I made myself comfortable on the bed, between my two brothers. Across the room were three women who had introduced themselves as the Fifth Hokage Tsunade, her assistant Shizune and her student Sakura. I liked Sakura, she seemed friendly, and I've never seen pink hair. She raised her hand and waved it back and forth. I cocked my head, what did that mean? I copied her but she must have read the quizzical expression on my face. "It means hello." She said, "And also goodbye."

I smiled, "Thanks, I'm new at this."

Tsunade was still staring at me, and I cringed. "About the tree…"

"That was quite a jump."

"Oh…well that's a mixture of genetics and training." Her eyebrows raised and I tugged my brother's fuzzy ears. "These genetics." They both swatted my hands away and I laughed.

Tsunade sat down on the bed across from us, "So, who wants to start?"

I grinned, "Oh let me!"

Seiko clamped his hand over my mouth. "Let me do it Sachi, I'm older so I remember more."

I glared and licked his palm. He snatched it away with a curse and glared right back. "Right, anyway. Our names are Seiko, Sachi and Isao. Our parents were Chizue and Akio, both dead. They lived here, were married here, and had me here. When I was four and mother was pregnant with Sachi, we were kidnapped by Orochimaru and kept in the Akatsuki hideout."

Sakura gasped but Tsunade didn't seem too surprised. "I suspected. I remember another girl who Orochimaru took and changed, a bit like you three."

"Yes, he did it to us from the DNA of a giant snow leopard Yamayuki, a summoning animal. The process took away our ability to effectively mould chakra, which of course disappointed Orochimaru, but it also meant we couldn't escape. Mother was pregnant during the process, and when Sachi was born she already had the ears and tail, but she could mould chakra. Orochimaru trained her hard, and our parents made sure to teach her as many of their jutsu's as possible. I think he wanted to use her as a hunter, to capture more victims. Then he made our parents have another baby. But before he was born Orochimaru left the Akatsuki. I still don't know why, but I wasn't sorry. Mother died giving birth to Isao, and when father tried to get us out, they killed him. Isao can mould chakra to a certain level, but not as much as Sachi. They kept us, and let us raise Isao. They took over Sachi's training, probably keeping us two just for her. It was all very bearable, until a few weeks ago. They brought in prisoners. One member, Hidan, tried to take the women every few days, but Sachi wouldn't let him. She…she…" He slammed his fist against the wall.

I felt Isao jump but I was staring at the floor. Damn it, why do they have to know? I feel powerless enough, knowing that he forced me. They don't need to know that too.

"What did you do?" Tsunade was pegging me with her eyes.

I sighed, "I let him take me instead. It wasn't a hard decision, it was me or the women."

"I'll kill him." Seiko was glaring at the wall, so I swatted him with my tail.

"I get him first. I want to repay the favor for destroying my eye." I remembered the three others in the room. "Anyway, the wound he gave me got infected and since I really can't die and leave these too alone, I decided we would escape. So I blew the wall down and summoned my ninja cats to give the civilians a ride. And that's it. Oh hey, how'd you get that collar off me?" I really want to get off this subject.

"We had ninja from our weapons division look at it, and they got it off while you were asleep." Tsunade answered. "Are you willing to give us all the information on the Akatsuki members?"

"Of course, I'd love to see those bastards caught, though to be honest we don't know a lot."

"Any information is useful."

Sakura was leading me through a hallway of the hospital I tried to ignore the stares and whispers of the patients and doctors. "Do you find me odd Sakura?"

Sakura looked back at me. "Honestly, at first I did. I mean, ears and a tail on a human is pretty odd. But it makes you unique. And you're so strong, doing what you did. I really admire you now."

I smiled widely, "Thank you Sakura." She nodded at me and we finally reached the room. There was a doctor waiting for me, and I got very nervous. Sakura closed the door and led me to the doctor. At least it was a woman.

"Hello, you must be Sachi. They told me the short details of your situation and asked that I examine you."

"Ok." She led me to the table and had me lay back. Sakura moved to my side and I smiled up at her. "You're the first girl I've met who's my age. I hope we can be friends, I've never really had one before."

She took my hand and squeezed. "I'd like that. You should meet some of my other friends, they'll really like you."

"You think so."

"I do."

The doctor stood up. "Okay, we're all done. There are some abrasions that are healing nicely, so it's not really a big concern. I'd just like to take a blood sample, in case you contracted anything or may be pregnant."

"I can't get pregnant, at least not now. I have a different reproductive system then you. I go into heat every six months, that's the only time I can get pregnant."

Sakura giggled, "Lucky you, only every six months." The doctor laughed too and I smiled. This wasn't so bad.

A few days more in the hospital, then they told us we could go. "So they're letting us stay?" I asked Sakura, who had brought clothes for each of us. We had to cut a tail-hole, but it was better than hospital attire.

"Of course. You have the right by birth from you're parents. Plus you gave up all the information about Akatsuki, so you're defiantly not loyal to them. Oh, here, I brought you something." She pulled out a black sash from her pouch.

I took it from her. "What's it for?"

"You can take off the bandages, but I thought it would be better if you protect that eye anyway."

"Oh, thank you." There was a small mirror on the wall and I walked over to it. Starting from the top, I unwrapped the bandages from my face. Keeping the eye closed I examined the scars. There were several, long thin slices that stretched from my hairline, over the eye and down to my jaw. I opened the eye and grimaced. It was still there, but completely milky white. No sight from there at all. Closing it, I wrapped the sash around my face. It didn't cover all the scarring, but at least most of it. I turned back to Sakura and my brothers, they were all staring at me. I grinned widely, "Well I'll need to train more to figure out new strategies. At least that'll be fun."

Seiko and Isao shook there heads, and Sakura smiled. "You're so optimistic, you remind me of my friend Naruto."

"Well these two are no fun, so it leaves it up to me."

"Anyway," Seiko interrupted, "Where exactly are we going?"

"I'm going to show you around Konoha, then to you're home."

"We have a home?" I've never been inside a house, Kotone said they were nice.

"Yeah, Tsunade-sama found your parents old house. It was sold a while ago, but they people moved out. It was for sale again, so she bought it for you. You can work off the cost."

I stared at her. "We have a home." I whispered. We actually had a place to go, where our parents lived. I felt the grin spreading across my face that mirrored my brothers. "Well then let's go!"

Stop staring at me. Stop staring at me. Stop staring at me. I repeated this mantra over and over again in my head. On the outside I was grinning, but I wanted to flinch every time someone stared at me. But honestly I suppose it could be worse, they could be screaming. "This place is huge." I wanted to see everything all at once, but there was so much.

"You'll find you're way soon enough." Sakura reassured, looking back at us. "You're house is just a few blocks away."

This caught our attention. "We're almost there?" She nodded and continued leading us through the streets. The streets got quieter as we walked, with fewer shops and more houses popping up. Finally she stopped in front of a simple two story house with a small front yard.

Holding up three keys, she turned to us and said, "This is it."

With a bounce I snatched one of the keys and dashed to the door. I jammed the key in the lock, rushed inside, and promptly fell flat on my face. "Fuck!" I pushed myself up and looked behind me. A few feet from the door the floor rose a few inches. Seiko and Isao were peering through the door while Sakura was laughing in the yard. I stuck my tongue at her when she came up.

She gained control of her laughter. "You're supposed to take off your shoes and leave them here."

"Why?"

"Because it's polite and clean."

I kicked off my sandals and laid them beside my brothers. "There are a lot of things to learn." I muttered. Finally we entered the first room. It was large, with wooden floors, an area rug, a couch, table and several love seats. "They left most of the furniture here." Sakura said, "Which by the way made it more expensive."

"Remind me to thank Tsunade-sama." I lead the way through the first floor, finding a nice bathroom, large eating area, spacious kitchen, and quite study. "We have to go shopping. We must make a list!" Rooting through the desk in the study I uncovered a pad of paper and a pen. "Yosh!" Seiko and Isao rolled their eyes but I didn't care, I loved trivial tasks. Pen to paper I went back through the rooms and recorded everything we needed, from books to food to flowers.

Seiko looked at my list. "Flowers?"

I blushed. "I like flowers, I want a garden."

He smiled at me, and nodded. "Anything you want."

We made our way upstairs, only three rooms and a closet. "Three bedrooms, perfect." Each room was furnished the same, one large bed, a dresser, a closet, and a bathroom. Only the paint and carpeting was different. Navy and white, green and brown, and red and black. I took the last one. I added more things to my list, like clothes and toiletries. When I joined the others back in the hall, Seiko took the list.

He groaned, "This is so much stuff."

I laughed, "Well we don't need it all today, just some of it. We only have a bit of money from Tsunade-sama and we need food first, I'm starving."

"Let's go have lunch first then." Sakura suggested, "Some of my friends are probably out, and I'll introduce you. Then we can fill you're fridge." We locked the door behind us and followed her down the street, back into the busier part of town. "What would you like to eat?"

I blinked, "I don't know."

She looked back at us, "What?"

I scratched the back of my head, "Well I don't really know anything about food. We didn't really have any choices of scraps when they fed us." I laughed. No one else did, of course. I must be the only one who thinks I'm funny.

"Oh, well then I guess I'll pick. Somewhere simple I guess." She led us through the streets, to a small shop. Ichiraku Ramen, it read. Sakura pushed aside the flaps and we entered. Only two other customers were there. "Shikamaru, Choji, nice to see you guys." They turned and looked over to her, and their eyes were drawn to us.

I waved my hand, just as Sakura had done. "Hi, I'm Sachi, and these are my brothers Seiko and Isao."

They continued to stare and the silence became unbearable. Even the owners were twitching. Sakura growled and went over, smacking the two in the back of the head. "Don't be rude."

"Ah, troublesome woman...Sorry, I'm Shikamaru, and this is Choji." His friend waved at us before continuing to eat. Sakura rolled her eyes and gestured for us to sit. We did, and were handed menus.

"What would you like?" The cook asked.

"Umm, I'm not sure. I've never had ramen before."

There were choking sounds down the counter and Shikamaru patted Choji on the back. When he caught his breath, he turned to us. "Never had ramen! Where have you been living, underground?"

Sakura turned to yell at him but Seiko interrupted. "Yes." He got kind of bug-eyed and Shikamaru muttered, "Good job Choji."

"Wow, it just got really awkward in here. I love it!" Turning back to my menu, I stared intently. "This may take me a moment, they didn't teach us to read that well." The awkwardness deepened and I smirked. I turned to the chef, "What do you recommend?"

"How about a large bowl of miso with pork?"

"Sounds great, one for each of us!" I inhaled the delicious aromas wafting around the room. I caught my brothers doing the same and smiled. Three steaming bowls were handed to us. I paused before diving in. How do I eat this? I looked over to Sakura and watched her break apart two sticks, and use then to pick up the noodles. I looked over at Seiko and he shrugged, grabbing a pair of the sticks. I grabbed one too, broke them apart and just stared at them. How the hell do you use these?

Sakura tapped me on the shoulder. "Need help?" I laughed and nodded, so she grabbed my hand. She positioned the chopsticks between my fingers and my brothers copied. After a few minutes of fumbling and a lot of dropped noodles, I managed to eat my bowl.

I slurped the leftover broth and put the bowl down with a sigh. "Delicious!" Everyone else was calmly finishing their bowl while I fished around for my wallet. Pulling out a couple of bills for my food, I offered them to the owner.

He shook his head, "Don't worry about it this time. It's your first bowl of ramen and you chose us, so thank you."

"Really? Thank you!" I repeated my thanks as we left the shop even though he kept waving it off. "That sure was nice of him." I said to them. "That's defiantly my new favorite spot."

Shikamaru and Chouji were staring at me incredulously. "Where'd you find this girl? She acts kind of like Naruto, and her brothers look like him. It's a bit creepy."

"Hey! I'm not creepy." I stuck my tongue at Shikamaru, but he just shook his head. I turned to Sakura. "By the way, who is Naruto?"

"I'll tell you another time. Right now we have lots of other things to do. You need to get evaluated, Seiko needs a job, and Isao needs to go to school. And you guys need to go shopping."

I groaned, "But we just got here." But nobody paid any attention to my whining. So instead I just followed after them, grumbling. After all, shopping couldn't be that bad.

Hey, second chapter already! I've really got to learn to pace my myself or I'll run out of ideas and have nothing to publish. I hope you enjoyed their first day in Konoha. It's very light-hearted, but I promise to get darker in the next chapter. After all, I love creating horrible situations and devastating emotions. So look forward to that.

-LB