Lost in Emotion V2

by Sufferingzombie

Same as the other one. Cody lands in Konoha and tries to make things work. Will she find the family that she's always wanted or will her gifts wind up killing her in the end?

Don't Own, Don't Sue.

Chapter One: Arrival and Fighting

Cody Bringer ran.

It was all she could do in the face of the diabolical spirit following her through the alley that she had thought to hide in. Cody was a medium, able to see, touch, talk to and listen to the spirits that walked the Earth. She was the most powerful medium in the world, though she didn't know that, and as such was the only one who could interact with them as if they were still alive. She could even conceivably sleep with a ghost, if she were so inclined, though she was not. It was this ability to interact with spirits that made her a prime target for those ghosts who were pure malevolence in life and still wished to claim victims in their afterlife. Most of these simply couldn't gain enough strength to become powerful, and thus could only move items in a so-called haunted house to bring disturbance. These malevolent spirits were often mistaken for their more playful brethren the poltergeists and were primarily responsible for the violent hauntings that would crop up every so often. Cody had been born with a hypersensitivity to such activity and had been forced to adapt her life to it and now at the age of seventeen she could honestly say that she was an expert at not only talking with ghosts and helping them to cross over, but fighting the malevolent spirits and spectres that inhabited the mortal plane. However, this was not going to help her in this situation as the spirit was an old one, and one that had been killing for years before she'd stumbled upon him. She was good at fighting off the malevolent spirits of the damned, but she was no match for the cruel and positively evil creature following her now. So her only chance of surviving was to run. As far and as fast as she could before he caught up to her. Normally she would run home where she had numerous talismans and symbols to hold not only the spirits at bay, but also the emotions of those around her that were becoming harder and harder to filter out due to her rising panic, but she'd recently been evicted from her apartment and had no where safe to run to, so all she could do was run.

Run and pray that he didn't catch her.

She never noticed the street she was crossing, nor the truck as its horn blared a split second before she felt a massive impact and her vision went white.

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Cody woke sore from head to foot. It didn't help that she quickly discovered that she was tied to a tree with baling wire and gagged with something that tasted remarkably like an old sock. She shuddered as she remembered that particular bet, but quickly shook off the memories as they brought her nothing but pain, and concentrated on opening her eyes. The first light to pierce the darkness burned her retinas and she struggled to keep silent, not knowing who had tied her up, but knowing that it probably wasn't good. She slit her eyes to allow them to become accustomed to the light before trying to open them again and when she did she became even more concerned about her situation. She was, as she noticed before she'd opened her eyes, tied with her back to a tree and her hands bound behind her with twine that was cutting into her hands. She was sitting nestled into the roots of the tree half naked. Her flannel top was undone and the white tee shirt that she had on underneath was torn from top to bottom and hanging open. Luckily her sport's bra was still in place and she was still wearing the miniskirt and lycra pants that she'd been wearing when she'd run into that spirit, along with her ever-present gloves. She'd been on her way home from school...but that didn't matter and she shook the memories from her mind again and continued to assess the situation she was now in. She looked to her right and saw a low camp fire and three bodies around it, all on their sides, all asleep. She listened with both her ears and her heart and felt for anyone conscious. Her empathy was weak when she was fully covered, but with as much of her abdomen exposed as there was she could feel everything within a half-mile. There were no humans conscious in the area and only the three men she could see were anywhere near her. That meant that she could try to escape. She began turning and twisting her hands, ignoring the pain and the blood that ran down her wrists to pool beneath her hands. She was patient with it, twisting her wrists around until the rope loosened ever so slightly, giving her hope and spurring her on. For over an hour she patiently worked the ropes until, just before sunup, the rope gave and unraveled. She pulled herself to her feet, ignoring the pain of cramps and the blood flowing freely down her wrists, and raised her face to the wind. She still couldn't feel anyone in her area, so she pulled off her right glove and gave it a wave. Doing this extended her sensing range exponentially and gave her an area of more than twenty miles that she could sense. There was a village of some sort to the west, so without wasting any time Cody took off into the trees, replacing her glove as she ran in an effort to get as far away from the men who had tied her up as possible.

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Cody's day had gone from hellish to the ninth circle hellish. While running from the men at the camp she'd run into a malevolent spirit and with her clothes torn the way they were she was not prepared to block out all the emotions coming from it.

In reality all spirits were comprised of were emotions; the most intense of human emotions, be they love, lust or hatred and rage, spirits literally embodied emotion. One of her ways of fighting them was to block off as much of her own emotions as she could, taking away one energy source from them since most ghosts and spirits got their power from the emotions of the living. Here though she didn't have that luxury due to her torn clothing. Instead she ran, her legs pumping furiously, her lungs struggling to draw in enough air to supply her already waning muscles. She had trained with a Marine friend of hers and could run for miles without stopping, but she was injured and bleeding from the wrists, tired from being unconscious and her powers were going haywire, so her endurance was seriously hampered by these circumstances. As a result she did what she always did when things got tough: she pushed her body harder. She pushed until the sun went down and she felt people coming from her left, but she had no way to stop quickly enough to let her avoid a collision, so she did the only thing she could. Cody threw herself to the right, narrowly avoiding a collision with whoever it was, but sending herself hard into the packed earth of the trail she'd been following since midday. She hit and rolled, as her martial arts instructor had beaten into her, bringing herself to her feet before she registered the pain in her right ankle. She took her weight off it with a simple shift and grimace, hoping that whoever she'd run into was a non-threat, or she was in deep shit. She looked up and saw that she hadn't run into one person, her bad luck had struck again and she'd managed to find four people. The one she'd nearly hit head on was a blonde girl with long hair held in a high horse-tail. She wore a purple skirt and top, but whatever wasn't covered with her clothing was covered in what looked to be bandages. The look she was giving Cody was a strange mix of curiosity and hostility. The boy behind the girl was looking at Cody with eyes half-lidded and if Cody didn't know better she'd have said that he was half asleep. However, she'd seen that look before and the intelligence in the boy's eyes did not escape her notice. Her elder brother Sam was like that, obscenely smart, but hidden behind a veneer of laziness and illness that fooled damn near everyone in their hometown. The gangs left him alone because they didn't think that he was worth anything to them and the teachers let him be because regardless of the fact that he mostly "slept" in class he had the highest grades. This boy was wearing all black and his hair was in a style that made his head look like a pineapple. The last of the teens was a wide boy who was munching on a bag of chips like there wasn't a care in the world, a kindred spirit to Cody, who was known to eat more than ten times a day just to keep herself going. The man that walked behind the teens made her very wary as he looked like he could severely hurt her without even breaking a sweat. He was tall with black hair and a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, but the look in his eyes was cautious and slightly hostile and had Cody backing up a step. All four had strange pouches strapped to their legs and the man was wearing an olive vest over his clothing. Cody backed up another step, unsure if she could run again on her ankle, but willing to try if this got dangerous. The man stepped forward and Cody hobbled back, trying not to wince as she put weight on her injured ankle. He stopped his advance and stood there, just looking at Cody, who growled at herself and straightened up, ignoring the needles of pain from her ankle as she waited for one of them to make the first move.

The gennin of Team 10 didn't really know how to approach the teen before them. She looked almost afraid of them and none of them knew quite how to take that. Chouji though, noticed her eyes on his chips and the hungry look in them and decided that he would have to break the ice. Chouji reached back into the bag he always had with him and pulled out a bag of barbeque potato chips and offered them to the girl. He ignored the disbelief coming from his teammates and addressed the girl.

"Here. They're barbeque."

He watched as the girl cocked her head to the side and slowly reached a gloved hand out to pull the bag from his grasp. She fell on the chips like they were the greatest food on the planet and she hadn't eaten in days. She finished the chips quickly and sighed in relief before looking Chouji in the eyes and thanking him with a bright smile that showed off her pearly white teeth, contrasting greatly with the dirt and mud that covered her face.

"Thank you so much. I didn't realize how hungry I was."

"You're welcome. I'm Akimichi Chouji."

Cody noted the order he gave his name and realized that she was somewhere with Asian influence. She smiled at the young man and bowed slightly.

"Pleasure to meet you Akimichi-san. I'm Bringer Cody."

"Nice to meet you Bringer-san, and please just call me Chouji."

"Very well Chouji-san, then I'm Cody."

Chouji smiled and gestured to his teammates.

"These are my teammates Yamanaka Ino and Nara Shikamaru and our sensei Sarutobi Asuma."

Cody bowed carefully to each of them and they nodded in return before she turned back to Chouji.

"Hey, um...do you happen to...know where I am?"

"You don't know where you are?"

Cody turned sharply to look at Asuma and slowly shook her head after contemplating him for a few seconds.

"Uh uh. I woke up tied to a tree about twenty miles that way and when I escaped I just ran. So really I have no idea where I am."

Asuma was a bit suspicious of this, but when the girl's face went a shade paler and she gasped slightly in apparent pain his attention turned to her hands, which he hadn't noticed were covered in blood. He took her right hand, ignoring the massive flinch the action caused, and looked at the rather deep wounds in her wrist, ignoring her subtle tugging and the strange glove that she wore.

"What happened to your wrists?"

Cody looked at the blood still dripping from her wrists and noticed a spectral cuff around the wound, staunching the blood flow enough so that it wouldn't kill her. She silently thanked whatever spirit it was that placed the cuff and turned her attention again to the team in front of her.

"Like I said, I woke up tied to a tree. It took me nearly an hour to get the damn ropes off."

Asuma shook his head and turned to Ino, who had already pulled out bandages, and began wrapping the girl's wrists.

"Listen Cody-san, we're going to take you back to our village and see the Hokage about what you can do. If he allows you to stay you will be provided for as best as we are able. Okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

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Cody looked at the wall in front of her in awe. She'd never seen a wall so large and the gate that opened into the village was just as impressive. She'd been walking with Team 10 for the last three miles, the distance she'd been outside their village when they'd met, and had been listening to Ino talk about the village and the people in it. Mostly about a boy she called 'Sasuke-kun', whom she was obviously infatuated with. She watched Chouji carefully and saw that neither he nor Shikamaru cared for this 'Sasuke' character. Cody liked Chouji a lot, she felt like they were 'born friends', that is that they were born to be friends. She felt no hostility from him, no scorn and he was a bright soul. In fact, he was one of the brightest souls she'd ever seen, a sure sign that he was a happy young man who loved life and everything in it. The other two teens also had bright souls, as most teens tended to, but the man's soul was something else. It was bright, but it was flame-like, red and orange with flickers of bright green that exactly matched the trees around them. His soul had its dark spots, but not many of those and they weren't that big; all in all it was one of the oddest souls that Cody had ever seen. She placed her glove back on (she'd been brushing her bare hands through the trees at the roadside) and shuddered as the feeling of being totally isolated washed over her, as it always did when she put on her gloves. She hated the feeling, but it was either that or she was inundated with the feelings of everyone within her initial range; she would take the isolated feeling over that any day of the week. She watched as Asuma and his team walked forward to talk to the guards who had jumped down to check them and saw the two masked people looking at her with distrust that shot straight to Cody's nerves and caused her to shudder. They allowed them to pass and Cody walked up to Asuma when she saw him nod to her.

"We're going to take you to the Hokage's office. He'll know what to do with you."

Cody nodded and walked between Chouji, who was pointing out all the great places to eat in the village that they passed, and Shikamaru, who was watching her out of the corner of his eye and muttering 'troublesome' at her every thirty seconds or so. Cody listened to Chouji and tuned out Ino, who was blathering about someone she called 'Forehead' getting her 'Sasuke-kun'. It was quite tiresome for a young woman who had never even been touched voluntarily by anyone since she was six. She had been attracted to only two people since she became a teen, one was a boy who hated her in return and the other was an idol who she would never see in real life, much less meet or touch, so he was safe. She'd lived a life of absolute isolation even as she had hung out with friends in high school and gone to dances with various groups; it was a tiring life that was extremely lonely, so hearing this girl go on and on about some boy was very irksome. She was about to lose it and yell at the girl when she noticed that they'd arrived at a strange spiral building. Asuma led the way to the Hokage's office, knocking politely and walking in only when there was a positive response. Cody didn't bother to look around the office, instead zeroing in on the old man behind the huge desk in the center of the room. She eyed the man critically for a moment before relaxing ever-so-slightly. He felt like good people. Kindness fairly radiated from him and the exposed skin on her face gave her a clear reading on him and made her smile.

"Hello Asuma, Team 10. Mission complete?"

"Yeah Hokage-sama. We found this young woman running toward the village on our way back she will require medical aid, but I think that you and she should talk before that. She may need sanctuary."

The Hokage nodded at Asuma and dismissed the team while keeping his eyes on Cody's. Cody merely smiled, no longer affected by the stares of others. She'd been stared at for years for the way she dressed, people equating her wardrobe to the X-men's Rogue. The Hokage smiled at her and gestured for her to sit in the chair across from him and she acquiesced quickly, not wanting to offend.

"I am the Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato. I hope you'll forgive my son, he's not the most trusting of people."

"You're son? Oh, you must mean Asuma-san. He's alright. He didn't try to kill me or tie me to a tree like the men who found me did."

She shared a bright smile with him that pulled a similar one almost unwillingly from the old man. If Cody knew anything it was how to make people smile.

The Hokage nodded and thus began the questioning.

"So where are you from?"

"Somewhere you've probably never heard of."

"How do you mean?"

"I don't think I'm from this...world." The Sandaime sat up at that and his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"What makes you say that?"

"Well...there aren't any forests anywhere near my home and people do not walk around armed where I'm from. Besides, I've never heard of Konoha before today, so I really don't think I'm at home anymore."

"Well. That would explain it. So where are you from? What is your world like?"

"Well...I'm from a city called Los Angeles, which is 'the Angels' in Spanish. I live...lived...in a crappy studio apartment in Watts that not even the rats would willingly inhabit and everyday had to make sure that the local gangs weren't battling on the corner in front of my building. I held down a job while trying to go to school and majored in biological science and mathematics. I was doing okay, but my...night job...was beginning to wear on me and then I got chased by this huge guy who wanted to kill me and I ran into the street and the last thing I remember is hearing a horn blaring, immense pain and then...nothing."

Cody put her head down and sighed.

"I'm obviously not dead or I'd know it so all in all I'm lost."

The Hokage considered her for a few minutes, the silence a surprisingly peaceful one that Sarutobi finally noticed was actually coming from the young woman in front of him. He narrowed his gaze on the woman and saw a faint outline of blue around her.

"What are you doing?"

Cody looked surprised for a second before noticing what was happening and blushing. The outline vanished and the atmosphere became normal. Cody blushed.

"Sorry Hokage-sama. I...I'm an empath, but I don't have really great control sometimes. I don't like being uncomfortable, so my powers have a tendency to do things that I don't ask them to in order to keep me comfortable. I'm sorry, I'll try to control it better and- "

"Wait, wait, wait. What exactly is an empath?"

Cody's expression was blank. She'd never met someone who didn't know what empathy was and could infer the meaning of an empath before. She quickly gathered herself and tried to explain.

"Um, Empathy is the ability to feel the emotions of the people around you. I have an...extreme case. Um...can you like...not tell anyone what I'm going to tell you? I'd really rather not have people hate me here like they did back home."

The Hokage nodded, knowing that if it was something that threatened the safety of his village that the woman would have to be interrogated.

"Okay, well...like I said, I'm an empath, but I can't touch people because the reading gets too strong and I run the risk of being lost. I can also...talk to the dead."

The Hokage jolted and stared at the woman in utter disbelief.

"Excuse me?"

"I can talk to the dead. That is if they decide to talk to me, but I can see any spirit that enters the living realm."

"I'm...sorry, but I can't believe that."

Cody sat back in her chair, exasperated that yet again no one would believe in her abilities.

"Believe what you will Hokage-sama, but all I will request is that you tell no one what I've told you thus far."

The Hokage thought for a few moments before nodding, knowing that no harm could come from someone who thought that they could speak to the dead. Cody nodded and stood.

"Do you know of any place that I can find somewhere to live? I don't have any money, but I'm a hard worker and-"

Sarutobi raised a hand.

"Don't worry about it. Hikari-san!"

The brown-haired, mousy woman whom the group had passed on their way in walked into the office and bowed.

"Hikari-san, find a vacant apartment in Naruto's building would you please? Thank you. Cody-san, I'll call for a genin team to come and help you with whatever shopping you need to do. Feel free to buy furniture and amenities; I'll give the jounin the confirmation slip for the stores."

Cody nodded and slouched into the chair as the day finally caught up to her. She'd been going since she'd gotten free from the idiots in the forest and had yet to really rest. She closed her eyes and began to meditate, clearing her mind of everything that had happened and focusing her attention on her shields. When she visualized her shields she was vaguely horrified to find that they were tattered and torn to virtual shreds. It seemed that her journey to...wherever she was...had damaged her shields to the point that if she had been even mildly attacked by a spirit of any kind it would have fallen entirely. Cody swore violently, not knowing that she had done so out loud, and proceeded to shore up her shields as best she could in an unshielded room.

Sarutobi sighed as the young woman slouched into her chair and shut her eyes. Hikari came back and handed him a slip and he nodded to her and told her to get Gai's team for him. She complied and soon enough the 'Green Beast' and his genin were coming into the office. The first in was the Hyuuga genius Neji, his pearl-like eyes bright and angry as per usual. The next into the office was the girl of the team Tenten, her hair in its trademark buns and a soft smile on her face. Last, but certainly not least, was Rock Lee, the Gai bunshin. The four members of team 9, known by all as 'Team Gai' stood around the Hokage's desk and waited, all of them glancing at the young woman in the chair occasionally in suspicion.

"Ah, welcome Team Gai. I need to request your services for a D class mission, if you don't mind."

"Not at all Hokage-sama! What is this youthful mission?"

"The young woman in the chair is Bringer Cody. She ran into Team 10 while they were on their way back from their border patrol. She is new to the area, so we are providing sanctuary until she gets back on her feet. I would like you to take her around town to buy what she needs for her new apartment and then take her to her new home and help her set up. I'll give you the..."

Sarutobi trailed off as Cody thrashed once and began cursing.

"Sonovabitch! Fucking damn it! How the hell am I going to fix this? Shit, shit, shit…"

She then fell silent and the occupants of the office watched in something akin to shock as her body began to glow a light green and then the glow faded after a few seconds and she opened her eyes.

Cody drew back at the sight of the stares she was getting.

"What?"

The nins in the office shook themselves and decided as a group that they'd been seeing things before Gai stepped forward with his usual aplomb.

"Hello there! I am Maito Gai, the lovely Green Beast of Konoha! And this is my most youthful team! This is Hyuuga Neji, the Hyuuga family prodigy, Tenten, the lovely weapons mistress and finally Rock Lee, our most youthful taijutsu expert!"

Cody looked at each one of them, their emotions flashing in her mind and shaking her body before slamming into her newly shored shields. Neji was a veritable ball of angst, and not the normal teenage kind that she had learned to ignore. Tenten was the soul of indifference and Lee was...well he was energetic to say the least. She felt his pure joy at life splash against her shields and swallowed a gasp at the feeling of her shields bowing under it. She braced herself for the pain of emotional overload...but it never happened. She felt his joy and light wrap around her mind and actually strengthen her shields to the point that she wouldn't have to rush today like she had thought. She closed her eyes and smiled serenely as Lee's energy wrapped her in a metaphysical hug and soothed her soul from the near-panicked state it had been working its way towards. She opened her eyes and met Lee's eyes, her smile widening.

"Hello all, I'm Cody. I hope that we'll all become friends eventually and I'd like to thank you in advance for your help."

She could feel Neji's anger and loathing increase, Tenten brightened a little and Lee positively beamed at her, along with Gai and she followed the group out of the office, sticking close to Lee unconsciously.

Cody looked around the village, drawing practically on top of Lee unconsciously and not even noticing his bright red blush (though his sensei and teammates did) and asking many questions about the village.

"So y'all are shinobi? What is that like? Are you all great fighters?"

"Yosh! I am a taijutsu user!"

"Taijustu? What is that precisely?"

"That is fighting without the use of chakra!"

Cody was relieved that she knew kind of what they were talking about. Shikamaru had, reluctantly, explained what chakra was to her on their way to the village, so she wasn't totally lost. She was about to respond when a glint of white-blue caught the corner of her eye. She turned her head to look and saw the spirit of a young man following someone. She flashed a quick smile at Lee before turning her full attention onto the man. He was young, probably around fourteen or so, with very messy black hair and a pair of goggles around his neck. He wore the hitai-ate with the Konoha symbol proudly on his forehead and she saw that his eyes were black, an odd color that she'd never seen before. She watched as the boy yelled at the man that he was following, a tall silver-haired man wearing a mask who had his hitai-ate crooked so that it covered one of his eyes.

"...Teme! Are you listening to me! You cannot go through your life mourning for us! We were shinobi, we knew that the odds were against us. Dammit Kakashi-teme don't ignore me!"

Cody felt bad for the ghost, who was doing his level best to get the man to hear him. Cody turned to Gai and smiled.

"Excuse me for a moment Gai-san, but I think I see something that I'd like to look at a bit closer. I'll meet you in that furniture store there."

She pointed at the bright red sign declaring that the store beneath sold 'the best furniture in Fire Country' and turned to get to the ghost before Gai had a chance to respond. She walked straight past the ghost, grabbing his arm as she went and hauling him off behind one of the many stands that lined the market street. Team Gai was confused at her actions, but they shrugged and moved on to the store to pick out furniture and wait.

Cody looked the boy over and crossed her arms to listen to his current tirade.

"What the hell was that for? Couldn't you see that I was talking to Kakashi-teme! I-wait. You...you can see me? And touch me? What the hell!"

"Listen, my name is Cody and I'm a medium. That means that I have the ability to see, touch and totally interact with the spirits of the dead. You do know that your friend cannot hear you, right?"

The boy sighed and slumped.

"Yeah, I know. I like yelling at the bastard every now and then though. Besides, someone has to watch his back when he goes on missions. By the way, I'm Uchiha Obito."

Cody nodded and looked at the furniture store.

"Okay Obito-san, listen. I've got to go meet with my guides, but if you ever get bored I'll be around. You can't really miss me as a ghost, or so I've been told."

Obito nodded and quickly returned to his pursuit of Kakashi while Cody shook her head and smiled before heading to join Team Gai in shopping.

Cody looked around her new apartment and nodded as she dropped the duffel bag that she had bought that now contained her clothes.

"This will do nicely. Please, just set everything down wherever. I have to secure my place before my shields fall entirely."

Cody's shields had taken a beating while in the marketplace. There were simply too many people for her to block everything and even with her practically crawling on a tomato-red Lee (her getting as close to him as she could without actually touching him) her shields had barely held up under the onslaught. She'd been seeing ghosts literally everywhere and had even had a bit of a scuffle with a kid's spirit who was trying to knock down a series of shelves. She needed a haven and she needed one now. She quickly opened the duffel and started throwing her clothes onto the floor, not caring that Team Gai was watching her in confusion as she pulled out some things she'd bought while they were in another store. Gai had given her some money to buy "personal items" and she'd bought her supplies with it.

"Um...Cody-san? What is that stuff and what are you doing?"

Cody pulled out a mortar and pestle, a tied bunch of dried basil, a chunk of something that looked like old wood (it was actually petrified wood), a bright orange stone, a black stone and a blue stone. She quickly tossed the orange stone into the northern corner of the room, the black stone into the eastern and the blue stone into the southern. The door was at the western side, so she quickly hung the sprig of Basil over the door. She pulled a hidden cord out from beneath the waistband of her tattered jeans and quickly unlatched it. The cord was a secret that she kept from everyone back at home, but she was too desperate now to wait for the team to leave. The cord held six hunks of metal, each one different. The first was aluminum, the second was copper, the third was iron, the fourth was silver, the fifth was steel and the sixth was lodestone. She quickly chipped off a piece of the lodestone and pulled a basil stalk from the sprig, placing both into the mortar. She then proceeded to look around, her brow furrowing when she didn't find what she was looking for. Tenten watched and was taken back when Cody's eyes alighted on her.

"Tenten-san?"

"Um...yes?"

"Do you happen to have a knife on you?"

The girl looked intrigued, but, with a glance at her teammates and sensei, nodded and pulled out a kunai. Cody handled the weapon as she handled all weapons: carefully. She quickly sliced an inch long lock of hair off and dropped it into the mortar, then just as quickly drew the kunai across her wrist lightly, reopening the wounds from the rope, and began letting her blood flow into it on top of the other ingredients. She ignored the shocked sounds coming from behind her, but decided to enlighten them.

"What the Hokage didn't ell y'all was that I'm an empath. A strong one and crowded areas do me no good at all. Being near Lee helped a lot, his enthusiasm and sheer joy in life helped...dampen some of the worst effects, but simply put I cannot successfully block things out with my shields as tattered as they are now. Hell, even just with you in the room its battering my shields...um...could you four go now? I just want to finish this up. Thanks for your help, but I'm feeling tired and...well...I guess I'll see you tomorrow, but I need to be alone for his last part."

She could tell that none of them were happy about leaving, but they bid her farewell and walked out the door, locking it behind them with some ninja trick or other and Cody continued her work.

She ignored the pool of fresh blood at her knee and quickly dipped her fingers in the mixture and stood, reaching above the door and painting a border around it with the mixture. She then proceeded to do the same with all the windows, the bedroom door and the threshold to the kitchen. The bathroom she, for lack of a better term, fortified. She pulled a small hunk of aluminum off her belt-cord and placed it on the rim above the door. She then proceeded to nearly paint the bathroom with the vile concoction she'd made before walking to the sink and washing the mortar. She smiled as the feelings from outside dwindled and the smile grew when she realized that she could now take a shower without worrying. She untied her shirt, which she had finally tied together to keep it closed, stripped off her gloves, ignoring the shades of the team that had been here before she kicked them out, stripped out of her pants and undergarments and jumped into the shower. She reveled in the warm water cascading over her scarred body, scars given to her by the various spirits that she'd had to fight back home in LA. She was known in Watts as the 'crazy white girl' who 'talked to ghosts'. People came to her when they had a problem with hauntings and such, but not that often. The true test to her was the fact that the dead were all over Watts and the rest of LA and not all of them were benign. She'd run into more than one serial killer, sadist, and child molester in her time and each had left an indelible mark on both her mind and her body. She ran her fingers over a long, thick scar on her lower abdomen, right about where her uterus would be. That had been a really bad one. The spirit of a particularly evil killer had stalked her for about two weeks before finally attacking her and the really bad thing was, was that it was before she'd learned how to fight back. He'd gotten in a good slice that had gone deep enough to lacerate her uterus before she'd been able to exorcize him. It had been hell trying to explain the wound when she'd gone to the hospital.

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Sarutobi sighed and looked at Gai carefully.

"So what do you think of our newest resident?"

Gai was standing between Genma and Kakashi, the former chewing thoughtfully on his senbon and the latter reading his porn. Behind them stood Raidou, Kurenai, Ibiki, Asuma and Anko, all waiting for him to respond.

"Young Cody is a very youthful and kind person with a wonderful, spirited sense of humor and a warm smile! She is truly a good choice to join our fair village!"

Sarutobi's eyes narrowed.

"But?"

The other jounin were shocked. How did the Sandaime know that there was more to Gai's rant? Gai looked at the floor and sighed, his normally exuberance missing.

"She is strange Hokage-sama. She stuck close to Lee almost the entire time, except when she went toward my eternal rival while on the street. She passed just behind him and actually looked like she had grabbed something. Then she went behind a stall for a few moments before coming back as if nothing had happened. Everything went normal for a while after that, but I and my youthful student Neji noticed that she kept creeping closer to Lee as the day wore on, but she never actually touched him. Everything was fine until we got to her new apartment."

Gai went on to explain what had happened in the apartment, his audience listening in shock at the lengths this girl would go for...whatever it was she needed to do. The Hokage sighed and gained the attentions of his jounin again.

"Cody told me this in confidence and I suspect that the only reason she said anything to Gai's team was because she was feeling weak, but Cody claims to be an empath. The way she described it, it is an ability to sense and feel others' emotions. According to her, her case is so bad that she cannot touch people for fear of getting lost in them and her abilities are not fully under her control. She disclosed something else to me, but I will not inform you of this until I have proof, for honestly I don't believe what she told me. I want you all to watch her and help her if she needs it. Something tells me that she is going to either be a huge help to Konoha...or a huge hindrance."

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Cody ran. Again.

She growled as she dodged a ghostly kunai and sped up a bit. She'd been in the village for two weeks and she'd been walking around exploring the village when she'd run into a ghost with a strange hitai-ate that she'd never seen before. She'd seen that he had gathered enough energy to kill someone if he really tried and he'd been coming up on a brown-haired man with a needle in his mouth, ghostly kunai in his hand. She'd figured that she should probably stop him since she was the only one who could. So she'd flared her soul, an ability that had taken her years to master, and waited. Cody had been told by some friendly spirits that her soul was like a drug for spirits, so heady that they could actually gain immense power from it, which is what drew spirits to her like moths to a flame and explained why she was always attacked by the less kind spirits. As she'd hoped, the nin had taken the bait, which had led to her running willy-nilly, trying not to get killed.

Well isn't this just frikkin' wonderful.

Cody headed for the Hokage tower and the Hokage monument behind it, knowing that if she were up there, there would be less of a chance of anyone getting caught up in her efforts to tire the ghost out. The more energy the ghost used against her, the less likely it would be that he could attack his original target. She jumped to the left, avoiding the next spiritual weapon and calculating that he only had about six of those left before he'd be sufficiently tired. She didn't notice the deep hole that appeared in the side of the Hokage tower as the weapon hit it, nor did she notice the living man following her, and wondering what was going on as she sprinted up the trail at the side of the monument.

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Genma followed at a slight distance, not wanting to have her suspicious. He thought it odd that she was running and dodging things that he couldn't see, but he followed her anyway, knowing that it could lead to important intel on the girl. She raced up the monument, occasionally jerking to the left or the right, concerning Genma because of the severe drop off, before she got to the top and suddenly jerked forward. Cody fell into a roll and popped back to her feet, but Genma's eyes widened when he saw the obvious kunai wound in her shoulder, blood pumping from the deep wound as she ran.

What the hell?

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Cody gritted her teeth in anger and pain as she ran to a clearing at the top of the monument and abruptly stopped, turning to face the spirit who had already wounded her. He was taller than her five foot five frame and very bulky. He wore an outfit very similar to the man who he was about to kill, except the character on his headband looked like a cracked mountain instead of a spiral leaf. He glared at her hatefully, his voice gravelly and dark.

"Why did you stop me from killing that bastard?"

"Because, that bastard is a leaf shinobi. Now what kind of guest would I be if I let you kill one of my gracious hosts?"

"You, girl are only a child. You have no idea what you're getting into do you?"

"I know plenty. You're a ghost who has something against that guy who was chewing on the needle. You've probably spent years gathering up energy for your attack on him haven't you?"

"Yes you stupid little bitch! And now, since I can't kill him I'm gonna kill you!"

The ninja ran at her and she fell into a crane stance, thanking Kami that she had actually liked her lessons in Kung-Fu. She parried many of his attacks, but missed one that sent her hurtling back to the ground, knocking the wind out of her. She tumbled a bit before doing a kick-flip that got her to her feet just in time to avoid a wave of earth coming at her head. She dove away and rolled again to her feet just in time to get kicked in the ribs, sending her crashing into a tree. She was hurting, badly and knew that the only way to win was to try something that she'd been working on all week. She had gotten the idea while watching a pair of chunin sparring and using different ninjutsu. She went to the library and found as many books as possible on chakra manipulation and jutsu creation and put everything she had into creating something that could help her quickly, knowing that if she couldn't fight fire with fire that she would get badly burned. She was lucky that she was a genius and that she was a quick learner. She hadn't slept more than four hours the entire week and had finally come up with a jutsu that should finish this particular ghost off.

Now if she could only pull it off...

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Genma watched as the young woman that he'd been following placed her hand in an odd seal that he'd never seen before. He'd been shocked to find her talking to thin air, but when she'd mentioned 'ghost' and 'guy chewing on a needle' he figured that he should probably listen a bit closer. It didn't help since she didn't talk too much more, though she did seem to be responding to something. He was utterly flabbergasted when he saw her flung backwards into a tree and then have to dodge a doton jutsu that literally came out of nowhere. He watched as she was thrown into a tree by nothing and was entranced as she made the strange hand sign.

"Reikon: Iki no shinpan!"

Cody began to glow faintly and yelped as her shields dropped almost completely to allow for her empathic energy and chakra to bolster her soul's power. The ghostly nin screamed loud enough for even Genma to hear him as he was outlined by the combination of Cody's soul and chakra. The nin screamed again before the light around him flashed and he vanished, his soul sent on for shinigami's judgment. Cody hit the ground on her knees and just sat there, panting hard. She gulped air as fast as she could draw it in and lowered her head to offer a prayer for the soul that she'd just destroyed. She felt her shields struggle to repair themselves and sighed as they finally rose into place again. It was over and now she knew that she could protect her gracious hosts from the enemies that only she could see.

Genma didn't know what to make of what had just happened. He'd seen the man as he'd been destroyed, so he knew that everything was real, but it was simply unbelievable. Ghosts? He'd never believed in their existence, but now he had seen the fight, the girl who had come out of nowhere had fought a ghost and now he wanted answers. He slowly stepped out from his hiding place and watched with a careful eye as the girl spun on her knees and put one hand to the ground. She was obviously exhausted, but was just as obviously ready and willing to fight. When she saw who it was, that his hitai-ate was from the leaf, she relaxed and slumped to her back on the ground. She continued in her quest to catch her breath as Genma came to sit beside her. He looked at the girl, studying her carefully. She was just about his height with dark brown hair reaching to her mid-back and streaked with red. Her eyes were bright green that seemed almost to glow with an inner light. She looked exhausted and Genma noticed that she was still bleeding from the shoulder, so he pulled a roll of bandages from his hip pack and stepped behind her. He carefully pulled her up by her uninjured shoulder until she was in a sitting position, then proceeded to pull the cloth away from the wound and dab at it with the bandages.

"Soooo...what was that all about?"

Cody cringed as the shinobi dabbed at the wound and asked the one question she didn't want to answer. She peeked over her shoulder at the shinobi and smiled lightly at the worried feelings she was getting from him. She noticed that he was careful not to touch her skin on skin.

"Well, whoever that was just now had a strange hitai-ate and wanted to kill you. Simple as that."

"Who was it?"

"I don't know! He had something that vaguely resembled a boulder on his hitai-ate, but beyond that I couldn't tell you anything about him."

"A boulder..."

Genma knew that she was talking about someone from Iwagakure, probably someone that he had killed on a mission, but he needed more information on what had actually happened with Cody.

"Okay Cody-san, explain to me what exactly happened."

Cody pulled away from Genma's ministrations and took a quick look at the injury, noting that it was still bleeding, but that the bleeding had slowed down significantly. She sighed and carefully took the bundle of bandages from Genma and placed them on her shoulder before lying back, allowing the ground to hold the bandages tight to her wound.

"Well...I was exploring the village. I've only been here for a few weeks, so I still have a tendency to get lost on occasion and that is embarrassing. So I decided to get to know the village like I knew my home town. Anyway, I was exploring when I saw him coming up behind you. At first I thought that he was just going to curse at you and do the things that spirits do when they can't actually attack the ones they hate, but when I noticed that he had enough power to actually touch you I got worried. You saw what happened after that."

Cody didn't want him to know about the threats that she had heard from the ghost on her way up the mountain. Having a malevolent ghost threatening to rape you was never pleasant, nor was it pleasant hearing how they were going to kill you in bloody detail. It was not something you revealed to someone who was helping you if you wanted to keep their respect. She closed her eyes and before she realized how tired she truly was she was asleep beside Genma. The brown-haired shinobi sighed softly before gathering the girl into his arms and starting down the mountain, not noticing that the wounds that he'd received on his latest mission, little more than flesh wounds, had healed the moment his hand slipped and brushed Cody's skin.

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I don't really know where to go with this from here. If you have suggestions then, please, review and tell me about them. I'm open to pretty much anything, though I'm leaning toward having this as a Cody/Lee pairing. I will incorporate the dead Hokages and some more Uchihas and Cody's past and lack of family will come up later, but beyond that I don't have any plans.