GRRRRR. I had a great chapter written and hen my comp CRASHED! So I had to write another one. Its different from version .01 but I ended up liking this direction better anyways.

p.s. I aint quite sure how this is goin it aint really the heart stopper id a hoped fer. I'll get there thought the twists and great battles have only just begun, but I thought a great way to make a story is to have a good reason for great betrayal. A betrayal story was what I was aimn for, although this was inspired by an assassin story. Seriously I want some flames, getting chewed out is my way of getting better at something. I think I'm putting in too much detail, not enough action, I really need advice on what's wrong with it. :D thanks ya'll

Naruto had his head cocked sideways in amusement. He was once more leaning against the pillars of Konohas gates. He had just a moment before been lost in his memories, he frowned as a thought had crossed his mind. Now telling his story to other people it seemed slightly less dramatic then it had at the time. Crap, he had at least planned to wow his students with the dramatic happenings. Well at least what happened next was interesting, Naruto wasn't really looking forward to getting to the whole point of the story, but hey he may as well prove his superiority to his students. His face brightened at the thought.

"Your wrong! Where you listening at all?" The blond anbu rolled his eyes as his train of thought was cut off. His story had been interrupted when Owl has yawned and said pointedly. "it's the classic tale of someone invades and turns your friends against you. I bet that Kashia girl was bad news. First that Sasuke kid acts weird then the Hokage is suspicious of her its obvious." Falcon disagreed venomously "your wrong the Sasuke guy must have been in love with her and then Naruto was too and it turned into war. Naruto must have gotten broken hearted!"

That was how it had started, and to Naruto's great entertainment the ideas had gotten even more exotic and bizarre. Right now they where discussing the probability that one of his old teammates was actually a spy and had come assassinate Kashia and had decided Naruto and her where a team and had tried to kill both of them. Naruto snorted. They where going way overboard, but when your isolated in a Anbu compound with kind of unusual people the conversation can be one-of-a-kind. Besides at least they were applying the "Anything is possible" motto Naruto had been teaching them.

"Is much as I hate to interrupt, the ninja that will be accompanying us will be here is about 2 hours, this conversation is heading in the ever common direction of nowhere so wrap it up." Naruto ordered. "So what happened?" Came the predictable demand, Naruto grinned when he saw that the two voices that had made the demand were not Falcon and Owl but Hawk and Falcon. Hawk rarely showed interest in anything. "God I'm good," was written plainly all over the Captains' face.

"So what happened next?" The smile slipped off Narutos face but in its place a single eyebrow raised. "Who knows." He hedged with a flick of his wrist. "You can't just leave us hanging." Owl informed him. "Yeah!" Falcon agreed "So what happened next?" Naruto's eyes gentled. "Next," Naruto said "Well how should put this, I'm tired of talking to you people so I'll cut it short. What happened next was….I was about to get taught a hard learned life lesson."

FLASHBACK

"It's such a nice day out" Naruto commented, and it was true a breeze heated by the sun, rolled easily through the village, mussing blond hair. Sakura smiled "it's nice." she agreed. Naruto continued to lean out the open window. "Hey how long are you going to stay here?" Sakura hinted. "Trying to get rid of me?" Naruto teased. The female rolled her eyes. "Was it that obvious?" Naruto mockingly winced, "That cut me deep, right here" He teased pointing to his heart.

She shook her head and turned back to the paperwork. "I'm really busy Naruto, Somehow I lost my bet to Lady Tsuande and now I'm stuck, with a days worth of paperwork. So if your fishing for a date it's "Go Fish" Pal." Naruto turned his face back to stare outside while enjoying the warm breeze. "After everything a boy does to grow up and he can't even snag a date, what cruelty is this?" Naruto teased again. "Honestly you knucklehead when did you get the wit with which you use for all those sarcastic comments?" Sakura demanded, not looking up for the papers in front of her.

And it was true he had grown more sarcastic as after a time he had grown mellow, maybe it was because with a steady group of friends he didn't 't need to be so tense.

Honestly he didn't really have a reason to be in the mission review room, but it was a quiet place to think, Today he had been buying some house hold stuff when he'd been hit by a cart and had ended up back peddling into a man, with unusual purple eyes. Naruto had apologized, but the man had just smiled creepily at him, what made Naruto raise an eyebrow at the man was when he said "Your path is quite more twisted then others, is it not?"

Any who that had been weird so as he was strolling through town with his bag of bought stuff, he noticed Sakura up in the window of the main Hokage work building, and had popped in to say hello and tell her that he had met someone that was weird enough to be a stalker, Sakura didn't really care, but had half listened to her teammate until the boy had gotten distracted by the entertainment of staring out the window. Sakura-----

END FLASHBACK

"WHATS WITH THE INTURUPTON? I had just started you know!" Naruto huffed, his story had gotten paused by Owl demanding to know what his relationship with Sakura was. "Calm down, we just wanted to know if this was a love interest we should be looking out for." Falcon asked with a somewhat unnerving gleam in her eye. Who knew she was such a romantic?

"Did you love her?" Hawk asked with an upraised eyebrow. Being the by-the-rules kinda guy he was, he didn't approve of relationships between co-workers. Naruto got a thoughtful smile, "No I didn't love her, it was a….how should I put this it was,… a game?" Falcon frowned "whadda mean a game?" She asked. "Its not really relevant to the story but see, I told ya all about how Sasuke was plagued by girls right?" The listeners nodded.

"Ok so in the academy we had a brief run in with each other, that involved me catching him hiding from some girls that he wasn't…fond of, any how I took pity on the guy, and pretended I had seen him in the schoolyard, and I valiantly saved him. Any way back then Sakura was being really persistent in her quest for him, so we formed a….truce I suppose, so that when Sakura got to close I'd distract her from him by asking for a "date", so Sasuke could escape, then she'd reject me and I'd go home. In exchange he'd warn me when one of the kids was going to try something mean."

"So it was like the beginning of a friendship?" Owl asked with a upturned eyebrow. The Nineteen year old chuckled. "Not quite, we ended up trying to outdo each other in how many times we saved the other, so it was probably the real turn point of a rivalry." Somehow he didn't look pleased with this trip down memory drive…lane whatever. Falcon huffed realizing that her idea of a love story was botched. "Any way back to the story." Owl prompted. "You where the one that stopped it." Naruto grumbled, but he relented. But even as he told this history he couldn't help but let the memories take him back like he was really in the time that he had now come to look upon with hate.

FLASHBACK…. (again)

"So Naruto, is everything ok with you? You're not feeling weird or nothing?" Sakura asked, that got Narutos attention, they had been sitting in comfortable silence until Sakura had broken it, normally Naruto would have answered without a second thought, but this time there was an edge to the girls voice, Naruto frowned "I'm fine why?" Sakura didn't turn around "Just checking is all…..Now get out of here Uzumaki, I know your trying to hide from Kakashi, you can't run from basic training Naruto its good to review the basics."

Naruto crossed his arms in a thinking manner, for like two weeks now he had been getting questions like that. Shikamaru would work something like "You been thinking clearly?" Into a conversation, or Naruto would greet one of his friends and they would jump in alarm, And most of all Tsunade seemed suddenly overly concerned with giving Naruto check ups. But what had been eating at him most of all was "the" looks. It wasn't the full blown hatred he had come to expect but it was something akin to…wariness? Naruto noticed Sakura standing with her hands on her hips.

Naruto sighed and grudgingly headed for the door, but out of the corner of his eye he could have sworn he saw Sakura take a hasty step away from him. But before he could think on it Kakashi's face was in front of him with a upturned eye that promised punishment for trying to bail on training, If Naruto hadn't been a experienced Ninja by that point he had a suspicion that the blood would have drained from his face.

*******************

One Month Later

Something was wrong, something was very wrong. Naruto had been walking through the village earlier, (Normally he would have been on a mission bit for some strange reason Tsunade seemed hesitant to give him any.) and he had spotted the usual band of rookie nine in a shaded area under a tree. Naruto wondered if there was a meeting he had forgotten, but decided to head over to see what was up, when to his surprise he noticed all of them seemed to conversing with that Kashia girl.

"Hi. What's going on" Naruto greeted casually. Silence. Kiba cleared his throat, "nothing, we where just leaving anyway." A confused if not somewhat hurt boy watched at the group dispersed. His head was cocked to the side, and his brow was furrowed, he was racking his brain to see if he had offended all of them, but couldn't come up with anything that drastic, He caught Hinata standing off to the side looking at him nervously, "Naruto." She greeted quietly. "Hinata what's up?" Naruto asked back in a subdued manner.

"U-um nothing, b-but the Hokage is calling f-for you." She worked her foot into the dirt nervously, "Hinata is something wrong with everybody? I feel like I've been being avoided, Im getting kind of lonely." Naruto said in a mostly teasing manner. "U-um, no-no, its just that the Hokage…S-she was asking for you…and, and we d-don't hate you I promise."

Naruto's eyes gentled as he realized she looked ready to burst into tears. "Alright, alright I'm off to see Baa chan, calm down." Naruto turned around Nonchalantly and said without looking back. "No need to cry Hinata chan, I know you wouldn't ever lie to me so it's fine." He waved with the back of his hand and walked down the path. If he had looked around he would have seen a wide eyes Hinata with tears falling softly down her face. "No-no Naruto don't say that….Im s-so Sorry." The girls shoulders hunched over. "So very sorry." Sakura stepped out of the shadow of the tree she'd been standing in and softly made her way over to the hunched figure. "It had to be done don't worry it'll turn out fine" she shushed. "We're his friends and we're going to help him…weather he want it or not." She said grimly

***************

Naruto's chest was pounding, and his head felt heavy, he knew something was wrong with his friends, after they had started talking with the new girl Kashia, it had seemed like they couldn't get enough and lately he hadn't seen Kashia by herself, she was always taking to someone. What Naruto didn't understand was why it always seemed like it was someone Naruto knew.

He paused in his walking and turned to stare into the stream that was running under the bridge he was crossing, normally he wouldn't have taken this rather scenic route but he needed time. He swallowed thickly, he had a pretty good idea of what this was about, every now and again a villager would take it upon themselves to "warn" someone away from Naruto he was the demon after all. Perhaps the news had gotten around…maybe through that new girl….oh god was this what it was about? She was telling everyone? Naruto felt his heart clench, it was unavoidable really. Somewhere in his mind he had been preparing for this but…but why? Why was everything slid form his grasp?

Against his will a tear slid down his face, he angled his head down and watched as the drop fell and caused a ripple in the water below. The circles wandered out to spread to logs, hands and rock- HANDS? Narutos eyes jumped to the hand that was laying in the water, his eyes followed the hand and found that it was attached…to a person! A person who was laying unconscious on the river bank. Naruto frowned, a river bank was a silly place to fall unconscious if you think about it, what if you slipped in and drowned- Oh!

Naruto leaped onto the bridge's ledge and kicked off, landing on the bank and running the last few feet, unsure of what to do he grabbed the mans (for now he saw it was indeed a man.) shirt and dragged him up the bank onto a nice grassy area. Naruto hesitated…what now? His eyes snapped downward as a bout of coughing erupted form the man.

"Hey mister are you ok?-Whoa" Naruto choked out as a hand came to grasp the collar of Narutos shirt. "H-help" the man choked out. Naruto placed a hand on the mans chest and gently pushed down. "Where is she?" The man demanded weakly

"Who?" Naruto questioned, as he tried to slow down his racing heart

"That she-devil!" The man stated as if is was obvious

Naruto stared at him. And the man stared back "Where am I?" He finally questioned.

"Ok who stopped the payment on your reality check huh?" Naruto frowned "Your just outside Konoha, but how did you get here?"

"How indeed" the man snapped. His eyes roamed aimlessly and Naruto realized he must be exhausted. "Mr. are you ok?" Naruto asked hesitantly "Yes, cause people who float down a river for 3 days are always having a great day." the man said sulking, Naruto chuckled. "Well then if your that great I guess you can stay here without me." Naruto smirked. This time it was the mans turn to be amused. "Point taken" he acknowledged that he was in no shape to be wondering off by himself. "Mana Saotomi." He introduced.

Naruto grinned "Naruto Uzumaki." Mana flashed him with a weak grin "Nice to meet you Naru."

"Its Naruto"

"Listen naru"

"Naruto"

"I need your help," Mana continued

"Its like talking to a squirrel"

"Chill out kid, anywho have you seen a black bag around here anywhere? I had it a while ago." Naruto frowned

"I haven't seen one" Naruto responded

"Have you looked for it?" Mana questioned curiously.

"No, how was I supposed to know it existed."

Mana rolled his eyes "Well if you don't know it exists then how are we talking about it?"

"you told me about it."

"Ah so I did…so have you seen it?"

"………..you hit your head pretty hard there huh?

"Oh look its over there."

Narutos eyes followed Mana's pointing finger, and sure enough several meters away caught on a log, still in the river was a ruffled, worn black bag. Naruto turned to Mana. "nice spotting." Mana stared. "I don't suppose you want me to go get it for you?" Naruto continued. Mana beamed "oh it so sweet of you to offer Naru if-"

"Its Naruto"

"you could just nip down there and grab it that'd be great!" Naruto scowled to a bit to his own surprise ten minutes later a soaked Naruto was sitting near Mana who was hugging the bag with one arm in a gleeful reunion. "Congratulations on being reunited." Naruto commented dryly. Mana's eye snapped up to Naruto but to Narutos surprise his eyes looked vaguely grave. "I was kind of out of it, seems I did hit my head-" Naruto rolled his eyes" Mana smiled tiredly. So this is where I've ended up huh?" Mana said thoughtfully. "How did you end up here anyway?" Naruto inquired

" Ah, something terrible has happened, Im looking for-" Manna was interrupted when he drew in a sharp breath . Naruto gaze flickered to where Mana was painfully clutching his ribs. "You injured?" Naruto questioned, Mana's breathing was labored but eyes had a "no duh" Look to them. "Guess its time for a hello to the hospital-" Naruto was cut off when he felt a painful grasp on his arm. "N-no hospital" Mana choked out. Naruto raised an eyebrow "Well I guess I could take you home." Naruto surprised himself again by offering. Mana watched him eyebrows raised.

Naruto sighed, "we'll have to be sneaky though. I doubt that my whole 'Can I keep him? I'll feed'em everyday' gag will work." Mana let out a lose chuckle through his teeth. Narutos eyes narrowed "If I take you home will you promise to tell me about how you ended up here?" Naruto said slyly. Mana sighed "If I must" He complied "but only cause you've got a smile on your face as you blackmail someone. I like that kinda spunk" Naruto grinned wider

"Well I have a policy on smiling."

"Is it about brightening someone's day crap?"

"Nope, I smile cause it makes people wonder if I know something they don't"

"not bad kid"

"It's hard sometimes though, Mondays are one hell of a way to spend 1/7 of your life if you smile on such a hellish occasion.

"Well stupidity is not a crime, so your free to go…..Naru….where are you going? Oh come on I didn't mean it! You can't leave me here! Hello? Naru?………Naru?…Fine Im gonna go die somewhere……Bastard!" Mana sulked weakly

Naruto smiled to himself as he leaned against a tree a couple of meters' off where he'd temporarily abandoned Mana, despite his brain telling him that bringing home random strangers was stupid, he liked this guy. And he could bet that Mana had an interesting tale to tell. Narutos smile saddened, maybe it would take his mind of how upside-down the world he had suffered to create from nothing was crumbling around him. Or maybe he was just over-reacting now that he thought about it- OH CRAP Naruto ran out from behind the tree and over to where Mana had fallen unconscious again…oops.

More later, I kinda like this, and Everything will be brought into light soon. Flames, story ideas, comments. They're a hoot I love'em. I will try to upload soon, but it is super-mega end of year testing for the next 2 weeks in school, but I will try. Please review Hee Hee, Mana was fun to write. And I have an idea for the betrayal that is better then ever. So wait for me….or not, whatever.

-Cheers Just Miki