This is my first FF so please R&R. Tell me what you think. Flames are accepted.

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NARUTO

I have edited this chapter and the next one because a very insightful reader (Asmire) pointed out some flaws in my writing


"H-how m-may I-I h-help y-you, s-sir?" the clerk spewed out nervously at the man before him.

The man stopped walking back and forth the length of the small, damp receptionist room and looked at the clerk. "This is an orphanage, no?"

"Y-yes sir, t-this is an o-orphanage."

"Then I want to see all the children under or at the age of four."

The nervous clerk shuffled out of the room. Ten minutes later a bald tiny, scrawny man, the director of the orphanage, came to receive the man who had resumed his pacing. "Hiashi-sama, it is time for the Picking I presume. The children are waiting for you. Please follow me."

The Picking was an event that happened every fifty years. The head of the Hyuuga clan would go to the Konoha Orphanage and pick out a child, a child he or she considered worthy enough to be adopted by the head family. The child would live, sleep, eat and train with the head family. As the child's skills grow more and more Hyuuga-worthy, so would his or her last name, or unless the Hyuuga council deemed otherwise. But not one of the past Pickings had gone past Hy. To even earn the first letter of the name was a soul-splitting task.

The director led Hiashi a playground. The ground was still moist (it was perfect for mudpies) and reeked of mold since it had rained earlier that day. It, like the rest of the orphange, was dark and damp. One hundred children were there, lined up one after another.

The director cleared his throat and announced cheerfully, "All right kiddos, this man is Hyuuga Hiashi, head of the Hyuuga clan. He will be looking at each and every one of you. However, only one of you will be adopted by him. Go up to him and say your name and age, answer the questions that he asks, then you can leave."

The first child that went up (well...more like skip-hopped) to Hisashi was quite…striking. He wore an neon orange jumpsuit, had bright blue eyes, uncontrollable blonde hair and an outrageous smile. He proclaimed to the world rather than just to Hiashi, "OK. Big man with the scary white eyes! I am Uzumaki Naruto. I am three years old. I am gonna be the next hokage, dattebayo!" Hiashi was pretty much half deaf for the next half hour or so.

Doing the only thing he could to stay out of the loud child's way Hiashi said, "Here's a lollipop." Uzumaki Naruto took it gleefully and bound away, forgetting why he was called to meet "the big man with scary white eyes" in the first place.

Eight hours and fifteen minutes later, ninety-nine of the one hundred children had presented themselves to Hiashi. He sighed inaudibly, there had not been a single child that was good enough to be a part of the Hyuuga clan. He hoped the last child was worth all the children he had put up with.

"Tenten, three years old." a little girl state plainly. She, Hiashi observed, wasn't shy like his daughter, Hinata, nor obnoxiously loud like the first child.

He asked her, "What do you think of becoming a ninja?"

Tenten answered bluntly, "Better than becoming a model." Hiashi studied her closely. There wasn't really anything about Tenten that set her apart from the other kids. She still had baby fat, so her face was more cute than ugly or pretty. Her chocolaty brown hair was up in two buns and quite dirty from all her mud pie creations. The next thing Hiashi observed would startle him to no end.

Her eyes, a perfect match to her hair, was the color of perfectly blended milk chocolate, but they did not, like a typical child's eyes, transmit the message of innocence. The eyes of Tenten were bitter, detached and full of shattered hopes. Eyes, Hiashi noted cautiously, that were not unlike his nephew, Neji's.


Thanks for reading, and please (yes I'm gonna say it again) R&R!

- starisice