Naru and Ookami had a pleasant dinner, watched some TV and when Naru finally dozed off Ookami put her to bed and left after setting her alarm and making a mental note to come back in the morning so that he could walk her to school since it was going to be her first day and she might get nervous.

He slipped out her window and ran across the roof tops to his own home and unlocked the door and stepped inside and pulled off his wolf mask and set it on the table beside the door along with his head band and looked around his darkened home and smiled when his eyes landed on the small faded picture of his old team. A tall blond man with vivid dark blue eyes stood with his hand on his head grinning like mad.

His former jounin sensei. The man that had become the Fourth Hokage. Naru's father.

The only person in the world that he had had left, and the man had gone and gotten himself and his wife killed. Ookami knew that it wasn't Minato's fault. He also knew that the attack on the village nine years ago hadn't been Kushina's fault either. And while he had been upset that the only family he had had left was now gone, they had left him a wonderful gift. Something that he treasured more and more each day.

Their daughter.

His precious kitsune.

His lips curved up in a smile. Naru was such an strong, kind and amazing person. And he loved the girl, more than he ever imagined he would. But then again he supposed he shouldn't have been surprised, Naru had the same peculiar ability that her father had had. All she had to do was talk to someone just for a little while and could establish a bond that could easily last forever. And she was such a sweet and honest kid.

And despite what others might say about the girl, Naru wasn't a trouble maker. Sure she might chuck paint off of monument mountain from time to time, and occasionally break into the library in the Hokage's building and steal a good scroll or two. But that wasn't really her fault.

She wanted to learn jutsu and such, but no one would teach her or help her so she often took things into her own hands in an effort to learn. He couldn't blame her for doing things that way since it wasn't easy for her to trust others to help her.

So he had made it a habit to watch her work from a nice comfortable distance. Far, far away. But not so far that he wouldn't be able to help her if she needed it, and sat in his favorite tree and made sure that she practiced her new abilities safely, and comfortably, without trouble from anyone.

And he had to say, the kid knew an impressive range of high level jutsu. She had taught herself the Resangan just by watching the toad sage Jiraiya use it in an demonstration!

Once! And he was just so...so proud of her.

He picked up the picture and stared at it and smiled as he ran his thumb over his former teacher's face, wiping away some of the dust that had collected there. "Minato, do you see you're girl? She such a wonderful and special girl."

He stood there as if waiting for a reply and could have sworn that he heard Minato's voice whisper. "She'll be the greatest we've ever seen..." Ookami smiled and nodded his head in agreement.

Yeah. Naru would be the best that they had ever seen. He'd see to it personally.

He put the picture down and walked back to his room, stripping off his clothes and decided to take a shower before he went to bed.

(*******************************************************************************************************************************************)

Ookami grabbed a few hours sleep and was back at Naru's place in five hours. He had been in her kitchen cooking her breakfast and drinking the coffee that she had bought for him and took the chance to look around her place while it was quiet.

The apartment itself was'nt so bad.

It was bigger than a normal apartment. The floors and walls were in pretty good condition. The Hokage's doing no doubt, since the man had drafted Ibiki and some of his men to help keep the place looking decent and to repair the damages that the villagers did to the place.

The yellow walls were freshly painted, covering up the gaudy wallpaper that had been on the walls before with the nice just shy of sunny yellow color. The color on the walls was actually a buttercup yellow and looked really nice. He snickered and lifted his coffee cup to his lips and thought about his buttercup.

It was almost time for her to get up. He'd been counting down the seconds since he got here.

Sure enough, when he reached the 'zero' in his head there was a semi loud blaring sound down the hall followed by a yelp a soft thud and some other thudding, which he could only assume was Naru throwing kunai everywhere thinking that she was under attack or something.

He waited three minutes, enough time for Naru to completely wake up before he even bothered to walk down the hall and peek into her room.

Naru sat in the middle of her room with the blanket wrapped around her body, her long strawberry blond hair sticking up in all directions, looking more than a little frazzled and confused as he peeked around the corner of her bedroom door just to be safe. She noticed him and lifted one hand and gave him a small wave. He gave her an eye smile and moved to step out into the open and walked into her room.

"Hey. Sleep well?"

She made a hning sound and looked around her room. No doubt curious about where the blaring sound had come from since he had hidden the clock so that she wouldn't break it. "Ookami...did you hear-"

"Hear what?" He asked innocently. She gave him a calculating look but didn't seem to believe his small lie.

"You want me to hurt you. Don't you?" He just grinned at her and waited. She growled at him and stood up, ditching the blanket as she did. He found her growl adorable and laughed.

"Get dressed Naru. You have to be ready to go in another thirty minutes."

"Is breakfast ready?"

"Yup."

"Okay. Get out so I can take a shower and get dressed."