Yay! Everything's righter than rain! I could dance!

Chapter 3 Family Love

Two hours later I found myself walking home. Or at the moment, wherever my feet were taking me. For the moment I assumed it to be home. In my hand was the teacher's recommendation for me to enter the Chuunin exams. My full name was 'Naito Tsubame'. Several moments ago, the full effects of what had happened this day washed over me, making my feet drag in their duty of escorting me.

Sho had assigned himself as my bodyguard until I returned home. Whether or not he was doing it because he was worried or he wished to be a gentleman, I hadn't the slightest clue. Watching him from behind caused what had happened just a short while ago to return to my head.

"This," Ito Kiyoshi, the Jounin I had created over the team I was now part of, held up three pieces of paper with writing on them, "is the recommendation for the three of you to take part of this next Chuunin exams." He handed us each our papers. "It will start seven days from now, so you have some time to practice and prepare. You'll want to do your best, so I suggest you prepare a lot."

"Yes! About time we get to take this test!" Higuma shouted, thrusting a well-muscled arm into the air. "Do you have any idea how many people there will be?"

"Nope." Kiyoshi said flatly with a shrug. "Since we're on that subject, I want you guys to be wary of participants from other villages. Don't pick a fight, but don't be a wuss if they start pushing you around. It'd be best to avoid them for now."

"Uh, actually, Kiyoshi-sensei, I've already come across three from Suna." I revealed. "One of them was very interested in Sho. Right, Sho?" I received a nod from Sho.

Kiyoshi looked from me to Sho, then back to me. "How did you handle the situation?"

"Well, there wasn't a fight. I just asked one of them if something he did caused this blond kid to trip. As it turned out, my hunch was right. Sho popped up to tell me that you wanted to meet us in an hour. Then one of his teammates asked Sho his name, and Sho got his in return." I explained. Just for a moment, I decided to test Gaara's name myself. "Gaara of the Sand."

Over to my side, I heard a grunt from Sho. I turned to look at him to see a dark look cross his face. I was at a loss for guesses as to what he was thinking.

Looking back at my sensei, I could tell Kiyoshi was surprised at Sho's behavior as well, but did little to voice his surprise. "Well, as you might have guessed, there will be a lot of interesting people there. For example, this year, there will be a total of nine rookies from Konoha. Gai's team too."

"That's good." Higuma announced. "I can't wait to fight with Rock Lee again." He continued, flexing one of his arms. "It's been too long."

"That's good for you, Higuma." Kiyoshi sounded uninterested at this point. "I got to catch a date, so you three are free to do whatever until tomorrow. I'll see you all at eight." And with that he vanished in a cloud of smoke. There was still no 'goodbye'.

For a few good minutes we stood there, staring at the papers in our hands until someone decided to break the ice.

"I'm going to go home. We'll be doing a bunch of training from here on out, so I'll take a break before we begin. After all, it's bad for the body to work too much." Higuma ruffled his brown hair with a grin. "Maybe I'll get to smack that prick Hyuuga during the exams." I assumed Higuma meant Neji, not the girl I remembered to be the sweet and incredibly shy Hinata. Briefly I wondered what it'd be like if Higuma had a crush on her.

"Maybe." Sho responded. He turned to me, brushing some of his long bangs away from his face. "Tsubame, are you returning to your own home?" I nodded, wondering what he was getting at. "Would you mind if I escorted you?" This had taken me back with more surprise, so I nodded again.

So here I was now, following Sho to what would be my new home, not that he knew that. We had been walking for sometime by ourselves. Sho wasn't a good conversationalist. Whatever he said was to the point and he didn't bother saying anything else.

"Whatever it is bothering you," Sho's voice startled me out of my reverie, "sort it out before the exams."

"Wha-what do you mean, Sho?"

"Something has been different with you." Sho turned to look at me. His dark eyes dug into mine, effectively stopping me. "You need to deal with it before the exams or you will get injured."

What Sho told me, I guess I hadn't been surprise, for instead of coming up with some sort of retort, I just looked at my feet. I remember watching the Chuunin exams and knew it would be hard. I could still Sho's eyes on me expectantly.

"Don't worry, Sho. Whatever is bugging me is going to be gone by the exams." I flashed him a 'thumbs up', almost a rip-off of the 'nice guy' pose, but I wasn't planning to check if I had my own set of 'shoujo special effects' like Gai and Lee did. "Make sure you're ready too."

Sho didn't visibly react to what I said, but to me it felt like his gaze got softer. "I'll see you tomorrow." Then he was gone. That was better than earlier that afternoon when he disappeared without a word.

Ahead of me, I saw what I assumed to be my home, considering it had the name 'Naito' plastered to the side of the door. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and walked in, only to see a flying foot heading straight to my face.

On impulse, I grabbed the foot, effectively stopping it from reaching my face. Then I had to support the weight of whomever the foot belonged to. I quickly changed how I was gripping the foot, from holding the bottom of it to around the ankle as the small body swung down. However, before I was able to let out a sigh of relief, the other foot swung up in a second attempt to hit me. Quickly my other hand came up to grab that foot around the ankle.

"Okay, Tsubame-nee-san. You win again. You can put me down now." The voice of my attacker sighed grumpily. The arms of my attacker hung limply.

"As long as you don't attack my head again." I reprimanded him as I set him down. As he stood up again, I got to get a good look at him, seeing as how I didn't have time to get a look when his feet came flying at me.

'He' was a little boy, around the age of seven or eight, with deep blue hair that was spiked back with several strands falling into his face. He looked up at me with bright blue eyes and a face that was screwed up in a pout. To cover his body, he wore a deep green shirt that had a white feather wing embroidered on each sleeve and black shorts. Also his left leg was taped up, whether the cause was injury-related or just trying to look cool, I wasn't too sure.

"Why can't I surprise you, nee-san?" The boy asked, continuing his pout.

"Because I'm graduated and you're not." I retorted.

Suddenly, a hand placed itself on my shoulder. Startled, I looked over to see who the hand belonged to. The owner was a young man, quite taller than me, dressed in the standard ANBU outfit. He had taken off his ANBU mask to reveal his attractive face, though there was a thin, pale scar, marring his left cheekbone. His skin tone was decently tanned, and his older, green eyes smiled down at me. His hair was the same color and tone of the little boy sitting in front of me, but his was longer and tied back, though several strands stuck out in his face in the same fashion as the boy's. If this guy wasn't who I thought he was, I would have a crush on him.

"Yashiro-chan, Tsubame-chan, you shouldn't block the door like this. You'll leave your nii-san out in the cold." His voice was calm and smiling.

Quickly, Yashiro, the little boy before me, popped up and pulled me out of the way. It was fairly easy to tell that he hero-worshipped his elder brother, or nii-san.

"Man, I'm so tired." The young man yawned as he entered the house. "How was your day of training, Tsubame?"

"Well, it went pretty well, though we called it quits about lunchtime." I thought about what else to tell him. "Oh yeah, Kiyoshi-sensei recommended us for the upcoming Chuunin exam." I added, showing him the paper on which the recommendation was written.

My brother stared at the paper in surprise then he looked at something over my head. He quietly chuckled. "It looks like you're about to get your own personal trainer for whenever you're not training with your team." Seeing the clueless look on my face, he added, "Don't look now, but Mom just overheard that you're going to be in the exams."

"How wonderful, honey." I heard an older, feminine voice from behind me. I turned to see a woman, approximately in her forties, coming towards me. Her hair, which was the same color as mine, was tied up into a high ponytail and her hitai-ate was tied loosely around her neck. She was pretty, in a motherly type way. She had a curvy figure, probably kept in shape through her missions, and guessing from the way my new older brother said I was going to have a personal trainer, she probably practiced jutsu's many times and kept them in practice. She placed a gentle but strong hand on my shoulder. "That means we get to spend more time together training!" She gave me a dangerous smile. "Let's talk about it over dinner."

"Dinner's ready?" The young man asked enthusiastically.

"Yes, Tori, dinner is ready. Now hurry up and get some before it gets cold."

"Yes, mother. Come on, Yashiro."

"Tsubame, make sure that Haneken stays were he is supposed to. That bird is going to rile up the older birds."

"O-oh. Okay, 'kaasan." What was she talking about?!

Elf: Ah, the next chapter has been posted. Woot-ness. Alright. Now I'll stop feeling so guilty about this story for a while. What will happen to Tsubame next? Will she be able to adjust to her new life as a ninja in her favorite anime?! Find out in the next chapter of 'Thirteen Again!' (And I really shouldn't type will listening to Thriller...)