I don't own Naruto or any other thing I write about, by now I guess we all know who owns it... So, Only the OCs are mine to keep

One thing before you can read the story, I am not a native English speaker so if you find errors let me know and I correct them.

Chapter one

It was a beautiful day in Konoha, the sun was shining, the sakura trees bloomed and it was breezing a pleasant cold wind softly around the village. The people could be heard laughing and talking, Konoha was alive and it showed it in this little things.

Kazumi found herself on this day at the gates to the academy, somehow she got her hands on a paper concerning her academy admission. She didn't know why or when it appeared but a week ago it suddenly was there. Kazumi talked about it with her summons and together they came to the conclusion she had to become a shinobi to change her life for the better.

So… now Kazumi was standing in front of the academy, a big building which was placed near the Hokage's office. It buzzled full of life and children from the age of eight to twelve were seen all over the place. Kazumi was eager to start her career as a shinobi and change her life… less exiting was the idea of listening to things she wasn't interested, to reach that goal but she none the less was exited.

She saw many children going in the school alongside their parents and assumed that this would be the right way, as it was stated on the paper that parents were allowed to come with their children. Kazumi went inside, trying hard to hide her presence and failed even harder at that, and received many glares from the adults. While she saw that some of the parents just ignored her, others made it up for them and was tripped three times, when she was looking for a chair to sit.

She chose a seat surrounded by girls because she still had a deep fear for men and while the boys were innocent she didn't trust them enough to let her guard down. When she made herself comfortable and wanted to look around to see the faces of her future classmates her attention was caught by an old man, who stood on a podium and prepared himself for a long speech.

"Welcome to the academy of Konohagakure. It is my privilege to be the first one to greet you and welcome you on your path of becoming shinobi. A shinobi is someone who endures and sacrifices. The life you are about to enter is a hard one and one that will not forgive, whether you make a mistake nor failing. I will be honest with you the shinobi's way is often one in the darkness and because of that reason the light shines even brighter for us…

…You will learn many things, some that you are good with and some in which you are bad. Don't let this hinder you on your current path to become a fighter for your family, friends and village. The will of fire burns in all of you and by the end of the academy, you will live and breathe it, I am sure of it…

…To enter the academy it requires three things. First: Love the village and hope to help preserve peace and prosperity. Second: Have a mind that will not yield, able to endure hard training and work. Lastly: Be healthy in mind and body. These are the essential things that you will need to have, to be able to enter the academy…" Somewhere along these lines Kazumi just gave up on listening and started to imagine her future filled with achievements, respect and happiness.

"Your abilities will be tested and, accordingly to them, will be placed in separate classes. I wish you luck and success on your chosen path." The old man ended and the crowd began to separate into children and adults. While the children were following some teachers, the adults stayed behind or left.

The soon to be academy students were lead to a training ground right behind the academy and were told they had a few tests. First was a physical test were all the children, separated into male and female, had to run laps and the more and the faster one ran the better. It soon was clear that clan children held an advantage over the civilian born. They just had more stamina and speed.

The two top aspirants were Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki. Yes, Kazumi noticed that Naruto had the same name but they weren't from a clan and many children had the same surname, beside when she was at the orphanage she never heard of someone related to her, so she assumed it was just a coincidence.

At the girls side it was a certain victory for Kazumi. While she has only learnt to control her chakra from her nekos and only one jutsu the "Tōton Jutsu" (Transparency Jutsu), which made her invisible, she was physical trained very hard. After her was Hinata Hyuuga, the heiress of the Hyuuga clan and then Ino Yamanaka, the heiress of the Yamanaka clan.

After a short rest they were brought into several classrooms and given a written test to assess their knowledge. It would be the end for Kazumi had she not her summons because no one ever bothered to teach her how to read or write. Thankfully her nekos taught it to her and implanted much knowledge in her head which she soaked up like a sponge. The test, per se, was rather easy and only the more detailed questions on Konoha's history were unsolvable for Kazumi.

After the test was over the children were told to wait for an hour to evaluate their scores and to find out which class was the most suitable for them. It was a long hour for Kazumi as she had only known the quietness of the nature since her fourth birthday and lived there already for four years. The girls were talking about the boys and in particular, which one they preferred. The boys on the other hand talked about their biggest fights and heroic tales. All in all it was pretty cliché.

Finally the gods showed her mercy and the teachers came in, she was told that she was in the same class as all of the clan heirs and that were surprisingly many. With that the first day in school was over and while it had some fun moments it was rather exhausting not physically but mentally. It was hard to be in a room so long when the weather was so nice outside and even harder was the noise she had to endure. Maybe the old man knew what he was talking about, when he said a shinobi had to endure.

The first year went by pretty fast, most of the time Kazumi kept to herself but not always could she escape Naruto, who thought that it was "Super-amazing-cool" that they shared the same name. Even if she could just use her invisible jutsu, which she did quite often, it was a nice experience to talk to a human on a friendly basis.

Naruto was open and showed his emotion even if he didn't want it. He was friendly and was just happy to be accepted. On the other hand, he was loud, extremely loud and quite frankly not the brightest but she could understand why. Naruto was an orphan like her but unlike her, he was not thrown out but got his own apartment from the Hokage, whom he saw as his grandfather. He had to fight for attention in his earlier years and now had to fight his loneliness. Kazumi guessed that he developed his loud and honestly annoying personality due to these factors. By the way, the Hokage confirmed to Naruto that the both indeed shared the same name but weren't related.

Other than her relationship to Naruto, there were no other people who got near to her. At first, the glares came only from the civilian side but later the clan children started to mock or insult her too. Kazumi was not sure why but guessed that they saw the civilian adults to insult and glare at her at every possible time and thought it was allowed.

Besides the children the teacher were also biased and were by far not as subtle as they thought they were. Kazumi's tests were harder and sometimes even with a genjutsu casted on them to change the questions. Her instructors showed her purposely wrong stances in Taijutsu class and her teacher in the kunoichi class didn't even allow her to participate.

The first year was mostly spent to train physical and learn history as well as basic survival skills not at all what Kazumi imagined when she went there. Despite all that she liked the Taijutsu lessons and the occasionally spars. The spars had to be fought in the academy stance and that was a major disadvantage for her, while she knew the neko kata, the academy style was never taught her right and so as she tried to stick to the rules, she lost most of the fights.

One major event happened halfway through the year. The almost annihilation of the Uchiha clan with the lone survivor Sasuke Uchiha. Kazumi didn't know when it happened but somehow every, single, girl, fell in love with the Uchiha and she couldn't understand the reason. While he was somewhat good looking, she had to admit that, he had no personality. He was cold, grumpy and spiteful. He didn't even look at the girls who literally presented themselves on a silver plate for him and this caused the tension between the boys and Sasuke to raise. Meanwhile the girls fought over Sasuke as if he were a piece of meat… this would be something she could understand, meat was good, but the real deal not.

A great scene between the leaders of the boy's fan club could be seen almost every day, where they would insult each other and disgrace themselves. Even the only not member of the Uchiha club was a stalking fangirl. Hinata Hyuuga had only eyes for Naruto and to be honest, the way she showed it was more than just creepy. She was a quiet and shy girl and it seemed Naruto had a spark in him that she admired because she would, after school or even before, follow him around the village. Never near him and always looking from a distance. Yes, it was quite creepy.

The second year was better as they began to learn about how to use chakra and the required control for that. For Kazumi it was as easy as a walk in the park. She learned since her fourth birthday chakra control and could easily stick her whole body full of leave and at the same time rotate them on her fingertips.

Additionally they started on theory and practice of genjutsu and ninjutsu. For genjutsu they just learned the theory and how to dispel it and to be honest Naruto sucked at it. He was so bad he would, after hours of being in a genjutsu, not realize that he was caught. Kazumi decided at this moment that if she would ever fight against Naruto she would him simply put into a genjutsu.

"A genjutsu is created when a shinoi controls the chakra flow of a target's cerebral nervous system, thereby affecting their five senses; this is frequently used to create false images and/or trick the body into believing it has experienced physical pain.

Despite its usefulness, genjutsu is rarely employed, most shinobi preferring the real, tangible effects of ninjutsu and taijutsu over the imagined effects of genjutsu. The difficulty of performing genjutsu in the first place presents an additional barrier to its use: genjutsu require precise chakra control in order to manipulate the target's senses and advanced intelligence to make the illusion convincing.

Those under the influence of genjutsu will either appear to be unconscious or continue to move around under the pretence of the genjutsu. The latter is very effective in battle as a genjutsu user can make themselves appear to be somewhere else and attack the victim from behind or change the environment to make the victim see a flat plain where there is a steep cliff." Was the textbook explanation of the homeroom teacher.

In short a genjutsu is a jutsu that has no physical manifestation because it influences directly the mind of the victim. It is extremely useful if you can master the art but like all things, you need time, practice and talent and most of all an unreal chakra control.

While Kasumi knows that genjutsu will not be were her future lies, because it has way too many restrictions, ninjutsu fascinated her and she was sure that she would become a great ninjutsu user one day.

Other than that nothing really changed the class became a bit smaller due to the fact that a few students were sorted out. That gave Kazumi hope that one day she would not receive the glares and insults from others as the reduction of civilian born students meant that there were fewer people to influence the ones who were not biased to her.

Naruto was like last year and Kazumi doubted that he would change anytime soon. He managed to befriend three other guys and snuck out of the lessons with them. That was a relieve for her as he wouldn't bug her every lunch break, on the other side she felt a bit left out but she chose herself to only to only become familiar to him. Along with that he build a self-proclaimed rivalry with the Uchiha that was rather going against his favour.

The taijutsu classes were still held and they learned more katas for the academy style. Again she was not instructed right and due to that lost many of the more frequently fights. Including to the taijutsu lessons they started weapon training. Despite all that she wanted more and frequently visited the village library to learn as much as possible.

Her third year brought changes, which were surprisingly positive. The first one was that they got a new teacher Iruka Umino a young chunin with brown hair and a scar across his face. While he didn't seem to like Kazumi much, he properly taught her none the less.

The class was now in its final stage, meaning that this will be the group that would graduate. It brought one other point to her attention, this was the group of people that would graduate with her and she should at least try to make connections. She made an effort and even managed to make a friend, only one but that was enough of a miracle for Kazumi… Ino Yamanaka.

Ino's Pov

Ino Yamanaka was many things. She had platinum blonde hair and blue green eyes. She was loud, blunt and most of all a gossip and shopping queen but bullying was completely against her nature and when Kazumi Uzumaki, a victim of mockery and insults, approached her, she knew she had to help. It was not that she never saw it happen and when she saw something, she tried to stand up for her but that was all.

Somehow Kazumi managed to worm her way into Ino's heart, not like Sakura who was her best friend but in another way. Kazumi was strange… really strange. She ate her lunch on trees and observed the other children. It was kind of unnerving but her whole appearance was different than what was considered normal. She had crimson red hair and slotted pupils. Her nails were sharp and strong and even her teeth were sharper than usual.

When she was not observing, Kazumi went hiding. Ino didn't know how she was able to do it but she could literally become invisible. Ino never heard were Kazumi lived but she once heard her say her home was in a forest.

Her clothes changed after they learned the "Henge no jutsu" (Transformation Jutsu). She now wore a simple black kimono with an island motive on it. Her red hair was half up and the knot was tied by a stick to let her hair stay in place. Underneath, Ino once saw, she wore bandages on arms and legs. On days that involved physical training she wore a rather similar black battle kimono, only that the kanji for neko was engraved, and that she let her bandages be seen.

On days off Kazumi could be found in two different places. The first was the village library, it seemed that she could never read enough, when she questioned that she was just told "I am just curious. Discovering new things is most fascinating." The second place was a small traditional teahouse. Ino was not so stupid to be unaware of the open glares sent to her new friend and it seemed the owner, an old woman, named Tomomi, way past her prime, of the small teahouse, accepted her anyway.

When Kazumi was pissed off, mostly when someone interrupted her peace and quiet, she flashed her teeth and showed her nails. One time, Ino swears, she even heard her hiss at someone. But despite all that they became friends and good ones at that. It was just important to leave Kazumi her independence and Ino was surprised at how easy it was to befriend her.

The last thing that should be mentioned was that Kazumi managed to free Ino out of the Uchiha spell and in hindsight she had to admit Kazumi was right. She didn't know what her old self saw in him that was worth fighting over him. She had to agree with Kazumi that while good looking he lacked the personality and in reality that was all it comes down. She held up appearance to not fully lose contact with her once best friend Sakura but that was all.

Kazumi even managed that Ino took her training more serious, she even ate more now and instead of worrying of becoming fat she just trained to balance it. Her parents were proud of her changes saying that they were never so happy before and her father even allowed her more clan training.

Her friendship with Kazumi was weird but for nothing in the world would she exchange her for someone else.

Normal PoV

Kazumi was currently writing her graduation exam and looked back at her last year in the academy. Her friendship with Ino was stronger than ever and while both let the other have their own space they were often seen together. Kazumi even went so far as to teach Ino tree walking and allowing her to eat her lunch with her on a tree.

Her discovery of the small teashop and the owner Tomomi led, to her having something akin a grandmother. Tomomi was accepting her whole heartedly and tried everything to help her. Kazumi in return paid her with her undying loyalty and even admiration. Kazumi could often be seen in the teahouse simply looking outside and enjoying her tea. Even her clothes were chosen by Tomomi.

Her nekos finally deemed her ready for new things after her endless chakra control exercises and the mastery of the academy three jutsu. The "Henge no jutsu" (Transformation Jutsu), the "Bunshin no Jutsu" (Clone jutsu) and the "Kawarimi no jutsu" (Body replacement jutsu), she could do all of them without or with only very little smoke. From the nekos she learnt that due to her gekkai genkai she would have at least an affinity to earth and fire elements.

They began to teach her nature transformation, for fire she needed to make wood sticks to burn by only using chakra and for earth it was to make a stone grumble with the use of chakra. The nekos even taught her a few jutsus, the "Fire style: Fireball jutsu", the "Fire style: Phoenix flower jutsu", the Earth release: Head-hunter jutsu" and finally the "Earth release: Mud wall". The nekos even allowed her to practise her gekkai kenkai but only when she is in nekojima and was not allowed to perform it outside of life threatening situations.

The only problem with that was… the nekos knew nothing about lava release. Kazumi first started her nature transformation and after it showed a bit success she rewarded herself by making a new jutsu "Lava style: chasing cats". It was a rather simple one but for her first own jutsu good enough. She even went as far as to have the jutsu as both earth and fire variations. The jutsu simply fomed the element into small cat forms, about as high as Kazumi's knee. She could either control them with chakra or just sent them to the direction of her eyesight and even better but more difficult and exhausting she could make them chase her opponent.

The rest of the year was rather plain and boring. In school they just repeated their previous year's material and were being prepared for the graduation. Her acquaintanceship with Naruto diminished a bit as both had found their own friends. Kazumi had Ino and Naruto was friends with Choji, Kiba and Shikamaru. Of course there was his rivalry with Sasuke and somewhere along the years he managed to form a crush on Sakura .That was, at least, what Ino told her.

Anyway after the written test was done and she was sure to pass. Kazumi waited for her practical exam. The first one was an obstacle run, which she won as best kunoichi right behind Sasuke Uchiha. The weapon part was almost too easy for her and there she even beat the Uchiha. The last part was the ninjutsu section. She just had to perform the three academy jutsus which she mastered already and got her headband. Kazumi chose a black one and bound it on her right arm.

She waited for Ino to finish and as she too graduated the both of them were ecstatic enough to oversee Naruto, who was sitting on a swing and looked extremely dejected. Ino and Kazumi just hoped that the both of them were on the same team and spent the afternoon together before they went their way.

I decided to have the general jutsus like Henge, etc. to write in their original form but the other in English. It helps me, to create new ones and to be honest it sounds way better to say "She henged" than "She transformed". Just my opinion :)