Hey, paracuties here. I originally posted this story on a whim, without these lengthy ANs that I typically would put. However, Mythrrinthael happened upon my pathetic little story and decided to point out some very ridiculous mistakes I made, and how I shouldn't "ever punch such a giant, ugly gaping hole" in my story with such mistakes. So, I have finally found myself bored enough to take the time to fix it, and maybe write some for the next chapter, and anyway.

Thank you, Mythrrinthael.

…

Team 7 stood around uncertainly, wondering where they would find the huge sum of money required for entrance now. After having it stolen from Sakura in the red light district—those people were definitely very sneaky, able to trick even jounin shinobi at times—they couldn't gain admission inside a temple where their client needed help with acting as bodyguards for a couple days. The client was a monk, and he was about to travel to another temple to spread—well, whatever news monks spread nowadays.

Sakura sat on a wooden bench outside of the temple, swinging her legs moodily. Both Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke were acting very annoyed with her, as they had been depending on the large sum of money the monk's messenger had left with the mission to get them inside the temple, and only brought a small sum of their own for other expenses along the way just in case. None of them had brought enough money, even put all together, and they still needed money for meals later on anyway.

Naruto was trying to cheer her up, but it was only annoying her. It simply reminded her of how she had basically caused the entire team to fail a simple, C-ranked mission. Not to mention that the monk would be pretty angry.

"Naruto, just shut up!" she muttered, and went back to moodily staring at the ground, where pink petals from the sakura tree standing behind her littered the ground. It had seemed like a nice, relaxing day in the morning, when she had gotten up, gotten her hair just right, and was able to resist the pancakes her mother was shoving onto her with plenty of time left to get to the gates and wait impatiently for their sensei. Eventually, he arrived two hours later, having picked up the money and mission scroll, and gave the mission scroll to Sasuke, the money to Sakura all for safe-keeping. He apparently wanted them to learn responsibility, but—look where that had gotten them. She sighed again.

"Alright, since you're all going to stand or sit there and stare at the ground, read your orange little book, or scowl at the temple, then I'm going to be productive. See you guys later!"

Naruto ran off back towards the red light district, where most likely the money had been stolen. They'd passed through with ease, and had gotten all the way to the entrance of the temple where Sakura reached inside her backpack, and…couldn't find the money. Really, it was kind of Naruto's fault. He should've been watching, especially since he knew how all of this worked. But, being on a, you could say, "team/friend high" he was being delusional and had thought that they would've been at least a little scared off by Kakashi-sensei travelling with them, even though he hadn't that one, momentous incident.

Now, though, he had to sprint as fast as possible, outrun his team and get inside the red light district, where he could do his business. He'd get the money, and then he'd go back where his team hopefully would be waiting around for him to show up again and make up something, where the whole exchange would be forgotten after the mission. As he neared the red light district, he wandered into a prostitute house, slyly handed off a bit of his own money to the mother, and changed in their bathroom. As he was doing this, he took the time to press his hand gently to the cracked, bug-ridden floor and felt for those three familiar chakra signatures, closing his eyes for concentration and extending his mind outwards. They seemed to be nearing. Hm…

His disguise would hopefully be enough to ward them off. They'd be looking for orange, and he was changed into black clothing with all the pockets on the inside of his black leather jacket. The jacket wasn't zipped, but the pockets were. He wore a black tank top underneath that, with matching black pants. His shinobi sandals were traded for a pair of black shoes, and overall, he looked Very Different from "usual". In reality, this was his true identity. A sneaky, lying and bad Akasenko, who had somehow graduated and was able to become a shinobi. With that orange monstrosity sealed inside the scroll he had taken the black clothing out of and stuffed into his backpack, which was sealed into a scroll itself and tucked inside a currently-empty pocket, he sauntered out the bathroom, waved and winked at the mother and the girls, and stepped out again into the bright sunlight. He had a hood attached to his beaten leather jacket, which he quickly took advantage of and pulled it over his head to hide the conspicuous blond hair.

Before attempting to step inside a casino, Naruto—or maybe he should be referring to himself as Silver Shadow?—put his hand on the ground again, and realized they—the members of his genin team, of course—were pretty close by. Hm. Maybe he needed to work on his speed. Or maybe they just somehow knew he was coming back here. Maybe both?

Either way, he needed to blend in, which meant sneaking along the side of the buildings and occasionally scaring someone. Right now, he was doing neither, considering he was crouching on the ground with a constipated expression. Yeah, not a great impression on anyone passing by.

Naruto quickly straightened up, and darted across the street, slipping inside the casino. Not the popular one, where there were more hired bodyguards than anybody else, but the one where there were the old, worn cards shuffling quietly in dim lighting, cigarette smoke clouding the air, and the occasional murder. That sort of thing.

"Hey, fellas, would I have a chance of joining you here?" he murmured quietly, coming upon a group of men with a large bundle of money sitting in the middle of their wobbly wooden table. Shadows fell across his face, as his back was towards the small, flickering light, and he waited there confidently.

"Ha, looky here, boys, we have a kid wanting to join us. Do we grant him this little wish?"

The man who said this smirked at him, yellowed teeth appearing behind his lips and only getting yellower by the minute judging by that cigarette dangling from between his teeth.

"Might I have a smoke?" Naruto drawled instead, casually pulling out a cigarette from inside one of his pockets.

He waited, holding out the cigarette, and the old man lit it, watching curiously as Naruto put it to his lips, breathed in, and breathed out again in a sigh. Thanks to the demon stuffed into his gut, he didn't have to worry about lung cancer. A great benefit. Note the sarcasm.

He had to tread carefully here, and waited for the consent of the majority of them before he sat down at an empty chair. Naruto put his wager at 1000—they needed 16000 ryo for the temple altogether, and this was the largest sum he could manage—and waited for everybody to count the money he set out, verifying the amount as well as the authenticity of it. They restarted the game, shuffled the cards out faster than the eye could see—at least, the untrained eye—and began anew. Naruto reviewed his cards, and waited his turn to deal his card. The game continued, with Naruto slowly coming out as winner, and earning back his 1000 ryo, as well as that same amount from everyone else sitting at the table. They stared at him suspiciously, although one guy next to him slapped him on the back viciously. He took it all with a blank, smoothed over face. The next time, he bet all his 7000 ryo. After it was all set out, they checked each other's money again, and started a new game. Again, he won the game, and quickly snatched up money before they could say he was cheating. He wasn't; he somehow had a tendency to win in these games, but they'd accuse him of that anyway and then the whole place would go after him. Now, he had plenty of money and more. He could go to three temples with this much and still have 1000 ryo left.

He made his movements standing back up slow and deliberate, and they did the same.

"Now, boy," the first old man said, no longer with that lazy, sort of amiable tone and instead with a hard, dangerous edge in it, "I'm not sure how you won that. How do you think?"

Naruto simply smiled. "I'm lucky, I guess," he grinned, but with a sharp glint in his eyes. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and was about to snub it out on the table already marked with a-hundred-too-many black burns when the creaky door burst open. All heads at all the five tables swung toward it, where three certain people he dreaded to see just then smashed their way inside the dim room. The bartender narrowed his eyes and said in a dangerously low tone, "Now, I don't serve shinobi in here."

Their attention wasn't focused on him though. It was focused on the boy with a cigarette in his hand, standing around in black, dusty and worn clothing, along with a bunch of other older men wearing similar clothing and overall appearing very much like gang members.

They stared at him. Naruto stared stonily back. He couldn't panic now, and all he really could do was act slightly confused and annoyed, as if he had had no idea of their existence until then.

"Now I wonder who brought those very nice shinobi in here," another man at his table directed that at him maliciously, and the way he said that indicated he didn't think them kind, but rather…something else.

He shrugged. "Who knows?"

Keeping it simple made it appear more realistic. If he blabbered about how he didn't know them, he wasn't familiar with any shinobi—then obviously they'd suspect. But if he just acted wary and kept his sentences short, it'd be all for the better.

"You—Naruto—"

Naruto inwardly cursed. Sakura just had to bring up his name?

"What—why are you in…here?"

He raised his eyebrows, acting annoyed. There'd be a lot of explaining to do later…

"Who you talking to, little girl?" Naruto leered at her, and she backed up, uncertain.

"Naruto, we're—we were looking for you 'cause you ran off, what…what do you mean?"

He stared at her, immediately assuming an oblivious, defensive stance, and Sakura wondered if they truly had the wrong person. But no, there were those whisker marks on his face, and Kakashi-sensei had said he felt his chakra signature in here—even if it was faint, much fainter than usual—and there were no other kids in here, and—what was going on?!

Naruto cursed in his head, again. He slowly suppressed his slowly-having-been-un-suppressing-as-he-got-into-t he-game chakra, little by little, pretending as if "Naruto" was not actually in here, and instead moving away. He also put up henge after henge, as he glossed over his whisker marks disappear little by little while moving towards the light—acting as if those whiskers had just been a play on the light. Blue eyes slowly turned green, and his team, already jittery in here, noticed his change of appearance and backed up towards the door.

"Oh, wrong person, guys," Kakashi-sensei said in a bored tone, but Naruto, having known his sensei for quite a while now, immediately picked up on the slight tightness in his voice. His sensei was worried that they might have trouble on their hands, now that they had barged in and disturbed a multitude of dangerous people from the red light district. He and the others didn't respond however, and soon they watched the three shinobi quickly dart outside and away, and the tension of an oncoming fight with them slowly dissolved.

Naruto turned around to face them—bad idea to turn around in the first place, but it couldn't have been helped—and quickly let his henge drop. They had had an up close view of him before, and they would notice any changes, however slight.

"Now, let's continue with our chat from earlier," the old man said, and Naruto crossed his arms.

"I won that fair and square, boys, believe me," Naruto announced.

They narrowed his eyes at him. They pounded a fist into one hand. They stepped closer. Okay, seemed like they were done talking. And seemed like they wanted to act like those typical, "threatening"people, where they didn't appear threatening at all. The men he had previously played a card game with attempted to surround him, but he had been in situations like this before and knew just how to sidestep them without alerting them to the fact that he had shinobi-like speed.

"You can't keep on ducking around like that, kid," one of them growled. They pounced at him. He threw up his arms to block it quickly, before jumping up and off the old guy's shoulder away from all the rest of them, the door right behind him then.

"See ya, it was nice playin' with you guys!" he smirked, threw them a two-fingered salute, and stepped out, before slinking into the shadows. He put up a henge just in case, wandered around and continuously retraced his path in random circles before leaving, satisfied. They weren't quite able to follow him.

Now came the hard part. Well, now came the really simple part that led to the hard part. He found his teammates really quickly—too quickly—and lingered back for a moment, watching them despondently watching the crowd, which he was kind of walking slowly in, and—their eyes widened. Technically, only Sakura's eyes widened, Sasuke's eyes went the opposite way and narrowed, and his sensei's eye only remained as lazy as ever. Nonetheless, all of them rushed over, and dragged him off to where they had previously been standing in front of a melon cart, irritating the cart owner to no end since the three shinobi had been slowing down business.

"Naruto! I know it's you—right?" Sakura added uncertainly afterwards, but Kakashi confirmed that by saying, "I know it's him; I can sense his chakra signature."

Sasuke didn't say anything, and continued to stare down Naruto with a strange intensity. Naruto shrunk back, uncomfortable and unsure how to deal with this.

"Why are you dressed like this? Why were you in there? Why were you holding a cigarette? Why—"

At this, Kakashi cut him off.

"Maa, maa, lay off it, will you, Sasuke? We're his teammates; we're not here to interrogate him. I'm only going to be asking a couple questions."

"But first of all," Sakura jabbed a finger at Naruto, now confident without a scary background and other dangerous-looking men around him, "You need to explain what you said in there."

She waited impatiently, and when he didn't explain immediately, an impatient elaboration was provided.

"Why'd you tell me…why'd you call me a 'little girl'? And why'd you act as if you didn't know us?"

Maybe it was still possible to pretend he had no idea what they were talking about. Maybe he could act as if he just randomly decided to wear black clothes for the fun of it, just to play a prank on them.

"Naruto."

Kakashi's firm command, if it could even be considered a command as it was only his name, jolted him out of his delirious thoughts and Naruto knew he couldn't trick his teammates. Now, why hadn't he just changed out of his black clothing? First of all, that would've stalled him to let him think properly, and second of all, he would've been more capable of pretending he had no idea what they were talking about! He was seriously an idiot.

Now wasn't the time to smack himself on the head and start muttering angrily to himself, though, so he silently reached inside his jacket, unzipped a zipper, pulled out a scroll, and unsealed the bundle of cash. It was all worn and frayed, some with quite a bit of undeterminable substances on it, but it was money and that was all that was important.

Kakashi silently took the pile and just as silently leafed through it, counting it in a matter of seconds and then turning towards Naruto and raising a single eyebrow.

"You were gambling? And earned 49000 ryo?"

He shrugged sheepishly, lips for some reason glued shut. Naruto wouldn't say anything; he couldn't say anything. That would be breaking the code.

"Can we talk about this somewhere else?" he finally demanded, blue eyes piercing and…somehow, a little fearful.

Kakashi gathered the consent of the majority, so they leaped up and out of the bustling groups of people in the street, onto old tiled roofs and reaching clearer air. Each was mulling over their own separate thoughts, some similar, and others completely contrasting.

It isn't possible, Sakura tried to conclude. She tried to end her thoughts there. But her sharp mind wouldn't let her, and her eyes couldn't help but be dragged back to Naruto like magnets, his black clothes startling her every time. How was he so involved in the red light district? When they had first passed through this area, he hadn't done much different. He had been acting like his usual self…right? Sakura regretted it now, focusing so much pointless attention on Sasuke-kun, even in such a dangerous place as the red light district. It was so stupid of her; not only had she lost the money that way, but she didn't pay much attention to Naruto and now she couldn't remember if he had been acting differently or not. As a result of her frustration, chakra was pumped to the soles of her feet, and she shot ahead, closing the distance between her and Sasuke, where she had been falling behind.

"Sorry, Sasuke-kun," the rose-haired kunoichi murmured because of her almost clipping Sasuke's feet, but other than that, there were no other acknowledgements from her. She must've been immersed in her thoughts about Naruto, just like he was.

…Maybe that didn't come out quite right. Sasuke shook his head, his eyes pinpointing the black-clothed figure ahead of even Kakashi-sensei, wondering just where the dobe had acquired those clothes from. Maybe that wasn't the most important thing, but it kept him from thinking about how Naruto was found in that old casino, hard, blue eyes glinting in the flickering light and a slight glare marring his features. Never before had that been seen on his face—at least, by him. Even if he hadn't seen Naruto or focused on his face all that much (and why would he? That would just be weird), Sasuke didn't think Naruto would be all that much different whether in the village, at the Academy, or in his own free time, probably spent in that ratty old apartment. He probably summoned those stupid Kage Bunshin of his and blabbered to them because of his oh-so-desperate need for attention. Sasuke wasn't like him that way. If only he could transfer some of that ridiculous attention from fangirls, like Sakura, onto Naruto, then it'd be a mutual benefit and he would have more time pursuing his dream. Or rather, his ambition.

But back to the topic at hand. Where did Naruto get those black clothing?!

He had an excuse for wondering so strongly about it anyway. It was a huge contrast compared to his bright orange abomination, so he had a fairly good reason for focusing on that detail so much. It didn't mean he was super obsessive about the tiniest little things, like his hair…

…

After Team 7 was well on their way out of the red light district and reaching their destination once again—they were extremely late, too, and Kakashi was already dreading the look on the monk's face and the stupid speech about honor and efficiency the shinobi were supposed to have. That was samurai, anyway. Shinobi weren't necessarily honorable. And efficiency, well…that was mainly only with killing, interrogating, or basically acting scary. The other stuff, not so much.

"So, Naruto, since we're all alone and there's nobody around to hear, why don't you start on your story?"

Kakashi crinkled his eye up, smiling in that way of his that so aggravated everyone. Especially his cute genin. Although right now he wasn't considering one of them very cute, considering his secretive nature and altogether chilling backstory.

The blond stared at Kakashi, seemingly yanked out of his deep thoughts like a sea cucumber pulled straight from the bottom of the sea and into the air, which wasn't a very good analogy, Kakashi realized too late, and cleared his throat nervously.

The 12-year-old scratched the back of his head, a nervous tic of his that reminded Kakashi of Sensei—and now wasn't the time to think of that—causing him to appear altogether strange-looking, considering he was running at the same time.

"Um, I thought I'd be real quick and just grab some cash, and then come back to the temple where you guys should have been waiting for me to come back," his student started, and then seemed to realize that that was only raising more questions.

"Er—okay. I…happened upon the casino, and looked inside, and since I've seen a lot of gambling on TV, I just decided that I wanted to try it out. I asked them if I could join them, and one of them lit a cigarette for me so I decided to try it 'cause I was curious, and then—oh yeah, these girls on the street gave me these black clothes because they hated the color orange—" There was a wince there, "And those people in the casino let me play cards with them. I mean, gamble with them. They told me how to play, and I bet a little, and then kept betting, and soon enough I got enough money. Then—"

Here, Naruto broke off, appearing uncertain how to continue.

"And then we came in?" Sasuke injected, guessing correctly.

"Uhh…yeah," Naruto nodded.

"And then you pretended not to know us?"

This was a very strange question, as it was certainly a rhetorical question, but somehow required an answer anyway.

"Um."

"You made us think you were someone else."

"No, no! You guys have it all wrong! I was sitting in the back, and you guys thought that kid sitting up front was me. But didn't you guys see?! He had—well, he looked different from me! While you guys were talking to him, I decided to go out the back, and snuck away from the old bums 'cause I knew they were going to give me trouble once they weren't distracted."

Naruto barely refrained from giving a description of "that kid". If he really had been sitting in the back, he wouldn't have been able to tell that the person sitting there had green eyes and no whisker marks. Even if those whisker marks were considered to be uncommon, and would really only be identified as one of Naruto's trademark features.

He wondered if his cover story was okay. It was only thought up last minute, but it seemed fairly sound. He knew enough about back entrances and escaping and whatnot to make it seem realistic if Hatake—er, Kakashi-sensei—decided to quiz him on such details even though the man was a shinobi and therefore shouldn't know that kind of thing.

"Hmm," the silver-haired jounin ran a critical eye over Naruto, and he immediately deducted that his sensei wasn't fooled. However, maybe Sakura and maybe even Sasuke would be fooled, and if his sensei was nice enough to drop it, because it wasn't like it was a super important secret that would endanger the mission in any way, shape, or form, he'd be perfectly fine with that.

Naruto threw in a large grin for good measure, and Sakura smacked him upside the head before sighing.

"Naruto, you scared us! We had no idea where you went!"

And with that, Sasuke "hmph"-ed, Naruto inwardly breathed a huge sigh of relief, and they continued jogging at a moderate pace for shinobi before reaching the temple in a couple of minutes.

Kakashi had a lot to think about.

…

So. Yes, it's kind of, let's say, basic. Not very complicated and realistic, not very captivating—hopefully at least somewhat—and not the best fanfiction ever. However, I'm still hoping somebody decides to review, because I put effort into this, and I'm hoping it's an improvement from the previous version I had.

I'll take constructive criticism like my turtles eat food. Meaning, any kind, and preferably as much as possible.

~paracuties