Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto


The girl, whose sanity Inoichi was questioning, showed up in her mindscape, looking around in wonder.

"Is this my mindscape Inoichi-sama? I've only been able to picture this in my mind, not actually in it!" The girl said excitedly, then quieted down when she realized whom she was talking to... an adult.

'That's interesting', Inoichi thought. In all his years of interrogation, he had heard of people being able to appear in their mindscape to meditate, but never heard of people only seeing their mindscape.

"What do you do here?" Inoichi questioned.

The girl stared at him in confusion. "I store my memories here Inoichi-sama. It helps me memorize things when I need to and delete memories I don't want. Doesn't everybody have them?"

Inoichi stared at the girl in shock.

The girl continued on, not noticing his confusion. "But I don't remember anything before the age of four," she scrunched up her face, "I wish I could. Then I'd be able to remember my name."

Inoichi shouted in disbelief, "You can remember things from the age of Five?"

"Yes Inoichi-sama," the girl said, her eyes became guarded. "Is there a problem?"

"No," Inoichi hurriedly said, "There's nothing to apologize for. I'm just... amazed."

The girl looked confused, slightly relaxing her stance.

"No one I know can do this-." Inoichi indicated to the mindscape. "Much less see their mindscape and use it like you do." It was true, most mindscapes showed a place of nature, such as a cave, but never a man made structure. The girl's mindscape was clearly an office.

The girl was looked at him in shock, "They can't?"

"No. But we'll talk about this some other time. I have questions to ask you."

The best part about being in a mindscape interrogation was that a person's mind could not lie to itself. Therefore, if they did try to lie, nothing would come out of the person's mouth.

The girl nodded.

"Do you pledge your allegiance to Konoha?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you have any plans to harm Konoha?"

"No, sir."

"Do you wish to become a Konoha citizen?"

"Yes, sir."

"Was what you told Hokage-sama the truth?"

"Yes, sir."

Inochi gave a small smile to the girl.

"Welcome to Konoha" He said, canceling his jutsu.


The girl lied down on her bed, thinking through what had happened to her in the past half hour with Inoichi-sama.

She was amazed that nobody could see their own mindscape to organize their memories. If she couldn't access them, she was sure that she wouldn't be able to memorize things as quickly as she did. When she looked at things she wanted to memorize, such as the hand motions of a jutsu, all she would have to do is take that memory and store it in the "Must remember cabinet" and she would remember it forever.

When she didn't want to remember something, such as being experimented on, she would put them in the garburator and it would vanish, forever. She was really glad she had her ability. She wondered how others coped without erasing their worst memories.

Most importantly, she wondered how they could survive without the "sexy guys" cabinet. She would kill herself in despair if her memory couldn't remember every outline of the guys she deemed as eye candy... (drool)

After the psychological test, Inoichi-sama told her that she would start receiving lessons from Iruka sensei on how to read and write. Apparently, Iruka sensei would arrive around noon to knock on her door.

Inoichi-sama also asked if she could visit him so that he could probe into her mindscape, muttering excitedly, "your mind is very, very interesting."

As if I would.

She vowed not to visit him, ever. He sounded like her master having a field day, wanting to explore her mind like an experiment. It was really creepy.

She rolled over on her bed. There was nothing to do right now. Usually at the labs, all the reject experiments would cook food, do the laundry, and basically act like servants to the better experiments. Of course, they would also be experimented on, but that was more like a side job.

She itched to do something.

Then she remembered.

She needed to go shopping. She needed to buy food and clothes. She only came with the clothes on her back after all. But if she went outside, she would have to see adults.

She sighed.

Before she ever came to Konoha, she knew only one type of adult; men and women who cared more for themselves than others. The orphanage matron loved extorting money from the village on the account that she was "taking care of the poor orphans." Of course, she never did. Most of the older kids at the orphanage helped take care of the smaller orphans on the threat of "If I hear a baby scream again, you will be the one screaming next."

She didn't like her at all, especially after finding out that the matron took money from the donations to the orphanage and used it for her alcohol supply instead of feeding them.

Then came Master Orochimaru. He was even worse than the matron. At least the matron showed them that she outright hated them. He never did. He always took care that they never knew how cruel or evil he was until... it was too late.

He did torture them, but indirectly. He would use some of his students or accomplices to carry out his orders. For example, one of the bigger men would drag them out at around four o'clock in the morning to see if they could handle some kind of drug in their veins while trying to maintain their chakra usage. If they couldn't, they would get beaten.

After the experiment, Orochimaru would make his way towards them, smiling as he did so, saying, "How brave you are," or "this is for your own good." Handing out sweets, making sure that the experiments he was "raising" loved him as he slowly destroyed them.

The two-faced bastard.

Meeting the Hokage was an eye opener, he was different from any other adult she had met. She wasn't sure if the man was like her master, deceiving her so that she thought he was nice and attacking at the last minute, but she felt that he was... somehow... not like the others.

She could feel it.

Maybe there were adults who were good in this world, but she would have to wait and see.

For now, she had to decide.

Did she want to go outside and converse with adults?

Again she sighed.

She hated her impulsive self. Yes, she wanted to go outside because there was nothing else to do.

Looking outside the window and seeing the bright sun, she decided there was no better a time than the present to go outside and start shopping. Grabbing the monthly stipend given to her by the Hokage, she jumped down from her bed and unlocked her apartment door. Checking once more that everything in her room was in order, she left.

As she had feared, the market place was filled with adults and a few children. Some adults stared at her for some reason, especially ninjas.

Feeling self conscious, she felt herself clenching her fist so hard that her nails made blue, bruised indents of her nails on the palm of her hand.

She was about to run into a store so that they would stop staring when an orange blur slammed into her.

A boy with blue eyes, sun kissed hair, and three whisker marks on each cheek threw her bodily on the ground with him.

"Owwwww." she moaned. She was really grateful to the Hokage now. If she wasn't healed at the hospital, she was sure that this fall would've been a lot more painful than it was.

The boy, realizing that he had bumped into her said, without looking remorseful at all, "Sorry about that, dattebayo! But I gotta run. Those idiots," he jerked his hand at the black blur of masked ninjas, "are chasing me." He jumped off from her smiled, said, "See ya!" and ran.

She could feel killing intent from the men behind her.

Uncomprehendingly, she stared at the boy running by and the black mob with masked men chasing him.

Then she realized that she was knocked down by a boy wearing orange. Orange!

She should have been able to dodge him from a mile away, the nauseating bright color should've warned her. She cursed her stupidity.

Forgetting the stares due to the strange boy, she dusted off the dirt from her clothes and casually walked down the street as if this was a common occurrence. Considering that she was one of the reject experiments, it kind of was. Many of the more "superior" experiments liked to push the reject experiments around because they found it funny to bully weaklings. Master didn't help at all, he encouraged it.

She visited the grocery store and the clothing store. From the grocery store, she bought a bunch of vegetables, fruit, and canned food that was cheap and edible. The stipend she received from the Hokage was very small. It needed to be spent carefully if she wanted to be able to eat every single day.

Then, she bought two blue shirts, two black shirts, one kuni and a pair of ninja sandals. She couldn't afford much else. She considered getting a short dress for the sake of saving money, but decided against it. Dresses constantly flapped and were much more uncomfortable than shorts.

Besides, for the long run, shorts would last longer than dresses.

The store owners were... nice, although rather inquisitive, asking, "I've never seen you before dearie," or , "Aren't you too young to be shopping alone?" In one store, she had to make sure not to lash out when one of them laid a hand on her shoulder, trying to ask her if she wanted to buy more fruit.

Other than that, shopping wasn't so bad.

She trudged home with quite a lot of shopping bags in her hands. Some adults looked at her funnily. She kept her eyes on the ground so that she wouldn't have to exchange any eye contact.

Is an eight year old carrying shopping bags such a surprise?

Actually, I'm not sure if it is. I've never been outside much. Whatever, whether I carry around shopping bags or a dead body, they shouldn't be staring at me, it's none of their business!

She ran the last two blocks to her apartment, tired of the stares that followed her. She'd never had this much attention before, unless her master or one of his acquaintances decided to humiliate her. Placing the bags on the floor of the apartment, she locked her apartment door.


Hiruzen, not for the first time, was having a monumental headache talking to the council.

Today, he had informed the council that the girl that the jonins' found was one of the experiments of Orochimaru.

As soon as he did, the council went into chaos.

It was the Kyuubi incident all over again.

The civilian council wanted the girl kicked out of the village, stating, "She's too dangerous! Who knows what she learned from Orochimaru. She might take our kids for experiments!"

Danzo wanted to take her and train her into ROOT. He wanted her so that he could learn more about Orochimaru's experiments and training methods.

The ninja council, the clan heads, were silent.

After half an hour of listening to the civilian council screaming for the girl's head, he finally snapped.

"Silence!" He shouted, letting his KI out.

The civilians stopped talking for the first time in the meeting, shivering as they felt the Hokage's powerful KI. The clan heads, used to the KI, but still overwhelmed by the Hokage's powerful KI, nodded to let the Hokage know that they were listening. Danzo didn't even flinch, but stared right back at Hiruzen.

Hiruzen sighed. He hated meetings, he sometimes wondered why he ever wanted become Hokage.

"Inoichi!"

"Yes, sir?" Inoichi replied, standing up from his chair.

"Have you performed the psychology test on the girl?"

"Yes sir."

"Is she safe?"

"Yes sir."

Hiruzen nodded. "Inoichi has performed the psychology test, the girl is completely safe. If you have any objections, tell me now."

The civilians became silent, not wanting to insult the Yamanaka clan. But Hiruzen could see that some of them did not trust Inoichi's judgement.

"If we are done with this problem, do you have any other problems we need to address?"

"The demon brat!" a voice hissed in the civilian council. "He is a menace Hokage-sama!"

"His name is Naruto or Uzumaki." He glared at the civilian. "If this is about one of his pranks, you have to report to the administrative building." Hiruzen said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

During the academy times, Naruto would prank once a month or even twice a month because of his busy schedule. However, as soon as summer started, he would prank each and every civilian that would bad mouth him or even throw a cold glance at him. Of course, Hiruzen secretly encouraged the boy as did his whole ANBU unit, but the pranking was one of the major problems of his ever lasting paperwork.

He didn't know whether he should complement the boy for his ninja trapping skills or berate the boy for making his paperwork bigger. He could swear that the pile laughed at him.

The civilian held his tongue.

"Is there anymore questions? Hiruzen asked reluctantly

When no-one answered, Hiruzen shouted,"Dismissed!", glad that the pointless meeting was finally over.


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