Naruto a sympathetic, yet pained look.

As she did so, she spied the blue-haired chunin that had helped judge their exams come out of the school and cross the yard over to Naruto.

Shi assumed he was trying to comfort the boy, and so took off, jumping over the wall and then up onto the nearby rooftops, heading home without a second thought.

Shi spent the night alone in her apartment. She cooked a stir-fry for dinner, and Naruto's absence was felt greatly. She had more meat than she knew what to do with, and she wasn't as big a fan of it as Naruto was.

As she munched her meal alone at her single-chair table, Shi pondered the day's events, her eyes constantly flickering back to the headband occupying the space beside her plate.

She felt so bad for Naruto that she couldn't even stand it. Not only had the boy's dreams been crushed, but over the last few hours, it had slowly sunk in that she would be moving on towards becoming a shinobi without him. Shi didn't know what she'd do without Naruto.

Despite being well-liked in general and getting along with most people, Shi had a special connection with the yellow-haired ball of chaos, and not seeing him as often as she did would be more than she could take.

With that unsettling thought, Shi finished her food, scraped the leftovers into the trash and washed the plate before changing into her pajamas and settling down on her bed with a comic in her lap, trying to distract her mind, so that it could eventually sleep.

She did not need another migraine.

Shi's eyes were just starting to droop shut when a loud thump coming from over her head made her jerk back awake.

She glanced up wearily, almost certain that large ceiling crack was about to do her in, but as her hazy mind cleared, she realized it was actually someone landing on her roof.

Scrambling off her bed, Shi stumbled to the window and yanked it open, leaning out as far as she dared to try and see who was standing on top of her building.

She nearly fell out the window when she caught sight of the figure, illuminated by the moon and the glow of Konoha's streetlamps.
"Iruka-sensei?"

The chunin teacher looked down at her in shock. He was panting slightly, and his face look lined with sweat and worry. "Shi?"

"What's going on?"

"Shi!" Iruka suddenly leapt down until he was crouched on her windowsill, causing the young girl to jerk back in surprise.
"Naruto…" her teacher panted as he placed his hands on her shoulders. "Have you seen Naruto?"

The young girl shook her head, bewildered. "Not since this afternoon…Why? What's happened?"

"If Naruto didn't want to be found," Iruka continued, ignoring her question, "Where would he have gone?"

Shi suddenly felt afraid; it felt like there was a lump pushing at the base of her throat, and she licked her lips as they dried. "There's…There's a place in the woods that we sometimes go to train or shoot slingshots or-" She was about to say play hooky but stopped herself, remembering who she was talking to despite the situation.

"A place in the woods," Iruka squeezed her shoulders, "Can you take me there?"

Shi pushed his arms away, now exceptionally freaked out. "Sensei! Please, tell me what's going on. Did something happen to Naruto?!"

Her teacher sighed, looking rather pained as he regarded her. "We have been informed that Naruto stole Fuin no Sho."

Shi gaped. "He stole the-You mean the legendary scroll of sealing?!"

"The very same," Iruka nodded grimly. "The scroll full of techniques that were deemed too dangerous and so were made kinjutsu."

Shi's eyes were even larger as she drank all this in, "And Naruto stole this scroll? But why?!"

Iruka shook his head. "I don't know, but we don't have much time. All of the available chunin and jonin in Konoha are out looking for him, and if they find Naruto first…I can't guarantee they won't hurt him."

Shi swallowed, her throat dry. "Ok. I'll take you to the place in the woods."

Iruka looked momentarily relieved. "Thank you, Shi."

The girl nodded as she quickly tossed her hoodie on over her pajamas, pulled on her sandals and after a moment, snatched her headband off the kitchen table, tying it firmly around her forehead. "Let's go."