Ryoko smiled quietly to herself as she started to walk up into the hills and forest around Konoha, holding her sister's fox form in her hands. Aside from a few incidences here and there, today was a very satisfying day. Her sister was advancing in classes and soon it looked like her younger sister would be well past worrying about their family honor issues.

Speaking of said sister, the annoyed growl from the fox in her arms told her that Joseibi was beginning to get…curious about why they weren't going to the apartment just yet.

"Probably something sappy and 'bonding' oriented," Joseibi thought to herself.

"I just want to see the sunset, Imouto-chan," Ryoko said. "There is a spot up here that is quite beautiful to watch from. And then we shall go to a movie."

As they came to a rise above the majority of surrounding trees, Ryoko stopped, looked off toward the setting sun and took a large breath of air. The ball of the sun fading from blinding yellow into a oranges and reds that spread all across the horizon like a batch of paints spilled against wall and not yet completely mixed.

The sky's blues were slowly darkening and thickening together as well, turning into a tapestry of silver beads sewn onto a sable cloth. As the sun finally vanished, Ryoko started to turn back to the path down into the town, humming along.

Joseibi turned her head to the side, ears quirking as she listened to something further out into the night.

Ryoko looked down at her sister.

"Is there something out there?" she asked her sister.

Curiosity getting the better of her, Ryoko turned aside from the path and started to walk in the direction that Joseibi was staring. Struggling, the fox squirmed out of Ryoko's hold and moved to the ground before pattering off into the woods to investigate what it had heard.

"Imouto-chan!" Ryoko said quietly. "Wait for me! It could be a bear."

Ryoko couldn't move through the woods as fast a Joseibi could, not unless she wanted to start leaping about in her kimono.

Joseibi herself was just looking for something more interesting than the beauty of nature around her, and the soft voices she heard ahead certainly qualified.

Granted, some part of her remembered the academy instructions should you find anything strange outside the village: don't investigate, immediately find a ninja and tell them what you heard, no risking yourself.

However, she really didn't think there was anything dangerous around. It was probably just a couple of people out for a midnight stroll like her sister was taking her on. That opinion changed as she pushed her way out of some foliage to see a pair of strange adults with no headband talking suspiciously to one of the academy teachers.

"Just a fox," one of the strangers said, starting to turn back toward the teacher, a bishie guy that Joseibi remembered was named Mizuki or something like that.

The stranger was a slender man of less than average height, but intense muscle tone and wearing several holsters for ninja tools despite his lack of an allegiance identifying head band. Beside him was a another man, about the same height,but much thicker and heavily toned. He was wearing a pair of guardless daggers at his back.

Joseibi was already creeping back into the woods when the silver-haired apparent traitor turned to look to see her small form.

"That's one of the students!" Mizuki-sensei said turning back into the woods. "She transforms."

Joseibi yipped as she tried to curse her bad luck pushed herself forward to disappear into the woods rushing and yipping loudly.

"Get her," Mizuki snapped, pushing one of the two men towards the fleeing fox. "I have a demon to deal with."

Joseibi heard that and tried to remember everything she could about evading pursuit as she dodged under bushes and trees trying to get back to where she'd left her sister behind and get the both of them to leave the area and get back to town.

Though she couldn't hear her sister's calls anymore, though she couldn't quite remember when they had stopped. That worried her.

At least they'd have the same trouble keeping up with her that her sister did.

Then something slammed down in the path ahead of her.

The knife wielding man.

Quickly she gathered herself up and buried herself under the bush she hadn't quite left. Behind her, another landing told her where the other man was.

"You're here somewhere," the slender man said. "We heard you in the bushes. Did you find a burrow somewhere to dig into?"

"Why don't you come out, kid," the other said, drawing his knife. "Fight like a real ninja. Isn't that what you want to be?"

They were trying to rattle her, flush her out, and as much as she recognized it, she still felt it was working. After all, whether she could hear Ryoko or not, any moment now, her sister would be…

"Ano…" the quiet voice cut through the small, tree-shaded area drawing all eyes to where Ryoko appeared standing near the bushes Joseibi had chosen to hide nearby.

"Sumimasen," Ryoko continued. "Ha..ha…have y..you s…s..seen…"

"There she is, she dropped the henge!" the knife wielder said drawing his other blade and charging in toward Ryoko.

"Ah..ah! Ya..yama..te!" Ryoko stuttered as she stumbled backward feet rolling upward underneath the man's stomach.

The flow of chi moved upward from the earth, through where her palms and upper back, twisting through muscles and gathering as it went out through her legs into the man above her. From there, it carried the man with it into the air with a rush of energy.

The flow of chi split around the tree trunk five feet away, the man's body did not. He fell, senseless, at the base of the tree.

"Sumimasen," Ryoko declared nervously as she rolled up to her feet. "I…I tripped."

"You won't get lucky again, girl!" the other said as he tossed a trio of kunai at the girl in the kimono.

Ryoko shrieked and pulled into herself, letting one kunai past, snatching the second and swinging her bokken across into the third. Before she'd swung the bokken, she'd thought she'd caught the beginning of another ripple of approaching motion, but then her amateurish bokken skills set all the delicate flows to nonsense and her hair's trigger of warning was eliminated.

With just eyes and ears, she only barely caught sight of the five shurikens before they reached her. She spun away two of them completely, but one sliced across her cheek and another slashed through her kimono slicing a line through her shoulder.

The third sunk into her thigh, dangerously close to a lethal injury for even such a small weapon. Some of the muscle tore, and it sent a small wave of pain through her.

Out of that evasive spin the kunai she had snatched earlier was launched back toward the second of her foes. She missed of course, as he launched himself into the air above the battlefield.

Which was what she wanted.

Ryoko jumped up into the air, angling away from the attacker's arc, but not so much that she would successively evade him.

She didn't want to.

"Ite!" Ryoko snapped out as her opponent fired more weapons at her, which, mid air as she was, she could only work to deflect, bokken held behind her this time as she used her free hand to do so.

Then their arcs met and, as a the ninja launched a kick, Ryoko's hand reached out to grip the incoming ninja's attacking limb. In that instant all his momentum became Ryoko's as she anchored against him and flipped up around behind and above, using the acrobatic motion to turn that upward momentum into downward and slamming downward into her opponent.

Gravity, the combined momentum of both warriors enhanced by Ryoko's funneling chi downward through her body into her opponent, all combined with a small eruption of dirt.

Rolling away, Ryoko started to stand but found the previously injured leg unwilling to do so at the moment. Catching her breath, she took the moment to let the chi through her leg and encourage the tissue to heal.

Ryoko felt the knife-wielder coming up behind her as she was still catching her breath, and started to turn about to face the attack, but knew she'd let her guard down too early. Father would have shut her down seconds ago.

She was about to be shut down now.

A small yellow bundle of fur and skin leaped up into the way, growling and yipping as it snapped at the knife-wielding ninja's face. The man snapped angrily before forcefully tearing the fox away and tossing the yellow-furred creature across the scene where it bounced off a tree with a sharp yip sound.

"Imouto-chan!" Ryoko shouted as the fox landed a bit off.

"Oh, she's your sister," the knife-wielder said, a sickening smile on his face as he turned to look back at his original target.

The bokken dropped from Ryoko's hand as she surged forward, fire building already in her eyes and across her skin as tears streamed out into steam and the vegetation around her caught fire with her passage.

Ryoko leaped into a spinning kick that he barely managed to dodge and was followed immediately by a knife-hand into the top of his temple that, had he not rolled at the last moment, would have cleaved into his skull. Even the heavy handed touch she did lay on him rose blisters and burned hair away from his scalp.

He was off-balance as Ryoko twisted about to land in front of him.

The black-haired girl, wracked by fear for her sister, twisted about, refocusing her own chi momentum downward into her feet as she landed. The energy moved out of her into the earth and rebounded back upward, stressing the bones and muscles with the flow as she worked to bring it up her body into her shoulders and down the arms and into the man's chest.

The martial artist wasn't sending the chi back into the flow for now, no, she was going to rebound as much of it back into herself as possible. She would keep gathering more and forcing what she gathered to remain at her direction until the threat to her family was settled.

The man struck a boulder, caught between the stone and Ryoko's burning hands. The enhanced momentum of chi cracked ribs as it passed through him the first time, his skin searing under Ryoko's hands, and then the chi rebounded off the cracking rock, through his chest again and pushing into Ryoko's arms.

The chi swirled down into her feet again as she collected the once again rebounded momentum into a short hop and spin that let her swirl more chi in from the air around her. Twinges of pain worked all the way up her body as she directed the chi build up into her foot which lanced straight out to catch the head of her target between her and the boulder.

Instead the Saotome found her foot firmly gripped and herself being tossed off course. All the chi she'd built up to that point was lost as she had to right her herself in mid air. Without the vicious flow she'd built, Ryoko could feel the exhaustion all throughout her body.

"Now, now," the new fighter said as the figure that had grabbed Ryoko burst into smoke. "We'd like to ask both these men some questions first."

Seeing the familiar image of the man that had originally found her and her sister outside Konoha, and Joseibi's furry, yellow body limping out of the bushes toward her, ears bent back pleadingly and several clones of Kakashi moving about to extinguish the fires spawned by Ryoko.

Panting, Ryoko dropped to her knees, fire dying away from her body and finally her eyes.

"Su…sumimasen, Kakashi-sama," Ryoko said as Joseibi padded over to her and started nuzzling at her hand. "I owe…Joseibi…a…a..mo..movie."

****

"Iruka Umino suffered from damage to the spine and several serious cuts and some blood less, made worse by exertion," the medical ninja reported to the Hokage. "But minor injuries over all. Joseibi Saotome sprained her wrist and Naruto Uzumaki was merely suffering from exertion."

"The prisoners are all severely injured," the medical ninja continued. "One of the two that pursued the Saotomes had the least severe injuries, broken ribs and a collapsed lung. The other two were very close to death from severe blunt force trauma, ruptured organs and, in the one man's case, burns that went as deep as his ribs. They'll both survive, even recover, though in both cases it was a near thing."

Ryoko Saotome's condition was more…curious," the medic finished.

"Go on," Hokage said, turning about.

"Several burst blood vessels, minute tears through most of the muscle groups of the body including the edges of the lungs and heart, a cut on her thigh nearly hit a fatal artery, and several others produced minor blood loss," the medic explained. "And she appears to have what seems to be a serious sunburn over her entire skin. Nothing was serious yet, but if whatever jutsu she was either using or suffering continued, it would have been bad fairly quickly."

He didn't mention some of the signs of older traumas they'd found.

"I think I might be able to explain some of that," Kakashi said idly.

The medical ninja turned to look at the jonin expectantly and the Hokage gestured for him to continue.

"The sharingan can get a glimpse of what she does," Kakashi explained. "And what I saw reminded me of when she was pressing herself to work on building her strength and ability, only much more extreme. I'm guessing she went past what she's currently safely capable of."

"Over-stressed the system," the medical ninja said, nodding. "That would explain the muscle tears and blood blisters, but not the burns."

"There are some earlier reports on something that may explain that," the Hokage said. "I'll make the relevant information available to you."

"All right, Hokage-sama," the medic said.

"If you can tell me when the patients are ready to see visitors," the Hokage said to the medic. "I would appreciate it. And when Ibiki might be able to take charge of his prisoners"

"Yes, Hokage-sama," the medic said, flinching a bit at the name of Ibiki Morino, before turning about and leaving.

"Kakashi, is there anything else?" Sarutobi asked.

"Only that normally, Ryoko's chakra coils blunt the flow of her chi," Kakashi said. "She loses momentum and direction each time they interact and has to re-establish it at a loss of efficiency and leaking energy."

"The river flowing into a lake analogy," Sarutobi noted. "Most scrolls on the subject make mention of that."

"Only this time it was rivers flowing into whirlpools," Kakashi noted. "The chi flows were coming out stronger."

Sarutobi arched an eyebrow and turned to face Kakashi.

"That has, implications," Sarutobi noted. "But the levels of chakra and chi control necessary to achieve balance and ability to draw on both forces would be very high."

"I'm not a medical ninja," Kakashi said. "But I'm not sure Ryoko has a choice. That fire of hers, it touches both her chi and her chakra when it gets going…"

Sarutobi nodded, blowing out a small cloud of smoke.

"You have an assignment to prepare for," Sarutobi noted.

"Hai, hai," Kakashi said, sounding bored. "I'll let you know when they should be back at the Academy."

"Don't get cocky, Kakashi," Sarutobi smirked. "This is a good class, the team this time might surprise you."

"In my opinion, they're rarely ready at twelve or thirteen," Kakashi said, shrugging. "I'll see you then."

With Kakashi leaving, Sarutobi turned his mind to other conversations.

****

"I understand your point of view, Hiruzen," Koharu said from her seat. "It is unfair to punish a child for matters beyond her control. But we also have to consider the safety of the village as well. When the girl was merely a chi-adept, she was a curiosity, but this new development…"

"If we can protect Naruto, there should be no reason we can't help this girl," Hiruzen Sarutobi noted calmly. "The risk is not as severe."

"But Naruto is a citizen of the village, soon to be a shinobi if I understand your intentions," Homura noted. "Ryoko is merely a resident. Like it or not, our protection does not extend to her as it does to Naruto. And while we and most others will respect your decision, there are people who would do otherwise."

"Normally, you would side with Danzo on this matter," Hiruzen noted.

"This is a single girl with training in a rare skill and apparently a blood limit of unknown potential," Koharu noted. "It is not an entire clan of traitors, or even a jinchuriki. There are rewards and risks to both paths. So…we're staying neutral until more information is available to weigh the risks to the village."

"In the mean time," Hokage said. "You're warning me."

The other two elders stood up from their seats.

"If Konoha can gain a viable chi-training program," Homura confirmed. "Then we would be a step ahead of the other villages."

"Of course, we'd much prefer to have a chi-master than an emotionally scarred girl incompletely trained," Koharu added.

The Hokage lifted his head and smiled.

"A pity she can't afford to hire a mission to find a tutor," the Hokage said. "After all, a client is one of the things our laws protect almost as much as our citizens."

Both of his old friends looked at him in confusion for a brief moment before they left the office, a look of quiet consideration on their face.

****

The Hokage frowned.

The plan was transparent to be sure, Danzo would see right through it, but he also knew that, as interesting as Ryoko would be, she was of only very minor concern to the militant. The transparency of the plan would be a benefit in that regard, making pursuing situations with Ryoko far more trouble than they were worth.

Koharu and Homura usually disagreed about going to so much trouble for the sake of one individual as adverse the village as a whole. They didn't seem to realize that it was the individuals that made the village.

There was a point where an individual became a poison, but it was a poor idea to punish them before that had proven to be true. It was much better, upon seeing the situation might be developing, to attend to the person in question and make sure that they remained loyal and bound to the village. Rather than to attack them and force them to become the imagined threat.

He looked back at the psychological profile on Ryoko lying closed on his desk. Ibiki was doubtful that she'd accept a citizenship or a place as a ninja at the moment. She wasn't used to making major life choices for her own benefit. There was heavy evidence that she was of the opinion that she had no say in the direction of her own life save what leeway was given to her by her mother.

Fortunately, the parents were currently unreachable.

Genma was leaving behind a trail of small debts and petty crimes across the continent, while remaining hard to track down himself. Nodoka had disappeared soon after Kakashi had tracked her down and reported, apparently going off in search of her husband and daughters.

The further report suggested that the small side-jobs cleaning and such that Ryoko was taking were signs that she was breaking away from her dependence on others deciding her life, but it was still mostly tied to her responsibility to her younger sister.

Combined with this was an indication that she had a practical view towards combat. She leaned toward protecting comrades and citizens rather than eliminating threats, but there were some shinobi that were likewise. What's more, given her upbringing, she was unlikely to disobey what she considered an appropriate authority.

Meaning that she would likely be an asset to missions rather than a hindrance.

A knock at the office brought his attention to the door.

"Come in," he said, turning to see the messenger coming in.

"Hokage-sama, Iruka Umino and Ryoko Saotome are both awake and ready for visitors," the man said.

****

Naruto was walking up the stairs onto the recovery level where Iruka-sensei would be for the next couple of days. He walked with a sense of supreme elation as he considered what Iruka-sensei had said about him to that Mizuki creep. And now it was only going to be a few more short days before he was officially graduated.

Then it wouldn't be long before he was Hokage, and his face was up on that mountainside and everybody would acknowledge him.

He glanced down a hall and blinked to see the Third Hokage entering one of the rooms in that wing. It was a moment's consideration, but curiosity won out over the intention to visit Iruka-sensei for the moment.

Sneaking to the edge of the door, he listened in on what was happening inside.

"I am feeling fine, Hokage-sama," someone was saying, he recognized Ryoko Saotome's voice. "I merely over-did it a little."

"This was not a little," the Hokage said seriously. "You had tears in your lungs and heart."

"Th…they told me," Ryoko said.

"Is it all right for you to be sitting like that?" Sarutobi asked. "You don't have to be so formal in a hospital bed."

"I must show proper respect, Hokage-sama," Ryoko said. "A…nd they healed most of the problems."

Naruto peeked around the corner and noticed the bandages about Ryoko's hands, recognizing them as burn bandages from past experiences. He saw a few other bandaged sections where the girl's clothes didn't cover it.

"There is also the matter of what happens when you get…upset," he noted.

"Ano…" Ryoko said nervously.

"Do you know enough to train yourself to deal with both problems?" the Hokage asked.

"I th..thought so," she said quietly.

"I could open a mission for you," the Hokage noted. "To find tutors to help you deal with this problem."

"B..but…I d..do not have that s..sort of money," Ryoko noted. "That would be a…C ranked mission."

"More like B," the Hokage noted. "Chi-adepts are uncommon and masters are rare. They often stay on the move or in hidden and dangerous regions. However, I think we could work out a trade of sorts."

"T..trade," Ryoko asked, trying not to fidget

"You are obviously a skilled fighter," the Hokage said. "I think it would be a benefit to have you available for missions eventually."

"Ano…" Ryoko hesitated.

"I'm proposing a trade of services," the Hokage noted. "Not for you to become a ninja like your sister wants to."

"Ano…" the girl said again. "Father used to do jobs for people all the time, s…sealing spirits and eli…liminating bandits. I…I s…suppose th..that it is right for me to do so as well. An..nd you would help me find someone…to teach me?"

"That is the agreement," Hokage said. "We'd be each other's clients, honorbound to protect each other."

"Hai…hai," Ryoko said, biting her lip. "I..can do that. Wh..what are the appropriate procedures?"

"We'll discuss that later in the week, when you're released," the Hokage said, standing up from beside her. "In the meantime, I think I'm holding your visitors at bay. Naruto?"

Sheepishly, the young soon-to-be ninja walked into the room.

"Uzumaki-san!" Ryoko said. "Y…you came to visit me?"

"Uh, yeah, Ryoko-chan," Naruto said, embarrassed. "How are you doing."

"I am quite fine," Ryoko said, bowing stiffly while keeping a smile on her face.

"So, what are you doing here?" Naruto asked.

"I used too much chi," she said. "My body couldn't handle the strain. I suppose I pushed too hard, too quickly."

"Make sure to visit, Iruka-sensei before you leave, Naruto," the Hokage said as he stood up to leave Naruto in the room with Ryoko, a minor prank to repay the young man for eavesdropping.

"Hai, Hokage-sama," Naruto said, before turning uncomfortably back towards Ryoko. "So, this is a training accident?"

"Ano…" Ryoko said hesitantly.

"Well, you gonna be in here long?" he asked. "I've still got to beat you sometime, and I think I've got a trick now to do it with."

"I..I think I sh..shall be out in a day or so," Ryoko said.

Hokage let the two continue talking as he left the room and started to head for Iruka's room.

He looked back and saw a little blond girl with a wrist wrapping and splint heading into Ryoko's room not long after he left. Ryoko's sister was already released then.

Which reminded him, he needed to talk to the Inuzuka clan about finding a way for Joseibi to deal with her curse form. It was an asset to stealth, but given how hard it was to turn back human, she needed to have a way to defend herself in that form.

Now all that was needed was to make a decision where to attach Ryoko.

****

"We have thirty new genin," Hokage noted. "In addition to Ryoko."

"That's ten teams plus one spare," Iruka noted.

"Some things are clear," Sarutobi noted. "Kurenai has history with the young Hyuuga, and it makes sense to place her as Hinata's sensei for that reason. Likewise with Asuma and Shikamaru. And, of course, the young Uchiha."

"Yeah," Kakashi said from where he was reading his book. "We'll see how he does."

Iruka frowned as he considered the jonin's statement. He'd heard rumors about the past times Kakashi was called on to take a genin team. Come to think of it, he didn't think he'd heard of the jonin working with genin that hadn't been a ninja for less than three years.

"We also need to place Naruto," the Hokage said.

"We should put him with Sasuke," Kakashi noted, a bit in disbelief that he was suggesting this. "It will attract less attention."

"But it is traditional to team the strongest and weakest students together," another jonin protested. "Before the Mizuki situation, I'd have said that Naruto was the weakest, but there can be no doubt that he has extreme potential of his own."

"How can we be certain he didn't use the Kyuubi's power to beat Mizuki," another asked.

"Iruka was there to witness it," the Hokage said. "The demon chakra made no appearance."

"Then shouldn't Naruto be the anchor of another team?" someone asked.

"Naruto is not prepared to be an anchor of any team yet," Ibiki noted. "And Kakashi is right that placing Naruto in a team other than with Sasuke would attract attention. Naruto's grades are a matter of public record, easily obtained by other villages. The Mizuki situation is not something so easily obtained. We don't want word getting out that we broke our own tradition this way. It would bring eyes to Naruto that we don't want looking."

There were internal reasons as well, but Ibiki had already expressed those concerns to the Hokage. The Foundation was supposedly disbanded, but the individuals that made it up were still around, and they'd look for any sort of lever they could use to get back to the ways they felt things should be. They'd know about the Mizuki situation, but the majority of the public citizens wouldn't.

That left the third spot to fill on Team Kakashi.

"How about Haruna?" Kurenai asked, finally drawing some sort of interest from Kakashi.

"The potential is there," Kakashi said. "But not the drive yet. If I have to have those two on a team, I'd prefer a third member that keeps the same sort of pace. I'm already going to have to work at moderating the academic pace as it is."

The Hokage smiled.

"I think we know who might fill that bill," the Hokage said.

Kakashi blinked and looked up again from his book before sighing expressively.

****

Sasuke looked irritably toward the black-haired martial artist who saw in one of the chairs of the room, somewhat far away from him, he'd noticed. That was fine with him, she could stay curious and moon-eyed over there then. Meanwhile Naruto was pacing about a bit and grumbling about how late their jonin was.

Personally, Sasuke was more interested in why a skittish girl with no forehead-protector was doing assigned to his team. The only time he'd seen the girl was when she came to pick up her younger sister.

He'd heard rumors, of course, about how Naruto had been challenging her off and on since she got to the village two years back, but the fact that she always won didn't particularly impress Sasuke.

Most people could beat Naruto in a fight.

Which brought up yesterday's…situation.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes as he looked to the blonde, hyperactive ninja. He didn't know for what purpose Naruto had impersonated him, but it didn't really matter. The "dead last" ninja had defeated him quite easily. To make matters worse, the rumors he'd heard was that Naruto had tried something, but been easily rebuffed and Naruto wasn't saying anything to the contrary.

To be defeated was one thing, but this was verging on condescension.

Either that, or Naruto had simply forgotten the whole affair. That was a possibility that wasn't all that unbelievable.

In any case, he'd show the fool that Sasuke Uchiha was not someone to be taken so lightly.

"Ano…" Ryoko said quietly as Naruto brought a chair over and used it to climb up and place an eraser inbetween the door and the frame. "Sh…should you be doing that?"

"His fault for being late," Naruto said.

"Like a jonin would fall for a trap like that," Sasuke said grumpily.

Not much longer after he'd said that, the three heard the sound of footsteps and the door slid open to drop the eraser on Kakashi's head.

"Got him!" Naruto declared loudly.

"Ano…" Ryoko responded.

Sasuke remained quietly disbelieving that a jonin could be so foolish.

Kakashi, meanwhile, looked about the room, judging what he saw. As expected, Naruto had gotten up to some mischief and didn't even realize that it was bad, Ryoko was still uncertain about just what to do or say and Sasuke was watching arrogantly from on high without getting involved.

This would take a lot of work to mould these three into a team.

A few minutes later found them on top of the Academy, with Kakashi speaking to them.

"All right," he said. "Let's start by introducing yourselves."

"Introducing ourselves?" Naruto asked. "How do we do that?"

"As in give you name…" Kakashi thought a bit more "…likes, dislikes, future dream and hobbies…stuff like that."

That sounded authentic enough.

"Well, why don't you start then?" Naruto demanded.

"Me?" Kakashi said. "I'm Kakashi Hatake. I don't feel like telling you my likes and dislikes. I've never thought about a future dream and I have many hobbies. Now, Naruto?"

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki," Naruto declared. "I like ramen and especially Ichiraku ramen. I dislike that it takes three minutes to make instant ramen. My hobby is comparing types of ramen. My dream is to surpass the Hokage and to be acknowledged by everybody in the village."

"All right," Kakashi said, turning toward Ryoko. "And you?"

"Ano…" the girl said, rising to her feet, she bowed formally. "I am Ryoko Saotome of the Saotome School of Martial Arts. I..like martial arts movies and manga. I di…dislike behaving poorly and m..making mis…mistakes. My dream is for my sister to be happy. My hobby is training."

"What kind of dream is that?" Sasuke asked, despite his overall annoyance for the whole procedure.

"Ano…" Ryoko said, confused.

"Yeah, Ryoko-chan," Naruto said. "A dream is supposed to be about what you want to do, not other people."

"Oh," Ryoko said, blinking. "I see. Th…then I am to bear strong children with a m…manly man in or..order to make sure the S…saotome family continues."

"Well, that's…interesting," Kakashi said as he turned from Ryoko to look at the horrified Sasuke. "Sasuke."

"I'm Sasuke Uchiha," he said, staring at Ryoko. "I don't particularly like anything. I have lots of dislikes. I especially dislike clinging girls that are already planning marriage…"

"Oh, I could not marry you," Ryoko said. "You must tend to your own family name. A…at m..most I could be your m…mistress."

Besides, the boy made her very uncomfortable with the way he was glowering and how heavy the chi around him was.

Kakashi hadn't thought Sasuke's expression could get more horrified until Ryoko said that.

"That way we b..both k..keep our family names," she explained.

"What's she talking about?" Naruto asked, feeling it was vaguely perverted somehow but he wasn't sure.

"Anyway," Kakashi said, setting aside the concept of why a twelve year old girl had thought such things through so thoroughly. "Your dreams and hobbies, Sasuke?"

"Uh…uh…" Sasuke said, trying to pry his eyes away from the disturbing figure of Ryoko.

Naruto leaned over toward Ryoko and started whispering.

"Ryoko-chan," he said. "Did you use some sort of jutsu on Sasuke-teme over there?"

"Ano…" Ryoko said, confused.