A/N: Yeah, I have way to many Naruto fanfiction ideas that I'm probably not going to get to for a while...anyway, here's a story that I'll update pretty frequently. It's not really romance, and is more friendship/family, but you could take it as romance if you want to. I hope you like the story and please review!

Naruto Uzumaki was actually going to be early. Just wow, let that sink in.

Well, actually, it wasn't Naruto's fault she was always late. She left her house pretty early, but team 7's meeting spot was a bridge in the center of town. There were two different routes to reach the center of the village: 1 was through Roku lane and the other was through Okazaki road.

Okazaki road was the faster way to get to the center of the village, but its streets were filled with the rich and "great". This meant that the people on that street were more likely to go to extremes when harassing her for the Nine-Tailed Fox spirit sealed within her when she was a baby.

She tended to avoid that route.

The other route was Roku Lane, which took way longer, which still had people who hated her and threw things at her, but were less extreme than those on Okazaki Road.

That was the route she preferred.

But right now, she didn't have a preference. Team 7 had changed their meeting spot today and the only way to get their was to go through Okazaki Road. She could have spoken, she probably should have spoken up, but she wouldn't.

She could handle one day of torture. And anything would be better than having to endure Sasuke's stupid taunts of how weak she was and Sakura's complaints of how she was a crybaby.

Plus, she may be forced to tell them about the darkness that lay within her soul - her chest to be precise...actually, where was the nine-tails cage? - and that was something she really didn't want to tell them.

She couldn't stand it if her friends - one of the only people in the village who didn't look at her like she was some sort of vermin - started avoiding her like she was the plague.

That and Jii-chan (Sandaime Hokage) had ordered her to secrecy before he died. That said, pretty much everybody in the village knows anyway so...Jii-chan didn't do a great job himself.

But Naruto would never think badly of Jii-chan. Overall, he was great and Tsunade baa-chan wasn't that bad either - though she as very mean.

Both would give their lives for the village and were incredibly strong. It was people like them that made her want to become hokage.

Anyway, back to the present, Naruto had decided to leave her house early today instead of rush hour because the less people there were, the better. She could avoid most of the trouble.

"Oi! Nine-Tailed Brat! What are you looking at?" An angry voice called out to her.

Naruto winced. She had been on this road for approximately one second, and already?

"Well, you must be blind because a moron could clearly see I'm not looking at anything, dattebayo! Why would I want to look at anything in this street in the first place?"

Naruto pushed forward, a scowl on her face. Don't get her wrong, she loved Konoha, but sometimes its citizens were a real...

"That's the nine-tails"

"You know we're not supposed to talk about it."

"How was she allowed to be a ninja. She should be in solitary confinement."

"It's not safe around her."

"Don't ever go near her, okay?"

'I don't understand why I'm hated so much. It's not like I asked to be the vessel for the Nine-tailed fox! They act as if it's dangerous to breathe the same air as me. They stare at me as if I'm some sort of zombie-murderer. Would they act this way if I was just plain Naruto Uzumaki?" Naruto thought to herself.

Naruto stormed off through the road. Right when she was about to turn to the right, to exit the street, she felt something hit her head with force, splattering over her long, blond hair.

She felt something slushy slither down her body and she instinctively reached out her hand to feel whatever had hit her.

"A tomato? Seriously," Naruto thought.

Her eyes flashed and she turned around to face her attacker. To her surprise, they sunk back, their eyes wide.

"She's going to attack!"

Naruto's confused eyes scanned the villager's frightened ones.

Why were they so scared? Her eyes looked down and saw her hands had formed a hand-sign.

It was a simple Kage bunshun sign, but to the civilians, it probably looked like some sort of Nine-Tail chakra release or something.

It probably didn't help that her eyes had turned red.

With a huff of disapproval and disappointment, Naruto spun around on her heel and walked away.

"Well, it didn't go as bad as I thought it would have." She thought.

She met her two teammates who were waiting on their sensei to show up.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at the scowl on her face, but she ignored him. He wasn't exactly mister cheerful either. He looked more annoyed than usual, which was a new feat.

Actually, the real feat was the fact that Naruto was able to read Sasuke's emotions, which ranged from Annoyed to Annoyed 2.0.

Literally, the guy had one face.

Come to think of it, Sakura looked kind of down too. She wasn't obnoxiously flirting with Sasuke for once - thank god, it's so annoying when she does that - and was looking dejectedly at the pond.

Naruto wondered if something happened to the two of them.

"You have tomato in your hair."

"Great observation, teme. I expect you want an award?" Naruto shot at him. She had thought she had brushed all the tomato out.

He shrugged and turned his attention back to the glaring sun, shining in monotonous blue.

"Sorry, I'm late," A man with spiky grey hair said half-heartedly as he materialized in front of them. When he received no response, he sighed.

"Tough morning, for you guys too, huh? Want to talk?"

When he received nothing in return but another silence, he responded, "Yeah, I thought so. It's a good thing too, I'm not very keen on the idea myself and I've got no future in therapy."

"Let's go, 'ttebayo"