Chapter 2: Returning to Konoha

June 4th

Twenty years has passed and Yuko has been living in Kumogakure ever since she moved away from Konoha when she was 5 years old, but she recently decided to move back to the village where she was born and lived the first few years of her childhood. She made the decision about three weeks ago. Of course she had been thinking about it a lot in the beginning and thought about the pros and cons about moving back, and the pros weighted more than the cons.

After she made her decision she went to discuss it with the Raikage, since a ninja cannot just move from one village to another without permission from both of the Kages. Those who move without permission from the Kage in the village they live in, will be listed as missing nins and will be haunted by the ANBU from the village they lived in. The Raikage had exchanged letters with the Hokage for a little over a week and both of them gave Yuko permission to move from Kumogakure to Konoha. It took Yuko some time to convince the Raikage to let her go before he started to exchange letters with the Hokage.

The fourth Raikage and the third Raikage, who was Raikage when Yuko and her parents moved to Kumogakure, were always keeping an eye on the Tohiro family. The third Raikage was always suspicious of the family's decision to move to Kumogakure. He knew that they moved to the village because of their business, but he also knew that Daichi and Sachiko were retired ninjas, so he suspected that they were secretly spies for Konoha. The third shinobi world war started barely two months after the Tohiro family had moved to Kumogakure, and that made the third Raikage be even more suspicious about the family. He had denied them to make any contact with people from outside the village, and since Daichi and Sachiko still had a few friends in Konoha, he would confiscated all letters to the family and read them through himself first, to make sure that there were not any hidden messages in them. He would inspect their shop daily for anything suspicious and he had ANBU teams to watch them daily. He even had an ANBU follow Yuko when she went to the academy and home again.

After the third Raikage died and his son took over as the fourth Raikage, the inspections continued and the ANBU teams continued watching them, even after the war ended, but not on a daily basis. The fourth Raikage knew of his father's suspicion of the Tohiro family and understood his reasoning for being suspicious of them, but since nothing had happened around the family during, or after the way, and they did not protest about the inspection, confiscation of their letters or the ANBU's watching them, he got less suspicious of them and only ordered the ANBU to watch them once a week for about half a year. When the Tohiro family had finally gained the Raikage's trust, or at least some of it, after the fourth Raikage had been Raikage for almost a year, he stopped the inspections and ordered the ANBU's not to watch them anymore. He would still confiscate letters to the family, since he wanted to keep his village safe and the Tohiro family was still outsiders in his eyes.

The day the Raikage gave Yuko the news that she could move back to Konoha, he had her knowledge about the village's confidential information sealed away. Yuko did not have many confidential information about the village though, since the Raikage was cautious with her as she grew up, even after she became an ANBU the Raikage would not let her in on super confidential meetings. He would only send her on ANBU missions. After the Raikage had sealed away the little information about the village Yuko had, she gave him her forehead protector, got her journal with all of her information that the Hokage would need, and went home to pack her stuff. She had put her stuff into sealing scrolls to save money on moving carriages.

It is June 4th and Yuko had been travelling towards Konoha for three days now and she was finally getting closer to the village. She was already missing Kumogakure and began to think back on the life she had there. Despite the surveillance and the mistrust from the third Raikage and the mistrust from the fourth Raikage, she had a pretty good life in Kumogakure. She got new friends at her age in the academy, but she also befriended a few kids who were a little older than herself. Her two best friends were Darui and Shii. After the war had ended and the Raikage cleared the Tohiro family from suspicion of being spies, Darui and Shii would help Yuko train and practice her weapon skills, including some of her ninjutsu and taijutsu, which resulted in that she graduated from the academy when she was 10 years old, which was sooner than Yuko and her parents had expected, since her ninja skills were poor.

When Yuko was 11 years old, she lost her parents. They were killed by ninja thieves, who wanted to rob the store from money, herbs and weapons. Her father was stupid and stubborn, so he tried to fight back along with Sachiko, but since the two of them had not done anything ninja related since before Yuko was born, they were rusty in their ninja skills and that cost them their life. After Yuko's parents died, her sensei, Makoto, had volunteered to take Yuko in and raise her. Short after she had volunteered to take care of Yuko, the Raikage ordered Makoto to report it to him if there were any major changes in Yuko's behavior, other than the usual grief and sadness anyone would feel after losing a loved one.

Other than training her ninjutsus, Yuko also trained hard to learn the few healing techniques her father got to show her before he died, and she spent just as much time on training her weapon techniques. She could call herself a weapon expert and specialist when she was 19 years old. She graduated the academy and became a genin when she was 10 years old, was promoted to chunin when she was 14, promoted to jonin when she was 20 and was shortly in the ANBU when she was 23 years old, but decided to leave a year later, because she did not feel comfortable in the ANBU and because of her restrictions within the ANBU.

A smile spread across Yuko's lips when she could see the main gate of Konoha in the distance getting closer and closer. She was still thinking about why she decided to move back, since she was already missing Kumogakure, but the main reason for her decision was her old friends, and the fact that Konoha is the village she was born in. Also, the memory of her parents being dead haunted her every day and even though twelve years had passed since then, she still missed them greatly. After all, she was still only a child when they died, so she hoped that moving to another village would help on not thinking too much of her parents.

Yuko picked up her pace and began to run instead of walking, as she was not able to wait any longer to get back. She came closer and closer to the main gate and reached it within a few minutes. She stopped up and looked at the gate as it was in front of her. The last time she saw the main gate of Konoha was when she left the village twenty years ago. She had been in the village once on a short delivery mission a few years ago, but she used another entrance back then and did not think much about that it was the village she was born in and moved away from. Maybe it was different now, because she was moving back.

Yuko took a deep, deep breath before she took the first step inside the village and looked around. The area around the main gate looked the same as it did when she lived there. She took a few more steps, but stopped up when someone spoke up.

"Hey you there! State your name and business in Konoha."

Yuko turned her head to the left and saw two male ninjas sitting in the booth by the main gate. She walked over to the booth and looked at the ninja who had spoken up. He was wearing his forehead protector like a bandana and his bangs were covering his right eye. The other ninja had half long spiky hair, a strip of bandage running across the bridge of his nose and a light colored marking on his chin. Both of them seemed somewhat familiar to her.

The ninja looked up at her and cleared his throat before he repeating what he had just said. "State your name and business in Konohagakure."

Yuko smiled softly at him and tilted her head a bit to the side. "My name is Tohiro Yuko and I'm moving back to the village, after living in Kumogakure for years. I have the papers from the Raikage and the Hokage as proof." She said and reached into her backpack to grab the papers she had gotten from the Raikage before she left the village.

The two ninjas looked at her with a slightly raised eyebrow and watched her hand as she reached into her backpack. "Move back?" They asked in unison and looked at each other before once again looking at the woman in front of them. They were studying her with their eyes, trying to figure out if they knew her or had seen her before. "So you're an old resident of Konohagakure?" The ninja with the bandana asked.

Yuko nodded lightly and placed the papers from the two Kages in front of the ninja. She watched him as he read through the paper. "Yes I am. I lived here twenty years ago, but I moved away with my parents when they decided to move their store to another village." She said and blinked surprised when the guy with the bandage strip across his nose had gotten up from his chair and moved closer to her to get a closer look at her face. "Uhm, what are you looking at?" She asked slightly nervous and felt a little intimidated that he was that close to her face.

"Tell me more about the store your parents owned. What kind of store was it?" He asked and stayed close to her while still examining her face up close.

Yuko felt a little annoyed that he was so close to her, so she shoved her hand in his face and pushed him away from her, making him stumble back and sit on his chair again. "Sure, I'll tell you about the store, but don't get so close to me again. It's intimidating and annoying." She said and folded her arms over her chest. "My parents owned a shop where they sold weapons and herbs. The name of the shop was-..." She was cut off midsentence when the two male ninjas began to talk in unison again. "Tohiro weapons and herbs! You're their daughter Yuko!"