LC; Okay time for more sannin of the next generation of whatever.

Naruto; You stayed up late reading fics and watching anime.

Sasuke; And you didn't even take a nap for longer than thirty minutes.

LC; I can't help it. The fics are good and I can't sleep through a mystery.

Naruto; You were watching anime, not mystery.

LC; Half right. It was Detective Conan, aka Case Closed. A very good anime mystery.

Sasuke; Oh yeah, isn't it like the seventh longest running anime?

LC; Yeah.

Naruto; That's going to take you a while to finish.

LC; I know. (COD, clouds of depression, gather above her)

Sasuke; Let's move on.

Disclaimer; I do not own Naruto. I'm too tired to think of a way to get it from Kishimoto.

Chapter 2: Student.

Nora's first day of class came all too soon. She was only four, going on five, when she entered. She wasn't the youngest to ever enter, but that was a small comfort.
Everyone else in the class was seven, she was dwarfed by them all. As she stood at the front of the class waiting her turn to be introduced and seated, she couldn't help but feel nervous.

She didn't want to make a bad impression on her first day, and she wasn't sure what to say when she got introduced.
Her new sensei, Iruka Umino, seemed nice though.

They'd been instructed to say their name, reason for entering the academy, and dream. Nora wanted to make not only a good impression, but a big one too!
Nora's eyes shone as she thought of the perfect thing to say.

"I'm Nora Uzumaki, I entered cause I wanted to be like a friend of mine!" She said when she was called up, nearly the last one.

"And my dream is, to be the best Hokage!" The silence was almost tangible.

"T-That's a big dream." Iruka-sensei told her. She smiled shyly up at him, glad he didn't call her silly or stupid.

She took her seat next to a girl with long black hair and onyx eyes, and soon another boy sat down next to her, his hair a platinum blonde.
She looked side to side at the two, and wondered if they could be friends. Her second and third friends ever.

She knew kids her age were rarely let into the academy, and she wanted to prove she was the right choice.
She listened raptly to everything Iruka said when they explained what they'd be learning. When the history lesson came, she struggled hard to be able to memorize the names and faces of famous people in Konoha's past.

She memorized the names of the two jutsu Minato Namikaze, the yondaime, had created. She reread the names of the shodaime and nidaime's techniques respectively, including the information on the stolen Nidaime's sword.

At lunch she quizzed herself on what she learned before going out to eat the bento Jiraiya-jiji had made for her.
He was really nice, and had helped train her to be ready for when classes started. He had gotten her an apartment, food, clothes, and tools. She couldn't thank him enough!

She ate the rice balls he made and was surprised they tasted so good. From the way he had been eyeing the cooking utensals, she wasn't sure he knew how to cook.

"Hey what's a kid like you doing here so early?" She gasped and turned around to see the black haired girl she had sat next to.

"Um, Jiraiya-jiji got me enrolled early." She said, nervously tugging at her bandana, which was tied around her neck for luck.

"I'm Hikari Uchiha, I guess we're classmates then." She said stiffly before turning away. Nora tilted her head to one side and watched as she walked away.

After finishing off her lunch, Nora decided to play for a while, since she still had 45 minutes before class started again.
While she was swinging, she discovered how different everything looked upside down, like when she swung really high and tilted her head back.

After hopping off, she went into a handstand, using the tree as a support and found everything looked kind of funny from this perspective.
She wasn't able to stay that way long before she got dizzy though, and she fell down soon enough.

"What are you doing?" This time it was the platinum blonde boy from her class speaking.

"Playing." She answered.

"I'm Inomaru Yamanaka, what's your name?" He asked her.

"Nora Uzumaki." She told him, getting back on her head again.

"Why are you doing that?" He asked, watching her get dizzy and fall again.

"Because it looks funny when you look at things different." She explained to him. He shrugged before trying it, though he was able to do it without the tree for support.

"Hey, Hikari's frown looks kind of like a smile upside down." He said, nodding his head in the direction of the Uchiha girl.

"Hey, your right!" Nora giggled. She was glad she'd made a new friend so quickly. Maybe now things would get even better for her?

When she got home, she was surprised to find a stranger in the apartment. She quickly hid behind the umbrella stand and watched the man who had been walking from the living room to the kitchen.
He had spiky silver hair, and wore a shinobi uniform and his hitaite all crooked.

Being as quiet as she could, she snuck from her hiding place to the kitchen, where she saw the man making a pot of coffee.

"I wonder when she'll get home from the academy." He said, talking to himself.

He knew she was hiding behind him, but played along to make her feel better. If she wanted to come out, she would.
He would just try and make it more comfortable for his sensei's daughter until she chose to announce her presence.

Nora waited until he was occupied with pouring the coffee before moving to an empty space between the fridge and the garbage can, where she wouldn't be seen from the counter or table.

Kakashi noticed how good she was at hiding and being quiet with mixed emotions. On one hand, it would be great for her career.
On the other though, he felt a little bad that she was hiding from him.

Suddenly hearing another sound from the opposite side of the room, this one near the cupboard, he glanced over there.
He saw a little crumpled piece of paper, lying from where it had bounced on the cupboard. Turning his senses back to where Nora was hiding, he found that she had snuck back into the hall during the distraction and was heading to the living room.

If she wanted to play hide and go seek, he would play along for now. He walked back to the living room at a leisurely pace, acting as nonchalant as possible.
He sat down on the small couch and started to read his ICHA ICHA, waiting for her next move.

She was hiding behind the couch, but before he had come in, she had set up her shoes to stick out from the side of the tv, making it look like she was hiding there.
She measured her breathing carefully, and made sure not to make any noise.

Smirking to herself, she pulled out a little remote, one similar to the tv remote. Only this one would make specific noises when she pushed buttons.
The sound itself would come from the recievers she had placed around the house during her free time. He was about to get a scare!

First she pressed the 1 button, which made a sneezing sound come from the tv, where 'she' was hiding.

Kakashi looked up from his book to the girl's hiding place across the room. He smiled under his mask at the shuffling sound that reached his ears.

"Well that's strange. Who's there?" He called, standing up and walking over to the tv. He opened it up, only to jump in surprise as a jack in the box was triggered and came flying at him.

"That was...unexpected." He said wryly, thinking back on it. He found the reciever but didn't mention it. This kid was better than he thought.

"So little Nora-chan already got back. So now where is she?" He asked aloud, making a show of looking around the room.
There, he caught the minute sounds of someone holding in their snicker from behind the couch.

"Hmm, behind the couch?" He pondered, walking over and looking from over the side, only to find a stuff cat with an auto meow when he did.

"Strange." He hadn't even heard her sneak away. Normally by now he would suplement chakra to his ears to find her, but that felt like cheating to him.
He wanted to be able to find her on his own. Without the use of chakra to aid him.

"Well, if you can still hear me I'll introduce myself." He said to the seemingly empty room.

"My name is Kakashi Hatake, and I'll be taking care of you until Jiraiya-sama returns." He informed her.

"If you want to keep playing this game, I'll win, just you wait." He assured her, starting to walk out of the room and down the hall to where the bedrooms were.

"So let's get started." He said gravely, suddenly wondering what he just got himself in to.

He heard the sound of a flushing toilet and went to the bathroom, to see it empty save another reciever.
He figured Jiraiya must have given them to her to play with and she just recorded the silly noises onto them. He had to admit, it was actually pretty clever. She was talented.

He knew that during the distraction she must have moved and thus looked around for anything out of place in the hall.
Suddenly he heard the sound of a door clicking shut and turned to the door labeled Nora's Room. He smirked to himself and walked up to the door. No matter how slowly or quietly one tried to close a door, it would click.

He opened it only to get a rain of stuffed toys onto his head. He stopped for a moment before picking a frog shaped wallet from his head.
That was one smart girl, but he was a jounin and would not be deterred. He looked around the slightly messy room and was surprised to see it covered with things and toys all over.

Jiraiya had told him that he had bought one stuffed toy from each place he visited for Nora, but he had clearly underestimated his travelling speed.
There had to be at least a hundred toys just lying on the floor!

"Okay, I'll bite, your very tricky. You'd do well for an infiltration specialist." He spoke, walking further into the room, keeping the door open behind him.
He never saw the reciever taped to the back of it.

Nora watched from Jiraiya-jiji's room as Kakashi-san walked into her room and began looking under the bed.
She put a hand over her mouth to hide her smile. He was a lot more fun to play with than jiji. Jiji always cheated and used his chakra, even when she told him not to. She left a reciever under Jiraiya-jiji's pillow before climbing out the secret passageway that ended in the bathroom next door.

Jiraiya had put in a similar secret get away in each room that led to another, in case something bad ever happened.
But she had a much more entertaining use for them. Getting from one room to the other without being heard or seen.

Once in the bathroom, she took the reciever there and put it in her pocket. Next she carefully poked her head out of the door to see Kakashi-san now checking her closet.
His back was to her, so she carefully left the bathroom and went back to the kitchen. By hell and high water, she would win this game!

Inside the kitchen, she set up a trap using the cans of food from the cupboard, so that when he opened the door he'd knock down the pyramid.
After that she hung up a bag of flour over the door, to swing down and hit him, covering him in the white dust.

After that she opened the window and snuck outside, now for the next phase. Directly outside this window was a high fence, leaving a narrow gap between it and the apartment building.
She jumped down, being careful to keep her descent low to keep from hurting herself. When she reached the bottom, she went around the corner to where a loose board stood.

Moving it to the side, she could crawl out, just in time to see a completely white Kakashi poke his head out the open window.

"That is one smart kid, but if she wants to drag this around the village, I'll humor her." He said, after quickly washing his face, mask, and hair of all flowery goodness.

Nora walked down the mostly empty alley calmly, waiting for the sound of pursuit. She heard the tell tale tapping of shinobi sandals over cement and knew he was taking this to the shinobi highway up above.

"So that's how he wants to play." She giggled, before ducking into an overturned crate to hide as he passed over.

After she was sure he was long gone, she went back to the apartment, cleaned up the mess, and put her bag and homework on the table.
An hour later, Kakashi came back to find her innocently finishing all her homework.

"How did you?" He gasped upon seeing her.

"How'd I what?" She responded innocently. This was the part she loved the best. After so long being lied to every day, she had come to see the tell tales of lying.
A subtle twitch of the eye, or not looking someone directly, or maybe just fiddling with their hands. She had practiced until her poker face was perfect.

"You snuck outside but got back so fast, how?" He stammered, waving his arms for emphasis.

"I don't know what your talking about crazy guy, but you shouldn't be here! This is my house!" She said assertively.

Kakashi had gone into the living room after reintroducing himself and explaining why he was there. He sat, staring blankly at his book, as he tried to figure out how she did it.
The only conclusion he could come to, was that the kid was a lot smarter than she looked.

"Kakashi-san, what are you reading?" It was getting late, nearly time for Nora to go to sleep. She had been watching him reading and giggling at the book and figured it must be pretty funny to have him giggling like that.

"Just a book." He answered evasively.

"What's it about? You keep giggling so is it funny?" She asked him, moving around the couch to try and read it over his shoulder.

Kakashi momentarily panicked before performing a quick henge on the book to make it look like a joke book.
Hopefully this would lead her off the scent. Jiraiya may write the books but he was stern about keeping it from children, particular this child.

"Those are funny!" Nora giggled. Inwardly she was sighing. He shouldn't underestimate her. This close to him, she could sense the minute chakra spike that meant he had hidden the true text.
She hated when people did this, but she did love a challenge. By hell and high water she'd figure out what was really in Kakashi-san's book.

Nora settled under her covers, pulling her doll close and closing her eyes. A half hour later she heard Kakashi come in to check on her.
She kept her breathing slow and even, just like Jiraiya-jiji had taught her. He left right after, not like jiji, who sometimes stayed for a few minutes, just watching.

The next day she got up, ready for the academy and made herself a bento. Remembering Kakashi-san, she made some coffee to and left it out for him.
As she walked to the academy, she couldn't help but wonder why Jiraiya-jiji trusted this guy to watch after her.

She knew that he was pretty picky about people around her, even her friend Kiba he didn't immediatly approve of.
She guessed this is what if felt like to have an over-protective father, but couldn't be certain. He acted more like the fun grandpa's she saw buying their grandkids candy and toys.

She certainly had enough stuffed animals to attest to that theory.

Sitting in her seat next to the stoic but beautiful Hikari and the happy-go-lucky though intellectually impaired Inomaru, she listened to the amazingly long lecture from Iruka-sensei. Now if only it was interesting enough not to nearly knock her out every five minutes.

'Sensei should just lecture his enemies unconcious, they'd be easier to kill and he'd be unstoppable.' She recalled thinking at the time.

"Alright class, now today we'll be learning with shuriken and kunai." Iruka announced after the history class was over.

Nora grinned as she thought that finally, something interesting, was going to happen. She was dissappointed to learn the 'shuriken' and 'kunai' were made of paper.
She spent ten minutes with Iruka-sensei merely positioning her fingers to show how to hold it correctly.

After they had finished and just let the kids get used to holding them normally, she had enough.

"Okay, I'm done learning how to hold a paper shuriken." She announced.

"May I please at least throw it at something?" She asked as politely as she possibly could.

"We're getting to that Nora, now we'll be showing you the proper stances to throw the weapons." Iruka announced, his good spirits undaunted.

Nora raised an eyebrow, lifted her hand, and flicked it in the direction of his hitaite. It hit dead center before falling to the ground.

"What's the point of showing us how to stand when we throw when we all have our own ways of doing something?" She asked curiously.

"It's part of the curriculum." Iruka said, picking up the shuriken and placing it back in her hand.

"Do you use the same methods?" She asked him suspiciously.

Iruka was about to answer when he realized that, no, he'd never really had a use for the academy throwing style.
He had to admit, to his pillow late at night, the kid had a point.

"So long as we hit the target, I see no point in worrying if my finger is a little off center or if I need to fling my arms around in a ridiculus and showy method." She said wisely.

"So thanks sensei, but I don't think this is really useful." Iruka knew it was going to be hard to teach her, he just never thought he'd be the one learning instead.

END OF THE CHAPTER SO NOW LEAVE AND COME BACK ANOTHER TIME!

LC; Okay, now that was a good chapter.

Naruto; Are those two going to be her teammates?

LC; Maybe. It's complicated.

Sasuke; Let's get out of here.