A/N: I don't own anything, I wouldn't like to anyways. Criticism is welcome, hate is not, but say what you wish. Thanks for the reviews everyone (๑ᴗ๑)

Chapter 2

-/ Konoha Hospital, room 275 /-

The room door opens as the Hokage walks into the room of the young girl, "Happy birthday, Naruto" he greets the young blonde. Said girl turned away from the window to face him, ocean blue eyes still seemed to be dulled from her own sadness, but upon hearing those words it seemed to gain some of their own shine back as a small smile set across her face,

"I never noticed it last night, but you don't have your whisker marks anymore..."

"Instead I have a tail." the old Hokage gave a hearty chuckle at the response, "Ears too." but the girl just looked at him like he grew another head but that soon went away when she placed a hand on top of her own head. The confused look turned back into a sad one as she suddenly found the blankets more interesting, "Now they'll really think I'm some demon..." she mumbles with sadness and fear etching into her voice.

"You look more like a cute little fox than some demon," he said walking over to bed and sitting next to the blonde, placing a firm and reassuring hand on her shoulder, "and you also look like you need a birthday present." She looked back at the Hokage to notice he had pulled out a white dress with violet flowers printed across it. A smile grew back across her face as she looked at the gift, "Its pretty," she turned to her grandfather figure to bury her face into his robes, "Thank you Jiji." She mumbled as tears soaked into the Hokage robes. He accepted the hug and gave her a small pat on the head, "You're welcome."

Ending the hug to look back at the old man, "Hey Jiji, how much longer do I have to stay here in the hospital? it smells weird." He laughed at her comment before noticing he couldn't smell a thing, 'Did the fox also increase her senses? I'll just file it as a bloodline for now' "I'll go talk to the doctor to find out." he replied. Lifting himself off of the bed and moving towards the door he turned back to notice Naruto's attention already focused on some birds in the nearby tree, chirping their morning song. With a smile he turned back and opened the door to go find the doctor, nodding to the ANBU on guard as he closed the door and made his way down the hallway.

A couple of turns and stairs later he found the one he was looking for and grabbed their attention, "Hokage-sama, what can I do for you?"

"Little naru was wondering when she could leave, could you give me the details of her healing?"

"Most of her bones were broken from the impact, but they seem to be recovering at an extraordinary fast pace, I suspect she will be ready to well enough to leave in a week or two..." he trailed off before starting to look worried. Noticing the Hokage continues, "But?" the doctor took a breath, "but, her chakra network suffered some permanent damages, from the looks of it she will have trouble molding chakra to use into various jutsus, but nothing that she can't learn to work around. In addition, it seems that her chakra levels have almost halved since her last check up." Taking a pause before continuing, "and she will need a psychiatrist assigned to her for weekly evaluations and check-ups." Hiruzen nodded to this, he expected her needing a psychiatrist and already asked Inoichi if he would be willing to, but he did not expect the chakra network damages, "Thank you sensei, I'll go talk to her now then."

"My pleasure Hokage-sama." he said with a small smile before taking his leave with a bow.

Sliding the door open he saw Naruto still looking out the window, tail waving back in forth, 'She really doesn't like it here.' Her ears perked up upon hearing the door opening, Naruto turned to face the man coming into the room with a questioning look as her tail slowly wrapped around her waist, "The doctor said you should be able to leave within a week or two," he told the girl as he walked over to sit down in the chair next to the bed, "But you will have to see someone weekly for, who will check up on your health." Her ears dropped down as a frown came across her face, 'I have to come here every week!?' she mentally screamed at that fact with a sigh she shrugged "I guess I'll be getting use to this place then." Hiruzen realized what she was talking about before replying, "Oh no, you'll be going to his house for check ups. He also has a daughter your age so maybe you can become friends." With a pat on the head, he got up to leave, "I have to go back to work now, I'll stop by tomorrow."

"Ok Jiji" she smiled as he placed a kiss on her forehead before leaving the room.

-/ Konoha Hospital, Room 275, one and a half weeks after the incident /-

Naruto put on her new dress in front of the mirror, 'I finally get out of here!I can't wait to go eat Ichiraku's!' she thought as she happily jumped up and down before looking at her dress. In her excitement she barely noticed the light knock on the door, "Come in," she called out watching the door open to reveal a girl roughly her age with bright blonde hair and blue-green eyes, "Are you Naruto?" The girl in question nodded, and then she walked into the room, "My name is Ino, my dad asked me to go meet you while he filled out some paperwork for your." Naruto nodded once again as a reply, but Ino took a look at the top of her head, "YOU HAVE KITTY EARS!" she screeched running over to the poor girl she just unintentionally harmed. "Can I touch them?" the girl asked with a pleading look in her eyes, sighing and admitting defeat, Naruto lowered her head for Ino to play with her ears. The girl reached out to pet them only to gasp, "They're so soft!" giggling as she continued to pet them. Naruto was simply dumbfounded at the girl's outwards personality but soon shrugged it off liking the attention, "They're actually fox ears, Ino" The mention girl turned to her father and blushed a little realizing her error, "Sorry Naruto." she apologized as she removed her hand from the fox girl's head, "I see you've met my daughter, Ino" the man walked over to Naruto and stuck out his hand, ""My name is Inoichi, and I'll be your psychiatrist for the next couple of months."

"Nice to meet you Inoichi-san" Naruto said with a small smile, the man chuckled at the response, "No need to be so formal Naruto, just call me Inoichi"

Finaly exiting the hospital, Naruto's expression was priceless. She could smell everything, the flowers that filled the yard to the restaurants that filled the streets, she could hear the birds chirping in the trees with their evening songs and the kids playing in the park down the road. It was like she was able to hear and smell for the first time all over again. Inoichi paused noticing they were missing a member, turning back to the fox girl with a stunned expression on her face worried him, "You alright Naruto?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, It just feels like I can hear and smell all over again!" The man smiled hearing she was okay, "The Hokage mention that you have a rare bloodline so im guessing its your first time outside since it has awakened?" The girl was dumbfounded, 'I have a bloodline!? Jiji never told me that!' she thought inwardly as she rubbed the back of her head with a cheesy grin on her face "Yeah, I forgot about that..." hearing a bloodline being mention grabbed Ino's quickly grabbed Ino's attention "what's the bloodline?" Inoichi turned back to answer her daughter, "The Hokage told me little Naru here as a rare bloodline, giving her fox like attributes. We don't havemuch information on it at the moment though." Ino looked back to her new friend with surprise, "Thats so cool!" she squealed as she nearly tackled Naruto with a hug. "and really cute." she started laughing watching Naruto's face turn bright red at the comment. Walking by a grassy hill Ino's attention was suddenly grabbed by two boys lying on the grass. One slowly munching away on a bag of chips and the other staring lazily off into the clouds. "Hey guys" she said walking over to them bringing Naruto with her, "Hey Ino, who's your friend?" the one eating stopped to ask. Hearing Ino and friend being used in the same sentence when both Choji and himself were already present spiked Shikamaru's attention. Finally having enough energy to spend lifting himself up to look at the newcomer, only one thing crossed his mind when he saw her: 'Those ears are really cute'

"This is Naruto," Ino introduced her fellow blonde, the quieter boy nodded before introducing himself, "Nice to meet you, my name is Shikamaru, and my friend here is Choji." The munching boy nodded a thanks to his friend for allowing himself to keep engulfing himself with mouthwatering barbeque chips. However, it was short lived as he realized one of the mistakes he made earlier that day, "Oh, Ino, were you going to come with us to Dinner tonight? I already told my dad you were by accident." the blonde in question shook her head, "No, im going out with my mother tonight." seeing this as an opportunity, the pinapple haired boy came up with an idea, "well, we still have a spot," he said turning his attention to Naruto, "would you like to join us and our dads? I'm sure they would enjoy the company" Shikamaru questioned the girl, a frown fell across her face, "I'm sure they'll just kick me out like the rest of the restaurants." she muttered, "Nonsense!" Inoichi said from behind the two girls, "The Akimichi's would gladly accept you into their restaurant. "Yeah, my parents wouldn't do something like that!" Choji encouraged the girl. Placing a hand on the girl's shoulder Inoichi reassured her, "You'll be welcome there little Naru, and I'm going there too, so we can walk together to the restaurant." hearing all the welcoming arms put doubts on her previous thoughts, 'I guess if I'm going with someone they might let me in.' "Sure, I'll go then."

Saying their goodbyes to the boys the continued their way to Yamanaka household. Upon arriving at the house the older man looked over to the sun that was setting against the horizon, "Well, since its already getting this late why don't we just talk on the way over to the restaurant, seeing how little time we have before meeting up with the rest of the gang." Naruto nodded and said her goodbyes to Ino as she left with her father to the restaurant.

-/ Akimichi Barbeque /-

Inoichi arrived at the restaurant in a decent time, a little bit later than scheduled but it mattered not. They were welcomed with the smell of spices, sauces, and meats being cooked on grills. They quickly found their place in the quiet corner of the building, coincidentally right next to the kitchen, and by the time they all sat down Naruto was too busy drooling over the smells to notice her position between Shikamaru and Choji. But her heavenly thoughts of food were interrupted with the two new older men grabbing her attention when they introduced themselves, "I'm Shikaku Nara, its a pleasure to finally meet you Naruto, the Hokage talks a lot about you." he said with a large, yet some how lazy, smile before the next made his introduction, "And I'm Akimichi Chouza, and Choji told me what you said earlier, and I simply reply: That will never happen! I refuse to let a wonderful girl such as yourself go without the wonders of good food!" The other men laughed at their friend's reply. With a small bow, to respect her elders she replied, "It is a pleasure to meet you too, Nara-san, Akimichi-san." Inoichi simply let out another one of his hearty laughs, "now now little Naru, we're all friends here, no need to be so stiff and formal! As a toast to your newfound friends I'll pay for the night." suddenly three members of the table had the same thought as their mouths began to drool all over again, 'FREE FOOD!'

Many laughs, minutes, and dishes later, one man was paying his respects to his wallet as the others were saying their goodbyes, "Hey Naru, want to hang out with me and Choji tomorrow?" Her face lit up at the thought of hanging out with her new friends, with a tail excitedly waving back and forth behind her she nodded, "I'd like that." she said before saying goodbye once again to make her way back to her apartment.

-/ a Konoha playground, the next day /-

"Naruto!" Choji yelled out to the girl aproching the park, ears perked up as she heard the boy, turning and quickly running over to them she greeted with her warm smile, "Hi guys, so what do you want to do today?" Naruto asked. "I was thinking we could go play ninja with the others in the park." agreeing to the idea the trio walked over to the group of kids that were already formed, waving over to them the leader walked up to the trio to see what they wanted, "Can we play ninja with you guys?" The leader looked at the trio and responded quickly, "You two can, she can't." Gaining confidence from her friends' presence, she decided to speak up to voice her own anger, "Why not?!"

"Because you look like a freak! You fox-weirdo!" the other children 'yeah'-ed in agreement which only gave the leader confidence enough to shove the girl down. A sudden recall of memories flooded her mind as she hit the ground, images of angry villagers flashed before her eyes as she instinctively brought her knees into her chest and put her hands over her head to protect them. "What was that for?" Shikamaru asked angrily, ignoring them he turn to the rest of his followers, "lets get away from these fox-loving weirdos." he said leading the group away from them. Noticing the girl still shaking Shikamaru put a hand on her shoulder, "You ok Naru?" he worriedly asked, she took her hands off her head to look up at him, tears streaming down her cheeks before shaking her head no. "C'mon, lets go somewhere else." the Nara-boy suggested as he left a hand out to pick Naruto up. Leading them over to his favorite cloud watching spot, Shikamaru lied down on the grass still holding onto the girl's hand as she went down next to him. Choji pulled out two bags of chips and handed one to the girl, "Thanks Choji" she said before placing it at her side. Closing her mind to try and get rid of some of her thoughts about the villagers but was soon somewhere else entirely before she knew it.

-/ Moonlit Meadow, Location unknown /-

Naruto suddenly found herself in a vast meadow lit by a large full moon, looking around to try and get some sense of her bearings but it was worthless as it seemed the tall grass went on for miles with no ends. "Ahh, I finally get to talk to you kit." Hearing the deep voice from behind her she slowly turned around to a nightmare, right before her was the demon that almost destroyed the village 7 years ago, "Worry not kit, I bring you know harm"

"Are you real?" she simply asked, wondering if she was dreaming. "Yes, very much so, I am the great Kyūbi no kitsune, well, more like hachibi" he chuckled as he admitted it. "Why eight tails?" now, she was really confused, this was the real Kyūbi, but why was it talking to her? "Thats a simple answer, I gave you one of my tails so you could live when you took an attempt of your own life, because if you die, so do I." he paused before continuing, "So, out of my own selfish desire to keep on living I prevented your death and granted you some of my power, but I broke the seal in the process, which caused something else to happen." now interested in the full story she let him continue, "The break in the seal caused the other part of me to come out." Naruto watched as the large beast slowly shrink down to the size of a human, more specifically, one of Naruto's greatest hero's the Yondaime Hokage. "Me." Minato said to his daughter, 'I hate you kurama' the beast just laughed inside his head and aggravated Minato through their mind link, 'I hate not being able to tell her I'm her father, it is too early' Naruto was simply dumbfounded by the chain of events, but one question was still bugging her, "So what does that have to do with me?"

"When I fought the Kyūbi I knew I had no way of killing it so, I did the only thing I knew would work, sealing him inside of a newborn but when I used the kinjutsu to seal him inside of you instead of my life being sacrificed I was sealed inside of you with him. However, I my soul was not active at the time, it was in a frozen state until the time where the seal weakened I would be stuck like that. So when Kurama, the Kyūbi broke the seal when you were dieing I came out to fix it, but my spirit merged with him." Naruto, who was hanging on the edge of a rope over a cliff listening to this story was trying to piece everything together bit by bit. "So the reason why everyone hated me was because I have the Kyūbi inside of me?" she realized. "Yes, in a sense, but remember Naruto. You are not the demon, you simply hold him inside of you. But it seems like our time is up for now, your friend just woke up, you should thank him for earlier." Naruto nodded as the landscape slowly faded to black.

-/ Shikamaru's cloud watching spot /-

"Hey Shika," Naruto asked the boy next to him, "Yeah?" he asked turning his attention away from the nonexistent clouds he thought he was watching to the girl. "Thanks for earlier." He smiled at her, "you're welcome." Turning back to look up at the sky to look for more clouds only to notice that it was filled with stars instead 'did I fall asleep?' he laughed at his own lack of knowledge before sitting up and noticing his mother was walking towards him, "troublesome" he muttered as Naruto sit up with him, still yet to notice the woman approaching them, "what is?" he was about to answer before he was cut off before the woman in front of them, "Shika, what are you doing out so late?" she asked while walking up to the two people only to notice that one of them was a girl and her hand was still being held by Shikamaru, "Oh, if you we're with your girlfriend, why didnt you say so." both of them turned bright red as they turned to face away from the woman, "I should introduce myself, I'm Yoshino, Shika's mother."

"Nice to meet you Yoshino-san, I'm Naruto Uzumaki, Shika's friend." she muttered still bright red, Yoshino smiled at the two children before her 'I wish I had my camera right now' she thought. "Oh I know, Naru-chan, would you like to join us for dinner?" the woman asked before Shikamaru whispered to her, "She won't take no for an answer, so just say yes." when the girl nodded to the woman she could not resist herself and ran over to hug the girl.

-/ Nara Clan building /-

Shikaku welcomed Naruto into his home with open arms, before Shikamaru started getting embarassed from his mother already showing her baby pictures, and dragged her over to the side walkway, "Do you know how to play Shogi?" he asked her. "Yeah, I read about it in the library before they kicked me out, "You want to play a game?" he asked pulling over the game board, "Sure." A few minutes later a girl saying "Yes! I won." and a dumbfounded Shikamaru caught Shikaku's attention, walking over to watch the next game only to be surprised by the girl beating his son 'Impressive and troublesome' was the only thing he thought as he watched the game once again fall into the hands of the young fox girl.

"Why don't I give it a go" the man said, wanting to try his own hand at the girl's strategy. Shikamaru moved out of the way for his father to take on Naruto. An evil grin grew on her face as she started thinking of her battle plan. A couple minutes later one would find two laughing women and two men with their own jaws on the ground, before the older of the two women broke it by announcing dinner was ready. Over dinner Yoshino ask if Naruto wanted to spend the night only for Shikamaru to once again inform her that she couldn't say no

-/ Shikamaru's room, Night time /-

Shikamaru woke up to the shifting of sheets before he heard a voice speak out, "Hey Shika, can I sleep with you?" Naruto asked as some of the memories from earlier that day were making it hard for her to sleep. "Sure." he replied moving over for some room for the girl to lie down, "Thanks Shika."

"No problem" was all he replied before grabbing her hand, soon after both of them quickly fell asleep.

-/A/N/-

repliesrepliesreplies...

Thunderclaw03: I'll try (ーー;)

Tsukiyo69: Thanks ^_^, and yes, kurama and minato merged, I'm going to go into more depth about it when it comes up in the plot, I don't like revealing too much without writing it first!

Danizinhachan: The ANBU and Council members are now friendly towards little Naru. The lower divisions, Jounins and chuunins, are now indifferent towards her because they see their superiors respecting her. The civilians still hate her but do not act out on it because they see the shinobi not giving her dirty looks anymore. Pairings have been decided, but I'm not going to go into depth with them for a while.

Cafuchi: :;(∩´﹏`∩);:

HjLostDreams: I love the story so far just make sure the story still has a dark undertone I mean she just tried to commit suicide and something like this will take time to heal. For pairing idea Femnaruxhina because I can easily see Hinata giving Naruto the love she needs in a relationship. The characters would not match well

I'm trying . this is my first written work that I've ever actually worked on so I'm still stuck at some points, as for the F-NaruxHina, I was thinking about it but I decided against it because the pairing I have now has been planned out and ties in with her progression and.. yeah

（；￣ェ￣）

That chapter was bugging me for the entire day because I really wanted to write that last scene, well anyways Thanks for reading probably be a bit longer before I put up the next chapter.

じゃね～