Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto and Shonen Jump. This is no way an official release and is not being created for paid distribution.

Also: Nobody correct me on genders please. For the most part I know what I wrote. ^.^

Chapter 01

It was a bright sunny spring day in the Hidden Leaf village. The birds were chirping, the cicadas were buzzing, and children were playing on the playgrounds. All in all, it was for the most part, an average, peaceful day.

"I hate this village." A sunglasses wearing man muttered under his breath. "It's way too hot here." He continued. The man was wearing the flak jacket of a chunin level ninja, though obviously of a different style of the green jackets of the ninja around him. That's because unlike those ninjas minding their own business he was not a ninja of Konoha, with his headband identifying him as a proud shinobi of the Hidden Waterfall village. This man went by the name of Hibiki, and he was involved with currently the most important of stupid tasks embedded to him by the Head ninja of his village.

Babysitting.

He supposed that it was a serious job, given who the child in question was, but it still didn't excite him at all to be escorting the charge from the Waterfall all the way to the Leaf, especially since he was here know and felt like he was burning up under his jacket. He took a quick annoyed glance at the small child who was holding his hand as he continued to walk at a pace they could follow. The caramel skinned, mint green haired, seven year old looked back up at him, a neutral expression written on their face. He knew why. The child wasn't really well liked in the village. Treated as a social pariah and an outcast for being basically nothing more than a living weapon of war, it learned long ago to mask its feelings, because any emotion that may flash across its face, fear, anger, happiness, sadness, might spur the villager's wrath.

Now the villagers weren't stupid, yeah they ignored it, and they called it names behind it's back, and yeah they told their children's to stay away from it, but the adults were usually smart enough not to attack it. It's hard to justify attacking something that looked like a child, though every now and then a group would try and catch it for some sick beating or game but the brat was like an insect: really, really hard to catch. Those that did catch it usually only had about three minutes of whatever potentially violent fun they planned on having before the ninja arrived to arrest them. Yeah not all ninja liked the little brat, that was for sure, but even they knew you don't let people antagonize something that could one day probably wreck a good most of the village.

Sighing, the man turned back ahead, slightly jealous of the child's pretty, loose, thin, breeze accommodating yukata the same color as its hair. It looked a lot cooler than all this ninja gear he had to wear. Finally though they were arriving, at the "Great Hokage tower" a rounded building situated at the bottom of a cliff with four of the leaf village's leaders carved into the side of it in stone to forever look over their village.

Hibiki added the fact that the leaf village was corny as all get-out to his list of issues he had with the place. He sighed with annoyance, letting go of his escorts hand for just a moment to fan himself with his hand before reaching back down to grab the child's hand again…only to find out that it was missing.

"You've gotta be kidding me." He muttered to himself as he scanned over the crowd. What in the actual world? He stopped for just a moment and the kid vanishes without a trace? Hibiki sighed and turned back towards the hokage building. Quickly weighing his options he decided to simply walk-in on time to his meeting. The child was still somewhere in the village, so all the hokage had to do was put out a bulletin to find it or something.

Besides, it was too hot out to be playing hide-and-seek.

Elsewhere

Naruto was smiling to himself as he walked down the street, a plastic bag in hand. He had snuck out of school easy, and was now enjoying his free time. The adults were ignoring him again, which meant he could do whatever he wanted. He reached into the bag and pulled out a kunai looking at the light glinting off the blade. Today he was going to spend all day practicing his kunai throwing. He was going to show up that Sasuke and become the most popular kid in class.

Well that was the plan anyway.

Naruto stumbled a bit as he bumped into someone who was running, with the two of them falling backwards in surprise. Naruto recovered first, clearing his head by shaking it a few times. He stared at the person he knocked over.

It was a really pretty boy, Naruto guessed. The kid was rubbing the back of his head with his eyes shut in a tight grimace. His hair looked like mint ice-cream, of which Naruto has vowed to never, ever, touch again, and his skin was this weird light caramel-like color. Hesitantly the boy opened his eyes, revealing two orange eyes with no pupils.

Naruto stood up and stretched, his brow furrowed and arms crossed in thought. While it was true that he's seen some tanned people here in the village they were never able to make it to that color. But he knew some people could just look like that naturally, but for the most part they lived in other villages. He opened his eyes to stare into the eyes of the kid he knocked down, only to stare in surprise as the kid picked up the kunai Naruto had dropped and held it reverse-grip in front of his face while still being crouched low on the ground. It was a fighting stance.

This kid was an enemy ninja!

Brief delusions of grandeur of exposing an enemy ninja filled Naruto's mind before he squashed the thought, he had to do something now, to capture the kid and take him in to the hokage. Maybe the old man would give him a headband right there for uncovering a secret enemy plot to destroy the Hidden Leaf village or something. Of course Naruto forgot one little detail.

The kid quickly spun around and broke out into a run in the opposite direction.

"H-Hey! Get back here!" Naruto yelled out, grabbing his bag and giving chase. Naruto had to admit, the boy was fast and ducked and weaved out of alley-ways like an expert, but Naruto had the home field advantage and was easily able to corner the enemy ninja in a dark alley behind Ichiraku ramen.

"Give up, you're surrounded." Naruto said excitedly as his opponent backed up, terrified of their blond pursuer. The runaway gritted their teeth before dropping the kunai and put their hands together in a handsign. Naruto's eyes widened in surprise. He hadn't thought about that. What if his opponent had jutsu, the ability to turn that catra stuff into almost magical attacks? Naruto didn't have any…well he had the transformation justu but that was it. Who knew what his opponent might use against him.

"Secret jutsu: Scale dust haze!" the voice called out before inhaling deeply and blowing hard at Naruto. Naruto took a defensive stance as a gold and bronze cloud of smoke filled the hallway, kind of irritating his eyes and, more importantly, obscuring his vision.

Shoot I can't see. Naruto thought angrily to himself as he slowly waited for the haze to clear. "I betcha he's probably already ran away now. That's so stupid of me. Naruto berated himself before a certain noise caught his ear. It was the sound of coughing. As the smoke cleared the orange wearing blond discovered one interesting thing.

His target was standing there, holding his throat and coughing a little more of the dusty air out. They must have screwed up their jutsu. Now was his chance!

Naruto charged forward with a battlecry as the person stopped coughing long enough to look up in shock. Naruto grinned determinedly before stepping on a bottle which rolled under his foot and threw his run off. Not one to lose his idea Naruto stumble ran towards his opponent.

I can't fail now! Naruto thought to himself in irritation, I have to show everyone that I'm a great ninja. "Leaf village," Naruto shouted, preparing the best taijutsu move in his entire arsenal, "Secret forehead," he continued, barely coming out of his stumble as he did so, just a couple feet away from his target.

"JUTSU!" he yelled smashing his forehead into the boys. The result was obvious as they both tumbled to the ground, dazed by the mighty impact. Naruto forced himself to his feet first. "I-In the name of the Leaf Village…" Naruto said unsteadily, wobbling from side to side while his opponent laid on their back spread eagle.

"In the name of the Leaf Village…" he repeated himself, "I've captured you… suspicious person. I shall now take you…to the hokage for trial. Do…do you give up?" Naruto said, still trying to stay on his feet.

"Y-Yes I give-up." The other kid said, still lying on the ground with tears streaming down the sides of his face. Naruto immediately felt a pang of guilt as the person slowly got to their feet and held both of their hands out, palms facing down and wrists close together. Naruto stopped to think for a moment before realizing what he was supposed to do. He opened his bag and fished out some ninja wire and, proving that he paid attention to the important parts of class, tied his captives hands together a couple dozen times so they didn't end up cutting themselves on the thin wire by accident. Confidently, Naruto led the person out of the hallway and down the street toward the hokage tower.

"Look, the thing's got someone." He heard several villager's whisper as he passed by. "Should we let him do what he wants like that?" was also heard, followed occasionally by, "Someone should help that child." Ultimately they didn't do anything though, trusting the ninja in the village to be able to handle anything Naruto was capable of doing. No, what finally caused Naruto to pause for a moment and turn around was the sniffling he heard. Naruto turned around and stared at the enemy ninja he caught, who was very clearly crying.

"What's wrong?" Naruto asked quizzically. The boy sniffed in response.

"I was trying to escape." The kid answered in a quiet voice, Naruto shrugged. Isn't that what enemy ninja were supposed to do? Flee in fear of his amazing power. Still Naruto did feel bad for the kid, and so after fishing around in his bag again, handed him a chocolate covered stick.

The boy looked quizzically at the confection before biting it sadly. Naruto could tell though, that even on the inside the ninja was feeling a little better, and so continued on his march.

Hokage Tower

"You lost your jinchiruuki?" The hokage, a well-aged man in red and white robes named Hiruzen Sarutobi asked slowly. Hibiki nodded nervously. Maybe he should've just looked for the brat himself. Instead the waterfall chunin nodded.

"Yes I did Lord Hokage, I apologize." He said, bowing deeply, almost until his upper body was parallel to the ground. "However it cannot be far. As per our agreement I have brought the jinchiruuki here and was in-sight of this building when it left."

"The Waterfall village cannot watch their own child even with an escort!" Hotaru objected, "Are we really to trust them with a jinchiruuki free roaming their forests?" Hibiki bit his lip. Seven years ago they obtained the child and the power she held through some espionage and subterfuge deep in Lightning country. They had been planning on keeping it a secret, but unfortunately their treaty with the leaf village required them to report all jinchiruuki to the hokage, and defer to his or her judgment on where they should be.

At this rate the Head Ninja of the Waterfall is going to be unhappy that he had to give up their secret weapon to their allies.

"Clearly your village does not know how to manage something so dangerous." Koharu, the other village elder, was quick to add her own two ryo. "Clearly it'd be in our alliances best interests to keep the jinchiruuki here in the Leaf."

"Hmm." The hokage hummed to himself thoughtfully, "Danzo, you've been awfully quiet. What say you?" the identified man, Danzo had his one visible eye closed in thought, and if you didn't know any better, appeared asleep. The one armed man stood up.

"As we all know, the Leaf village is the central pillar of strength to our treaty." Danzo said firmly, "A strong Leaf village benefits the entire alliance. While I do not doubt The Waterfall village's…security," he said that last word disdainfully, letting Hibiki know, yet again, that he's screwed up, "it would be better for the entire alliance that the leaf village be prepared to deploy a second jinchiruuki for defense." The hokage hummed again, taking a drag from his pipe as he thought a little more. Everyone's brought up good points about taking the jinchiruuki, and he had no counter points to argue. He stood up, ready to declare his decision.

"Alright, I have decided that…" he didn't get to finish as a certain seven year old blond boy burst in with a cry of "Hey old man!" Everyone turned to stare at the blond, everyone holding a look of annoyance on their faces…annoyance that turned to shock when he walked in with a captive.

"Naruto…" the hokage said slowly, feeling a migraine coming on, "who is this?" he asked patiently, noting that the Waterfall village escort was stuttering in shock.

"This…" Naruto beamed proudly, "is an enemy ninja. I caught him sneaking around the village."

"Fu?" the chunin questioned. The mint haired child nodded. Naruto looked at him in surprise.

"So your names Fu huh?" Naruto asked in surprise, only to get the same nod in response, "Well my name is Naruto Uzumaki. It's a pleasure to meetcha!" he introduced himself as though he didn't tie the kid up and parade him to the leaf village.

"It appears we've found our missing jinchiruuki." Danzo noted, eyeing the pair in front of him. This might go better than he hoped.

"Lord Hokage." Danzo said, turning back to his old teammate, "I suggest we observe the jinchiruuki for the rest of the day." He announced, surprising everyone who knew him. "We need to make sure that it can properly acclimatize to our village. I also suggest that Uzumaki be its escort for the rest of the day." That actually stunned Sarutobi, but in the end all he did was nod in agreement.

"Hey wait, what's going on?" Naruto asked confusedly. "What are we going to do about the enemy ninja? What if his teammates are hiding around the village?"

"Naruto, this is an important mission for you." Sarutobi said in his usually "Official business only" voice. Naruto straightened right up. "That person you've captured might be moving to our village. I want you to take him back to your school, and escort him for the rest of the day around the village. Understood?" he asked, throwing a signed and stamped paper for Naruto to give to Iruka. Naruto deftly caught it.

"Crystal clear old man!" Naruto said with a salute, untying Fu, only to grab his hand and run off in the direction of the school. Sarutobi chuckled before turning to the chunin in front of him.

"Now then. You will have our verdict by the end of the day. Until then you're dismissed." Hibiki nodded, turning to walk out of the room, before stopping and looking at the Hokage one last time.

"Oh and by the way…Fu's a girl." He said, before he turned and walked a calm measured pace out the office. Sarutobi stared blankly at Hibiki for a moment before chuckling, only for that chuckle to become a full blown laugh.

"Hokage's orders," Sarutobi chuckled out, "nobody tell Naruto." He said, as his chuckling died down. Hibiki meanwhile had another thought roll through his head. A little kid caught Fu? What kind of super ninjas was the Leaf Village making?

Academy

"And here's our classroom!" Naruto declared excitedly, turning the doorknob and escorting Fu inside to the class apparently already in session. Fu could tell that as soon as he entered he was the center of attention. Then that attention switched immediately to her.

"Your late Naruto!" a scarred academy teacher scolded the boy, only for Naruto to hand him that paper the robed man gave him and salute.

"Orders came straight from the top." Naruto said officially, causing Fu to giggle lightly at his incorrectness. The "Hokage" wouldn't be at the top, it'd be the Lord Daimyo of the Land of fire, known in slang terms as the "Fire Lord." That brought the scarred man's attention to her and Fu almost immediately knew her mistake. She shouldn't have giggled. Now no matter what she did he'd probably attack her. She could look down and he'd know she surrendered, she could look defiant and he'd slap it right off her face, she could apologize but then he'd just 'punish' her. So instead she did nothing, just waiting for the scarred man to do something. Finally he crouched down to her level.

"It's nice to meet you Fu. Why don't you introduce yourself to the rest of the class?" he said nicely, causing Fu to skip a beat before nodding. Hesitantly she watched as Naruto climbed the stands and took a seat among the students.

"Hello." She said bowing lightly, "My name is Fu. It is a pleasure to meet you all." She said slowly, carefully, before looking back up at the crowd hoping to gauge their reaction and prepared an escape plan if the need arises.

That window doesn't look too sturdy if she has a running start.

"Wow he looks so cool!" A pink haired girl shouted after a moment, standing as she did so. Fu was thrown off.

Wha-what do you mean 'he'? Fu thought in shock as the girl's continued to fawn over how "Tall and dark" "he" looked. Fu was speechless. This was the first time someone was happy to see her…and the first time someone so loudly got her gender wrong.

She wouldn't say that out loud though. Correcting the class might embarrass them enough for their attitudes to make a complete turnaround after all. Instead Fu accepted that she'd have to…pretend to be a boy until they figured it out.

"Alright settle down, settle down." Iruka ordered. "Fu, sit anywhere you like." Fu nodded happily before following the one familiar face she saw and sitting down next to Naruto.

Sure their first meeting involved running into each other, a chase, and a head-butt but he was also quick to become friendly and show her around the school. Besides, he kept giving her those chocolate stick things. He couldn't be that bad.

The day went by quickly. Fu had been given a notebook and pencil by Naruto to take notes, which she proceeded to do. Naruto fought some happy looking black haired boy in the sparring circle and got trounced, to which she hesitantly offered a little advice, hoping he wouldn't retaliate at the perceived insult. Surprisingly he asked to spar with her and was able to put the advice to use almost immediately.

Seven more surprising still, some of the girl's continued to fawn over how cool "he" was, much to Fu's embarrassment. After beating Naruto the 'Sasuke' boy Naruto faced asked for a round as well, but though she did better than Naruto, he beat her as well.

With that the school day was called to a close and Fu found herself still in the arena, teaching Naruto about chakra and how to use it to do ninjutsu, as well as acting as his taijutsu sparring partner well into the night.

Eventually the time came for them to head back to the Hokage's office.

"Wow Fu, you sure know a lot." Naruto said happily, Fu blushed and turned away, not used to getting complimented about anything, ever. "Who taught you all this?" Fu looked down for a moment.

"I taught myself." Fu answered sadly. Naruto unfolded his arms and stared at her. "I read books and practiced what they said, and sometimes a ninja would drop a scroll. I'd pick it up and copy as much of it as I could to a piece of paper before they took it back." Naruto sighed.

"No friends?" Naruto asked sadly, she nodded. He seemed to get it. She could tell he gritted his teeth. "Well don't worry about it. We'll be friends from now on. Believe it!" Fu stared at him, eyes widening in shock as he declared this, within a moment tears started pooling around her eyes as she smiled happily.

"O-Okay." She said, smiling despite the tears in her eyes.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. She was told that she was being sent back to the Waterfall village and would be brought back twice a month for a day each for the Leaf Village to see how she was developing or something.

Early the next day she found herself standing in the cold in her thin yukata as the Hokage and the other three elders saw her and her handler off. She stared sadly at the leaf village, the best day of her life already behind her as she turned to begin the long trek back to her 'home', the waterfall village.

"Wait!" a familiar voice yelled, running up to her, past the other Leaf people was Naruto. He stopped just in front of her, panting hard before holding up a book, the same notebook he let her borrow yesterday. "I want you to keep this." Naruto said, Fu looked up at him nervously, she gave it back to him to help him study. He wasn't rejecting her just because she was leaving was she? She'd be back in fifteen days!

"I want you to write anything you want in that notebook." Naruto told her with a smile, "Then we'll try and fit it all in when you get back, okay?" Fu nodded dumbly as Naruto gave her a wide toothy grin. "I'll be seeing you." He said, Fu stumbled over her words, not knowing how to respond. So she simply turned and walked away, flashing him one last tearful smile as she did so. Hibiki couldn't help but roll his eyes a little.

"Danzo." Sarutobi said, just loud enough to draw the old Warhawk's attention, "Why did you reverse your position on keeping Fu?" Sarutobi questioned. Danzo audibly shrugged.

"We obviously aren't using our jinchiruuki properly." He said, clearly avoiding the question, "Let's see what our allies can do with one." He said, turning on the balls of his feet to walk back into the village. Followed by the two other elders. Sarutobi watched though as Naruto continued to wave until Fu was but a speck on the horizon. Then Naruto turned, walking back towards the village with his head downcast.

"Naruto." Sautobi called out, getting the young boys attention, "If you want, I'm sure I can make it so that you and Fu can send letters to each other during those times when he's back in his own village." Sarutobi offered, making sure to refer to Fu with masculine pronouns.

"Really?" Naruto asked with such hope in his voice. The Hokage nodded. "But only if you get a B or higher on your midterms tomorrow." He lied. He was going to help Naruto anyway, but why not make him work for it? Make it mean more?

He wished he could've seen Iruka's face when Naruto scored second highest in the class.

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Well here we are, another one of my forays into fanfiction. Hopefully I won't get bored with this one. Now a few things:

Nobody but Fu and those told realizes that Fu's a girl. It's a reference to the fact that Kishimoto himself didn't know until just deciding one day.

This chapter's something of a prologue. The rest of the fic is going to start pre-wave and work its way from there.

I don't have an update schedule. Not even sure if I plan to update regularly.

I. Don't. Bash.

That's all, have a nice day.