A DIFFERENT GENEALOGY

ACT X
~ SHIT MOUNTAIN + GIANT FAN: MORE PROBLEMS ~

"Hells Miki! She's got her Sharingan already!" a loud voice cried.
"Wonder if you'll remember this when you're all grown up? Hmm? Whaddaya think?"

The voice did not receive a reply. There was a chuckle from a different set of vocal chords, lighter ones.
She couldn't see who the voice belonged too…

"My father is going to be thrilled; she wasn't supposed to have it in the first place."
"I thought you said she was going to be a boy?" a small blonde head of hair asked a larger one.
"I though she was going to be a boy, I was certain of it, your Aunt Miki too. I guess we have another practical joker on our hands, huh shrimp?"

Whose voices were those? They were unfamiliar, but one of them was young, the other older. It was dark, she didn't like the dark! She had to see what was happening! Light flooded the darkness and she felt herself being lifted by something, something that seemed fairly strong. She felt safe; she wasn't going to fall.

"I'm not a shrimp yeah! And you can't say I take after Mum anymore if she's a prankster too!"
"Nothing you say will change the fact that you are a shrimp, Deidara"
"Graaagh! Just you wait, yeah! I'll drink loads of milk and then I'll get taller than you, yeah!"
"Of course you will Deidara; now do you want to hold your sister?"

She was moved and finally caught a decent glimpse of the two voices she had been listening to. Both faces were blurred, but the yellow-blonde of their hair, and kingfisher blue of their eyes were easily to make out. The sight was somewhat confusing, but strangely not enough to cause panic in her as she stared up at the face of the older blonde.

She could tell the littler one that held her was less confident, wary of her than the older had been, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. She still didn't feel like she was going to fall, so her only noise was a gargle when her head felt heavier for a brief second.

"Uwah! She moves! I can't keep hold of her! I'll drop her yeah!!"
"Of course she moves you dolt!"
"Daaad! Take her back before I drop her, Yeah!"

"Its alright, just make sure you support her head; she cant hold it by herself well yet - see, let her rest it in the crook of your am like this…" There was some shuffling, and her head felt a lot better. She looked up and more yellow flooded her vision.

"She's really tiny!" the smaller blob of yellow noted; she felt an irrational urge to do something unpleasant to the yellow blob.
"That's babies for you Deidara."
"She's quiet; I though babies were supposed to scream a lot yeah?"
"They do - don't jinx it for us just yet!"

"Eh? Me too?" The yellow blob stared at her again.
"Deidara, since the moment you were born, I can't think of a single hour you haven't been making some sort of noise"
"I was this small?"
"Yep, and since you're her big brother, you've got to look after her, okay?"
"…Okay"

"Can I hold my daughter now?" asked the voce from earlier, the one she hadn't put a blob too.
"Ah! Sorry Aunt Miki!"

There was more movement and she found her self in a different set of strong things, looking up a surprisingly non-blurred face. The face was pretty; the face had soft features and black hair that looked like it was fluffy, or silky. Of felt nice. A small hand reached up to grasp it, tugging on pone of the stray black threads.

"Welcome to the world Na-"

Naruto woke up straight-seated in her hospital bed with sweat drenching her body.
'W-What the hell was that?'

"How much longer do you have to stay in the hospital? My grandparents are on the verge of kidnapping you," Sasuke asked a few days later.

Despite the initial rocky start, Naruto had begun to worm her claws into her doctor, and they had a somewhat brash but caring relationship. Three was also some kind of bet to take place after Naruto left the hospital he still did not quite understand. Unfortunately, the budding relationship with her doctor did not gain her any early releases from the hospital. Something that particularly irked his blonde girlfriend.

"Tomorrow with any luck; Ino, didn't you say you found something in the hospital records yesterday? What was it" Naruto asked her team-mate, slurping the ramen that had been brought in for her by Sasuke.

Ino jerked, remembering the start of the conversation the previous day that had been interrupted by Jiraiya's untimely arrival. She had been so relieved to see Naruto awake and somewhat moving around that she had almost forgotten her not-quite-but-almost-discoveries in the hospital records room. It simply had not seemed as important, for obvious reasons.

"I almost forgot! I didn't actually find Naruto's birth certificate, I got chased out before I could look in the other folders, but I did find something on your mothers death certificate" Ino replied, directing the end of her question to Sasuke.

"My mother's death certificate?" Sasuke asked sceptically; Ino nodded.
"The cause of death was some sort of tearing or something during childbirth; not an odd thing on its own, but it was the date that stuck out. I'm pretty certain Sasuke's birthday isn't the 10th of October" Ino informed the two with a triumphant look on her face.

"No… but it would be mine; I'm guessing she died a year after Sasuke was born?" Naruto asked.
"Bingo!" Ino grinned.
"That doesn't explain the Sharingan in Naruto though; it's not a matriarchal trait…" Sasuke frowned.

While it appeared that he was a lot closer in relation to Naruto than he had originally thought, there were so many things that were still not explained with that assumption. He could hazard a guess that her father might have something to do with how the Sharingan popped up in her, but they knew nothing about him; they did not even have a name.

"Hey, I just looked through the records after you tipped me on it; speaking of tips, Naruto, did you know your mother married the fourth Hokage? Or that she had a kid?" Ino asked, remembering the unexpected discovery.

Naruto shook her head; she barley remembered the red haired woman, but from what she remembered, she had never had a son. Her lack of a husband, on the other hand, was easily explainable - the death rates amongst the ninja populace were three times that of civilians, and five time that of suicide.

"I ended up finding her file in with the Namikaze file. I was going to have a look in the Hokage's file when-"

"You were going to what?!" Sasuke asked, suitably horrified.
"Ino, that's like, breaking some sort of divine ruling or something! You can't look in the fourth's medical records!" Naruto protested.
"It's fine! I begged for divine forgiveness beforehand! And snooping through health records is hardly toeing the line either" Ino brushed the subject aside with a wave of her hand.

"Besides, I think it'll be worth our while to have a look at them; Sasuke said he found that box didn't he? The fourth is obviously all wrapped up in this mess somewhere," Ino added, seeing grudging agreement appearing on her friends face.

Naruto was not enthralled with the idea of looking through the medical records of the man who sealed a demon in her gut; though she did wonder what had been put down as the cause of death. But other than that, she didn't really want to look at them; particular images of the man were fresh in her mind thanks to the masked mind, and those images were thoroughly confusing. On the other hand, she could not deny that Ino had a made a valid point.

"Alright; as soon as I'm released from this virus infected prison, and I win my bet with the old bat, were going through those records," she grumbled.

Ino grinned victoriously.

Naruto let out a sigh of relief as the door closed behind Sasuke and Ino. As glad as she was to have something resembling answers to questions that had been plaguing her since her Sharingan activated, she was getting some very unexpected answers. She did not really know how she was supposed to process some of them.

All evidence dug up by Ino glaringly indicated that… that Sasuke and Itachi were her brothers. Admittedly, only half-brothers, but exactly half of their DNA was still identical. Ignoring the set of questions on why her… mother, had obviously cheated or left Mr. F in the first place, her relationship with Sasuke was brought into confusion once again.

Even at the beginning she had know something was off about their relationship, but like always when it came to Sasuke, she had ignored her instincts. Now she had wound herself into the mess that was a romantic relationship with her… brother. It was bad enough that they had been possible second cousins, but her brother?

That was a very different scale of things altogether; she knew that incest was not very uncommon in the major clans, but she did not recall any sibling relationships. Frankly it weirded her out more than she cared to admit; it scared her even more that she was willing to ignore the social norm and keep going with the relationship anyway - though honestly, there hadn't been all that much action on the romantic front lately, no thanks to the Pedo and Mr. Mask.

'I don't care! It won't change anything!'

How long ago had she yelled those words to herself now? Naruto couldn't remember exactly, but the memory prompted the fire to burn in her resolve once again. She had always known that with Sasuke came headaches hadn't she? She was not going to back down from that now. Yes, they may encounter obvious problems, but…

"I can face them if he can!" she growled to herself, pulling the covers over her head.

Outside the door to her hospital room Sasuke walked down the hall with relieved amusement on his face.

Arriving back at his grandparent's house, Sasuke found himself digging out his mother's letters to his father once again. He did not really understand the desire to know more about
her - he had never had the urge before after all - but he was not going to leave his curiosity unsatisfied. He supposed it was due to the incredibly surprising revelation by Ino last night.

His sister? He really didn't blame Naruto for wanting some thinking time; this whole situation was either 'wrong' or at the very least incredibly screwed up on so many levels there was no point in trying to count them. It would never be mentioned, but he had found doubts himself. He had always had a strong desire to make sure the blonde idiot did not kill herself by accident, but now he a different inkling as to why.

Of course, to him, there was no question that he would be unable to change his course of actins towards her. It was far too late to turn around now; thinking of her in a romantic sense for the past few years, and having those feeling reciprocated over the past few months, did not exactly inspire the typical sibling relationship.

It still did not shut up the annoying part of his mind (the logical part that he refused to listen to when Naruto was involved) that told him he was acting worse than a Hyuuga (dam, he could not call them incestuous gits now, could he?). She was his sister; the fact he had even contemplated his options was hardly normal behaviour. Ah well, he could blame it on his parents.

This in mind, he pulled out the second of the letters; he immediately discerned a different nature from the worn thumbing it had received. His father had obviously looked at this particular letter a lot. Gently as he had with the first, he opened the envelope and pulled out the piece of paper decorated with his mother's god-awful scrawl.

I've never wanted to abandon a mission so much before; If I didn't love the guy to bits, I'd kill Minato for assigning this mission to me. I will never give those bastards from Iwa the benefit of the doubt again! I wish I could come back so much right now, but needs must.

How are my parents? Kushina didn't seem to say much in her letter. What about Minato? I'll bet he is killing himself with the guilt; tell him to stop being such a drama queen. He has two other students to look after, and they surely don't need his cleverly hidden self-pity right now. He'll probably want to calm Deidara a bit too; he's not going to slow down any.

Kushina is worried about him too, I can tell, and you know how often that happens. I'm not too worried about Itachi, but keep a particular eye out for him. I don't want him going on warpath like that blonde menace (and I mean that in the complimentary sense).

I still don't know when I'm going to be back, but I doubt it will be before three months are up. You should hear the kids complaining; Hayate keeps worrying about his doctor's appointments, and you know how Raido is. Kurenai has not actually said anything, but every time one of the villagers asks her to help dig up cabbages, she wrinkles her nose.

I swear those kids are saints for putting up with all of this; I'll have to see Torifu about teaching Hayate some sword styles when I get back as a reward for all this (despite his complaining, the boy's patience knows no bounds). Some illusions and some other techniques for Kurenai and Raido too. They really do deserve it for all their work.

How's Sasuke? You had better not be feeding him that… I would say charcoal, but that doesn't even cover the extent to which you burn things. Remember the last time you tried to make Itachi pancakes? That will not happen again under my roof Fugaku - the poor boy had indigestion for a week! If I hear from the others that you have been giving that garbage to either of them, then you can be sure as hell you won't be getting that daughter you want.

Hear me?! I don't care if you have to order take out or go to my mothers every night, but don't you dare feed my boys your food! Oh, and tell Minato to send more rations. The last set is completely useless thanks to another incident with the lake (I don't really think I can explain without being there in person).

Take care of yourself too, you fool.
Miki.

Sasuke was so absorbed in the letter that he didn't hear his grandmothers knock at his bedroom door before entering.
"Sasuke? I called you for dinner ten minuets ago… come on down silly!" she grinned from the doorway as Sasuke raised his head from the letter in surprise.

"What? Oh, sorry Grandma… I was… busy" he apologized lamely, not sure if involving his grandparents in this mess was a good idea or not. While he trusted them innately to not spread any of what he did to other less scrupulous characters, he was not stupid.

Never mind the questions that may be raised, they were not ninja, and Sasuke knew from what they had learned that there was a good reason Naruto's birth records were so hard to find. Much to his surprise, the old woman's face brightened upon sight of the letter, and plucked it from his hand with tears on the edge of her coal Sharingan-less eyes.

"Gran?" he asked somewhat confused by the elderly woman's sudden outburst.
"I can't believe he kept them all this time; that old fool…" she muttered chuckling to herself.

She gave a short bark of laughter, before wiping her eyes and handing the letter back to Sasuke.

"I don't know how you found them, but don't go damaging them; put this away for now and come eat. Your brother's home early for once today!" she smiled, before turning back towards the door leaving a relatively stunned Sasuke.

"Come on Naruto! What happened to all the control I drilled into you?!" Ino berated, watching Naruto loose control of the Rasengan for the god-knows-what-number time.

The blonde girl picked herself up from the ground muttering to herself about stupid deranged balls of fur and their equally stupid chakra. She concentrated on the rotation of her chakra in her palm once again, silently vowing to get the technique down before the week was out even if it killed her in the process.

Jiraiya had taught her the steps, and occasionally popped by to see how she was coming along with them - he had stated his training would not include mollycoddling, and he had not been telling an inch of a lie. The only aid she received was Ino's aid in controlling her chakra properly, and a hint from her trainer.

They continued until Sasuke, who joined later in the afternoon, near ordered Naruto to stop before she collapsed from chakra exhaustion again. She had been out of the hospital barley a week as it was; she didn't need to be going back already. Reluctantly agreeing, she had followed him back to his grandparent's house - correction - their grandparent's house. It was still difficult wrapping her head around the correct terminology sometimes.

She stiffened for a moment when his hand wormed into hers, but it was surprise, not repulse that generated the gesture. She had been expecting Sasuke to have a little more reservation than she had for some reason. Maybe it was his withdrawn demeanour that made her think that way though; given choice (which was not) he would usually withdraw from conversation unless serious, he preferred to listen until he had a valid point to contribute.

"Itachi already knew before you used your Sharingan in the stands," Sasuke stated suddenly.

Naruto turned her stunned eyes towards him.
"What? How did he find out?! And where is he anyway?" she asked, clearly surprised but still noting the elder Uchiha's recent absence.

Sasuke ponder this for a moment; he had not actually asked how Itachi had found out.
"I guess he saw your Sharingan at some point and did his own investigating before bullying dad for the real story, and he's on a mission" he replied blandly.

Naruto frowned.
"But if he knew then why didn't he… I mean, he was in cahoots with Ino!" she waved her free arm for emphasis.

Sasuke stopped in his tracks, giving her a blank look, full of questions and puzzlement. Naruto was puzzled by the look before realising how her statement might have sounded to him, and began waving both her arms as she proceeded to explain her true meaning:

"Ah, I didn't mean it like that! I just meant, cause, I mean - yore my brother! That's not usually on anyone's list of boyfriend requirements right? I don't give two flying fucks what anyone cares, because I never have! I mean, if I did, I have gone suicide years ago or…"

She paused, a more confused frown appearing on her face.
"Err… What was I saying?" she asked rubbing the back of her head sheepishly.

Sasuke tried to suppress the snickering. He really did. A glare from Naruto silenced them sooner than anticipated, but he did manage to get around to answering her question.
"You were talking about why Itachi was in cahoots with Ino," he reminded; he made a mental note to step up her training with the Sharingan, she would usually have remembered that.

"That's it! Why would he be conspiring with Ino if he knew we were… Oh god, this so hard to digest… If we were siblings? Who sets up their sister with their brother? Well, the Hyuuga's might if they were certain the Byakugan was getting messed up or something but…" she left it hanging.

Sasuke gave her a withering look before snorting, and lacing their fingers together again, resuming pace.
"You honestly believe either of us would have listened, or even believed him?" he asked.
"…You might have a point there" Naruto agreed.

"It appears that Uchiha boy has more will power than I thought" Orochimaru hissed, feeling the pain in his arms worsening.

Kabuto grimaced at the sight of the seals effects on the man's arms. They were well beyond his capability to heal, only Tsunade herself would be of a calibre required to heal them and she was currently in the leaf village. Sneaking intro the village for her likely unlikely aid would be foolhardy. If only they had contacted her before she had left Tanzaku city…

However, that was unimportant. Orochimaru needed to change bodies quickly, lest he die of the injuries given by his old mentor. They had been counting on the cursed seal corrupting the youngest of the main line enough to draw him to Otogakure of his own accord, but there was not even a whisper from the watchers at the border of the boy taking a foot near them.

"Orochimaru-Sama, as your doctor, I recommend performing the ritual as soon as possible! We can't afford to wait for Sasuke to arrive; if you continue you to wait, I can't promise you'll survive!" he reasoned.

The snake contractor gritted his teeth in frustration for a long moment.
"Very well! I will leave the selection process to you, but call up the sound five! I will not give up that Sharingan body so easily!" he hissed, clearly seeing the logic, but equally furious with the turn of events.

"It will be done" Kabuto relied, handing the man yet another medical draught.
"And tell them to make it as quiet as possible; I don't want that half-girl getting in the way!" Orochimaru added, swigging back the viscous liquid in one long swallow.
"The Jinchuriki? Surely it would be best to catch her now? Kabuto asked, handing a thinner liquid to the older man.

"I could care less about Madara's plans; the man is nothing but a bitter old codger. That girl has a meddlesome quality about her, the Yamanaka too. As much as I like it when things move, I have no intentions of sacrificing my new host to satisfy that" Orochimaru replied, taking the vial somewhat testily.

"Then again, the hold she has over Sasuke could work to our advantage. Especially if there was any truth in Madara's talk of the Sharingan… Failure is no option; Call up the sound four and I'll explain what I want you to do" the snake man added, giving the vial a mild glare before handing it back to his medic.

Kabuto nodded, before gathering his medical supplies and leaving the room.

Tsunade's god awful luck seemed to run strong the day of the bet; Naruto managed to master the Rasengan by the end of the week of her hospital release, somehow persuading the anger-issued blonde woman into taking the Hokage position, and gaining some sort of death-magnet necklace worth more than two mountains in the process.

Betting business over and done with, team seven headed back towards the hospital for more pressing matters: finding Naruto's birth records. Very concrete speculation was all well and good, but Naruto wanted solid proof - even if rooting through the fourth Hokage's medical records was not an appealing notion (though she was curios as to what the cause of death had been written as).

"Alright, we're all aware of the plan?" Ino asked, hovering around the corner from the reception desk.
"You get the nurses attention whilst me and Naruto hide under the toad-guys peeping technique, and follow you into the room when the woman lets you in" Sasuke repeated.
"I don't think it's called the 'Peeping Technique' Sasuke, he just uses it for peeping" Naruto corrected in a hushed voice.

Sasuke gave her a withering look.
"What? It isn't!"

Ino ignored the interaction between her team-mates.
"On three then?" she asked, shit-eating grin on her face.

She held up three fingers, lowering them one by one. On the lowering of the final finger, her two team-mates formed the required hand seals and muttered a chakra release before seemingly meting into the air. Ino raised an eyebrow, and prodded the air in front of her tentatively. An indignant yelp from whom she thought was Naruto (she could not be entirely certain it was not Sasuke) told her the technique had worked, and she headed over to the reception desk.

Unfortunately, the pink-haired nurse she recognised as Sakura's mother was not nearly as easy to con as the previous nurse was. The woman recognised her for her fellow blonde team-mate and cast a suspicious eye around the reception area. Panicking, Ino was forced to use one of her work in progress personal techniques to get the woman to open the records room.

After preventing Sasuke from simply knocking the woman out (this raised another suspicious glance before the woman left what appeared to be Ino to her own business), they immediately attacked the filing cabinets. Ino pulled out the files she had first dug up for her team-mates to examine, before moving back to the Namikaze file.

"Why are we looking in this file again?" Naruto asked, not completely certain of the direction Ino's train of thought was heading as the blonde dragged out the large file.
"Because Kushina Uzumaki isn't Kushina Uzumaki - she married the fourth Hokage, so she isn't an Uzumaki right? I figured your birth records would be dragged along for the ride, but they were not in her folder. The last place we can look is in the fourths files," Ino explained.

They pulled aside the files that were not necessary to read, though Naruto did spare a glance at the file belonging to one Deidara Namikaze. Whoever the boy in the photo was must be dead or have moved from Konoha by now; she would have remembered seeing someone with hair like that, especially a boy with hair like that.

"Found it!" Sasuke stated vaguely triumphantly.

They stared at the folder for some time, casting glances to their fellow team-mates, waiting for one of the other two to open it.

"Come on Ino, open it!" Naruto hissed, exasperated by the silence.
"Me? This is your crazy shit not mine! You open it!"
"I can't open the medial files of the guy who sealed a kleptomaniac fox demon in my gut! It's weird!" Naruto protested.

The two girls turned their gaze to Sasuke, Naruto pointedly activating the forbidden technique that were her puppy-dog eyes. Sasuke tried his best to avoid their gaze.
"No" he stated bluntly.

Naruto pouted for a few moments before an evil grin crossed her face. He clasped her hands into a single hand seal and hissed the chakra release with a smirk on her face.

"Sexy Technique!"

Sasuke stared bug eyed for merely three seconds before his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the floor. Ino took a closer look at his face and found a small trickle of blood beneath his nose. She gave Naruto an approving thumbs-up as she poofed back to normal from the naked smoke covered 16-year-old form she had taken.

"He wasn't supposed to collapse! Damn, maybe I didn't use enough smoke…" Naruto scratched her head, trying to figure out where the technique had gone wrong.

"It worked with Ol' Froggie…" Naruto complained, nudging Sasuke's side with her foot impatiently.
"Maybe it only works with adults?" Ino asked, grasping the concept behind the technique immediately.
"Hmm… I'll have to test it some more, but I didn't expect him to collapse!" Naruto complained, shooting her unconscious boyfriend an accusing glare.

After about another minuet, Sasuke was successfully revived via foot nudging, and was dazed enough to blindly agree to open the folder. They all held their breath as Sasuke opened the brown card that contained the records of one of the greatest ninjas in history. The documents contained were rather anticlimactic at first glance.

Several entries into the hospital for chakra exhaustion, one for a broken arm, another for effects of strange ninja techniques, but nothing interesting until they came across the death certificate. Naruto, for the first time, showed some eagerness in looking at the man's folder and quickly scanned the official paper.

"Indefinable?" she asked in a disgusted voice.

Surely there was something they could have used instead of 'indefinable'? 'Work Related Injury' would have been better than indefinable. For some reason she took great offence to their apparent lack of care with the death-cause of the so-called village hero. Suddenly, gaining the respect of the villagers seemed like a rather daunting task.

"Naruto, focus on the task at hand will you?" Ino berated, riffling through more forms

And more forms. And yet more forms. A small pile had grown when Naruto finally lost a small amount of her patience with an innocent piece of paper, nearly tearing into two. Had Sasuke not removed it from her hands, she would probably have succeeded.

"Oh for the love of… How many times did this guy get treated for chakra exhaustion? For a Hokage, he sure didn't know when to quit did he?" she growled, glaring at yet another admission form of the newly dubbed 'CE'.

They continued their rapid yet careful search through the files, and thankfully the instances of 'CE' seemed to diminish to a lesser amount (once a month if the dates were anything to go by), until there was a short gasp from Naruto.

"But… That makes no sense!" she cried, staring a piece of faded pink parchment in horror.

Immediately interested and alerted, her team-mates carefully dropped the files they had been sifting through to peer over her frozen shoulders at the piece of paper. Ino spluttered in confusion at the messy scrawl on the page, and a similar frown etched Sasuke own face as he read the information on the file:

Given Name(s): Naruto Father: ---at- --m---z- Guardian(s): Kushina Uzumaki, Fugaku Uchiha, Jiraiya Utatane
Family Name(s):-a---a-- Mother:M--o-- -c--h- D.O.B: 10th October
Bloodline: -h--i-g-- Chakra Capacity: 52% Coil Development: 58%

Facilitating Doctor: Tsunade Senju
Witnesses: Inochi Yamanaka, Tsume Inuzuka, Jiraiya Utatane, Minato Namikaze

"What's with the ridiculous chakra stats on here?! And why are the names scribbled out? And her Sharingan?" Ino asked in fearful surprise; squinting at the as she might, she could not make out the names of Naruto's parents - such was the effort that had been taken into blotting them out.

There was a long silence before Sasuke answered.
"I guess the same reason Naruto was adopted; a cover up of some kind in a twisted form of 'protection'?" Sasuke guessed.

Naruto said nothing, too busy examining the paper. Some of these names… Senju was the surname of their new Hokage wasn't it? And Jiraiya was not so common a name that it could be anyone other than her own teacher. Ino's father was dead giveaway, and she was pretty sure the Inuzuka woman was Kiba's mother.

"We can go ask some of these people for answers" Naruto concluded determination in her tone.

From what she remembered of Kiba's mother she was a somewhat scary but laidback woman, much like herself in some ways. Her association with Kiba as a classmate would probably help with getting her to open up. She could at least try with the old bat and Ol' Froggie, but Inochi was the biggest lost cause since Kakashi tried persuading them to take the Tora mission that time after their mission to wave.

"Huh? You really think they'll answer?" Ino asked dubiously.
"they will if Naruto sticks her Sharingan in their face along with this; they wont have any choice but to give us something, even if it's not all of it" Sasuke agreed, having examined the names himself.

Naruto looked at him in surprise as she carefully stowed her birth certificate away in one of the inside pockets of her orange jacket.
"I thought we were going to keep that on the down-low in public?" she asked, somewhat confused.
"If there on the certificate, then they probably know about it anyway - as long as no-one else sees it…." he left the answer hanging, and Naruto nodded in confirmation.

They replaced the files in their original shelving units and drawers, removing any official or medical documents they deemed viable. Ino nearly had a heart attack when Sasuke removed those belonging to the fourth Hokage, but he countered those by stating his name was on the list of witnesses, and was therefore part of the whole conspiracy.
Naruto also removed those belonging to Deidara, having a sneaking suspicion that they would be viable later on.

After making sure that the room was in exactly the same state they had found it in, they hid themselves under Jiraiya's 'Not-Called-Peeping' Technique, and stole their way out of the hospital in time to catch the induction ceremony of the new Hokage. Unbeknownst, four pairs of hawk-like eyes watched them.

Naruto lay slumped in her own room, instead of stealing her usual spot next to Sasuke as she had been inclined to do so recently. While she appreciated the comfort his presence gave, she couldn't help but need some time to herself to digest this new information that had cropped up for her without any form of shame.

She held the birth certificate she had been staring at with her Sharingan (she had been hoping that doing so might reveal some sort of hidden seal or melt away the ink covering the names of her parents) up to the light. The orange-yellow glow of the ceiling light shone through the paper, turning it a ruddy-orange colour. If she concentrated incredibly hard, she could make out the score shapes made by the pen that had originally written the names.

Where her mothers name was supposed to be, she could just make out an 'M' and 'O' in her first name. She supposed that meant their assumptions had been correct over her mother's identity, but her father? She couldn't make out a single stroke of the pen, so hard it had been scribbled over.

Naruto was by no means a pessi-whatsit (the word wasn't even in her vocabulary), but it was at times like this that she whished her life wasn't quite so complicated. First there was the whole 'The-Villagers-Think-I'm-Demon-Incarnate' situation to be dealing with, and then there had been the 'I-Can-Remember-Anything-I-See-With-Shikamaru-Skill', which eventually evolved into the 'Rampant Sharingan' scenario.

Now she was the result of some sort of spasmodic affair between Mikoto Uchiha and Mr. anonymous, and the whole thing was still shrouded in fog. Lets not forget the 'I'm-In-Love-With-My-Brother' thing (not that she really cared; if the gods didn't want them to date, then they should have though about that sooner, or never let them get acquainted in the first place).

She held the certificate up once again, sitting up to try get a better view of the paper, trying to catch something she'd missed. She was concentrating so hard she barley had time to notice a shadow pass over the orangey-pink paper before something covered her eyes, and restrained her arms. She struggled to remove the restrictions but whoever had grabbed had a far greater physical strength.

She aimed a kick behind her and heard a hiss as her foot made contact with something. Feeling hope brewing in the pit of her stomach, she resumed the barrage of blind attacks with her feet. It really did not help that whatever was covering her eye was completely smothered in chakra - all she could see was a disgusting blackish-purple glob! Wait, purple? Why was that so familiar?

She rolled off her bed, hoping to throw her attacker of from the sudden movement, but the grasp remained firm. Naruto growled, and slammed her attacker backwards into the bedside cabinet, pushing back off her feet to gain the momentum needed. She tried slamming the stranger into her table, but only seemed to succeed in breaking it. Loosing her temper she yelled loudly at her assailant, blatantly irritated.

"For fucks sake, let go of me and face me like a damn ninja if you're that desperate for a fucking fight!" she growled.
"Sorry kid, but Orochimaru-Sama doesn't want any more damn interference from you tonight!" a gruff female voice informed her before something hit the spot below her head, but above her neck with force.

As her vision darkened, she remembered why the blackish-purple was so familiar; it was the colour of Sasuke's chakra when he used the doom-hickey. Orochimaru was up to something, and she was willing to bet her entire apartment that it involved her brother.

"Sa…suke…" she mad an attempt to stumble for the door, before she hit the wooden floor with a loud thud.

The red-haired girl who had knocked her out with the back of a kunai rubbed her shin where one of Naruto's kicks had made contact.
"Thank god for that…" she grumbled, before walking over to the unconscious girl kunai in hand.

"Got a good vocabulary for a green horn though, I'll give you that," she added with grudging appreciation.

Ino frowned as she hurried through the streets of night time Konoha. It was late enough that even the civilian clubs were looking somewhat calm, but Ino was far from calm. She had lost track of Naruto's chakra consciousness not long since, and that meant attack.

Even when under anaesthetic, or sleeping, she could always feel the consciousnesses of other; only an abrupt attack or death could cut it off from her completely. She caught sight of Naruto's window in the dark streets and dashed towards the building. Eyes on the window, she could see two… well one figure was human, the other she wasn't sure, but she noticed a smaller, limp figure being passed between them.

Blood running cold, she halted in her tracks and chased after the figure now carrying the smaller over one shoulder.

'Dad! Inoro! Something bad is happening! Someone just took off with Naruto!'
'Eh?! What'd anyone want Naruto for?' came the reply of her twin.
'Shut up! I'm serious! Where's dad?!' Ino sent her thoughts back angrily, using her chakra to leap from the ground and onto the roof to follow the not-so-human guy.

She could not use the Mind-Transfer technique moving like this, and she could not read his consciousness at all! Even if he had not signed the scroll, she should be at least able to break in enough to get a rough guess of his direction; he wasn't masking his chakra but… It damn felt like it!

'He's still on that mission to Land of Iron! Where are you Ino?'
'I'm following the creep! He just passed over the spice avenue; I don't know where he's heading though! I can't get anything from him; it's like he's blocking me!' she growled.
'Keep following! I'll go to the Hokage! Don't loose him Sis!'

"Easier said than done…" Ino growled, upping her pace to keep the multiple-armed man in range.

Aren't I just evil? I don't know if I'll finish Part I next chapter, or the chapter after that, but soon cometh a little flashback chapter, and then onto Part II! I can't wait, Part I is so boring compared to Part II. Or is that just me? I think the shit just really begins to hit the fan in Part II

Orochimaru, for all his faults, is right about watching things move; adding a spanner in the works proves very entertaining when done properly and when doing so does not endanger ones life; this is where he slipped up with Sasuke, although Sasuke is a definite spanner for Konoha right now. Naruto's gonna seriously going to put his Therapy Technique into overdrive if he wants to talk Sasuke back to sanity.

Though honestly, I think they're both going to end up killing each other, after one of them kills Mandarin. Probably Naruto, cause then Sasuke will be all 'you-killed-my-ancestor-biatch! I'm-going-avenger-on-your-ass-cause-I-really-don't-have-any-family-now-even-if-he-was-just-angry-crazy-bitter-old-dude-I-never-liked-anyway-and-someone-totally-has-to-die-for-that!'

*Sniffle* poor Mandarin. Everybody hates his gutsies.
Comments appreciated!
Nat
xxx