For a long time I had been wondering why it was necessary to be surrounded by such high ranking ninja. I mean sure, the person we visited was probably pretty important, but several Jonin and an Anbu? Couldn't they just use Chunin, or heck even a team with Genin, since that's what the leaf seemed to send out for anything of relative importance.

Once we started heading away was when I finally realized why.

To image what to the monsters in the forest were like, take everything you can remember from the Chunin exams, pump it full of steroids, and then grow it a hundred times in size.

So in conclusion, I was basically dead without them.

It took us a long time just to get out of the forest; which meant little time spent sleeping and definitely none talking. They used their ninja sign language to communicate, and I picked up the meaning of a signal here and there.

I thought it was the most ridiculous thing to be so quiet, but being a little too loud setting up camp one day caused something to come rampaging after us.

Oh the horror…

When we finally exited the area with most dangers out of sight, I finally got the chance to get some answers to some very pertinent questions, such as:

"Why did you guys knock me unconscious?"

It was the sunglasses guy who answered, retaining his completely blank expression.

"Flight risk."

Flight risk? That's totally ridiculous! I've never tried to-

He might have a point.

"Then why did you tie me up?"

"Flight risk."

"..."

We continued on for a while through the countryside. I never really thought about it before, but the Naruto world is actually kind of pretty. There's just something really cool about seeing rice patties lining the fields in a world without cars at every location.

We ended up stopping at small village along the way to eat, finally giving us all a chance to take a small break. There really is only so long you can stand being given a piggy back ride for. We decided to head out towards a small little restaurant within the city to eat at.

We walked around through the market for a little while, and for the first time I got a good look at my appearance.

What was reflected back at me from a mirror in one of the stalls made tears instantly start to form in my eyes. I could feel the wetness slowly begin to fall down my cheeks.

Seeing me like this made Yuugo and Shizune stop dead in their tracks. Shizune being the more motherly of the two; had a look of surprise and worry quickly appear on her face.

"Mako-san, are you alright?"

I could barely contain myself sobbing.

"I-It's m-my hair."

Yuugo looked at me quizzically.

"I know it's a bit uneven now, but that can easily be fixed."

I quickly tried to rub the tears from my eyes.

"N-No. You don't understand. I-It's green!"

"I don't see the problem."

My now shaky knees gave way, and I was full out breaking down.

"I'M A FREAK OF NATURE!"

Shizune tried to comfort me my lightly patting my shoulder though she seemed like she really didn't know what for, while Yuugo just stood there with an expression that showed she was clearly unimpressed. The rest of the group had already headed over to the restaurant at the first chance they got.

With the whole seal thing I could speak and understand Japanese, but that didn't mean I could actually read anything. In Japanese there are three different types of characters; hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana is the basic alphabet, katakana is used to write foreign based words, and kanji is basically used in place of words.

The thing is I only know a handful of kanji. This means that menus are not my friends.

I squinted at the text, attempting to magically decipher whatever it said.

Why couldn't there be pretty pictures to look at? Jeez, this establishment needs to better cater to the illiterate.

I ended up just getting dango solely because it was the only food item that came to mind. Dream or not, free food is free food.

We all kind of awkwardly sat down at one of the back tables, eating whatever each of us ordered. I had ended up finally 'officially' learning everyone's names. The one name I didn't know was the sunglasses guy. He plainly told me that is was Kenji Sato. It didn't seem to be a character I recognized.

Because of me stating earlier that I didn't know what a Konohagakure was, Kakashi gave me a quick overview of the village I was from, what it was, what they did, ect. According to him they were on an escort mission in order to get me medical help.

I couldn't help shake the feeling that he was sharing the PC version they told to everyone. I knew that there was way more going on than taking missions to help people and training new ninjas.

This of course was said with his usual laid back attitude and a smile. Something about the whole conversation though just felt off. It's a hard feeling to describe, but it was definitely there.

I guess these guys in the end were still ninjas; insanely powerful killers. You don't want to be on their bad side.

We ended our little lunch, my thoughts still drifting back to my hair that was a sin against nature; and we set off once again. This time the destination was The Hidden Leaf Village.


AN: I wish I could gave gotten this up earlier, but I ended up gone for a couple of days. I was totally on a roll with story ideas at the time, but with no way to write it down...

Anyway, I hope I got the kanji explanation right, but I'm honestly a little unsure how to describe it myself.

I might go back later and edit some things if I remember anything I wanted to add in.