Chapter Three: Awaken to Love

Kawaii ne!: So cuuute!
Otou-sama: Lord Father
Watashi wa doko desu ka?: Where am I?

-s-s-s-s-s-

Back to the present...

The next day dawned bright and clear as various ANBU and special jounin escorted what remained of the festival's drunken celebrators back to their homes. Naruto watched from his cracked window, shadowed by the dirty glass, and sighed. At least his most hated day was over and done with, only to come again in another twelve months.

He turned from the dreary window to gaze at the (quite heavy!) teenage girl sleeping on his rather small, shaky bed. She was draped across it's entirety, one arm pillowing her head, the other brushing the floor as she'd shifted to lay on her stomach.

The night before it had been too dark for Naruto to properly see her face or coloring. Now, in the mid-morning light, the female stranger seemed to glow.

Long hair, red at the roots and six or so inches at the end, with sunny yellow and orange in between, hung loose around her still form. Though the elder's eyes were closed , he knew they were the same eternal blue that stared back at him in the mirror every day. Her clothes and face, though, were what really puzzled him.

The girl's clothes, obviously well made for combat and stealthy use, were of no ninja quality he'd ever seen. Sure, she had a kunai and shuriken holster on her left leg (was she left handed or just weird?), but it was empty. And her pack, which he'd found a few feet away from where the stranger had landed (on him!), was heavy and locked with complex jutsu.

The teen's face, though pretty and finely boned with higher-than-normal cheek bones and full lips, had the oddest tattoos he'd ever seen, which was say something since he lived in a ninja Village with Clans that were as prodigious as they were weird. Her marks were as follows: two tear drops with small circles at the tipped ends on each cheek, blue and upwards on her right and a dark reddish-purple on the left.

Another thing that caused unneeded curiosity: her chocker necklace, pulled tightly around her thin neck by a black doubled-rope. A silvery circle of unknown metal engraved with the Uzumaki family spiral, encircled in a curved diamond hung from a hook of the same metal, glinting in the morning light. No one, as far as the eight year old knew, besides himself could claim his family's Symbol as their own.

Jumping slightly as the girl began to stir, Naruto turned to see sleep clouded bright blue eyes blinking curiously at him. "Eh? Papa? Otou-sama? Watashi wa doko desu ka?" she murmured quietly, staring around and a bit distressed that she recognized nothing.

Naruto just stared, only one question coming to mind at the moment, "Who are you?"

The stranger turned her searching gaze from the foreign room to the young speaker, blinking owlishly as she regarded him. "U-" She coughed purposefully, startling the other blonde, then began again. "Uyoku Seishi. And you are?"

Cautiously pausing, shifting nervously under the girl's guarded gaze, the eight year old replied, "Uzumaki Naruto."

Uyoku Seishi, the Girl-Who-Fell-From-The-Sky, stared blankly at him, before her eyes widened comically in delayed reaction. She continued to stare at him in untold shock for a few uncomfortable moments (not that the few past had been any better) before jumping up from his sunken bed and tackling the startled boy, yelling something illegible in a foreign language.

"Kawaii ne!" she whispered loudly in his ear, hugging his smaller form to her larger one as an affectionate relative might. "Nice to finally meet you, Uzumaki-kun!"

Naruto's face turned a bright shade of red, unused to being touched so easily and needing air as a purple color set in. Seishi released him, looking sheepish, as the sunshine child hacked a little before turning back to him natural complexion. Smiling brightly, the girl stared happily down at him, making Naruto nervous once again.

"Yeah... you too..." was his unenthusiastic answer. Seishi pouted slightly, an expression uncannily similar to his own (not that he looked in the mirror when pouting!).

"Who are you...?" he asked again, staring at the kneeling girl as he dusted himself off and stood. "And why did you fall from the sky?" he demanded, inwardly overcome with curiosity.

"Eh? I did?" the girl asked, rubbing the back of her head in confusion and embarrassment. Naruto only sweatdropped. "Well..." she continued thoughtfully, thinking aloud, "I guess the jutsu worked then!"

The blonde's eyes widened, not believing that this hyper girl could use chakra efficiently. "Are you a ninja?"

She blinked at him a moment before smiling enigmacally and replied, "Ninja? Well, you could say that..."

Naruto scrunched his face up in thought, arms folded, and raised an eyebrow. Did he even want to know? 'Is this girl crazy?' he asked himself, coming up with no answer. Did it really matter if she was, though?

Seishi began to hum something to herself, rocking back and forth as she settled into a cross-legged position, seemingly unaware of her host's piercing gaze. "Hmhmm hmm hmhmm hmmmm!"

Suddenly, the kitsune carrier's thoughts were interrupted by his guest's growling stomach. He raised an eyebrow questioningly and she had the grace to blush, turning her gaze away in embarrassment.

Naruto sighed, looking a bit defeated. "You hungry?" Seishi nodded enthusiastically. "What d'you want?"

Looking thoughtful for a moment, the girl burst out smiling. "What ever you have, Uzumaki-kun!"

"Ramen!" Naruto shouted energetically, returning Seishi's 100 watt smile.

"The greatest food in the world!" exclaimed the blondes together. Glancing at one another in surprise, they exchanged fox grins.

"What flavor?" Naruto asked as they headed into the kitchen, checking his cabinets filled with packs of instant ramen. He was short for his age and needed a stool to reach up high. Seishi, unusually tall for a girl of seeming 16, reached up above his to for her favorite kind, ignoring Naruto's jealous scowl.

"Chicken!"

"Miso for me!"

She filled both containers with water, set the microwave, and they waited impatiently together for the three minutes it took to prepare. Slurping happily on her ramen, the steam from the cup tickling her nose in delight, she was unaware of her fell-ramen-lover's thoughts.

'She's strange, but doesn't have cold eyes. In fact, she seems more at home here than I do.' He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, smiling slowly as he eat like not tomorrow. 'But it's nice. Maybe this is what family feels like...'

In a distant future, more like a possible outcome in another dimension, two fathers searched high and low for their beloved daughter. They found no trace of her personally, yet an interesting self-made scroll remained, announcing her trip to another place, another time, and more importantly, to change another world.

-s-s-s-s-s-