This chapter is thanks to my new beta Sultryvoice.
Give them big hand for their hard work, please.

The Tenth Encounter

-N-

They had gone crazy. She had crossed her fingers that they could have an uneventful shopping trip for clothes, but nope, that was not what happened.

First, Naruto had wanted to stick to stores that she knew she wouldn't have any problem shopping at. But after the first place, Aki decided the store didn't meet the standards of the clothes his beloved, adorable sister should be wearing and dragged her out. And of course, he then proceeded to take her to an expensive boutique style store that was miles and miles above Naruto's usual budget. Immediately, she tried to run out but she was caught and dragged back in, as a pretty woman sauntered over to them.

The unnamed salesperson smiled and asked if Aki needed any assistance, but when she saw who he was with, she blinked for a minute and then upon realizing who Naruto was, sneered nastily at her. She had said something rude to Naruto and the younger girl shrunk into herself, the woman continues to tell her to get out. Naruto pulled on Aki's clothes and begged him to just go to one of the stores she liked, but Aki had smiled and said he was there to shop for her. Then he asked the sales lady to have a more pleasant and polite tone when talking to his sister, as any salesperson should have towards a potential customer.

He shocked the saleswoman into a stutter and continued to move through the store, holding up dress after dress to Naruto's frame. He laid the ones he liked across Taka's arms who carried them around without complaint, trailing after them until they were done. Naruto managed to get a pair of pants and a normal looking blouse in the pile at one point.

After all of the chaos and aggravation, there came a point where it was real nice. It felt like she was getting to experience some of the things she had missed out on when pretending to be a boy. She couldn't have just so openly looked at the types of clothes that she was now, sure maybe she could have but she would have gotten weird looks and raised eyebrows. Though the dresses weren't all her taste, she liked some of them, and it was fun to try them on and feel pretty for a little while like other girls got to do.

She didn't bother to argue against Aki's shopping spree, feeling he would have still bought the clothes without her. But she did remind him that it might actually be nice to buy something she wanted, like shorts, shirts and pants that didn't have lace or frills. That's where the twins came in, whisking her way to a more reasonable store with clothes that were a nice in-between, between what Naruto like and what Aki insisted on.

By the end of it all, they were all carrying bags back to the house, Naruto having probably enough clothes to last her years to come if she didn't have any major growth spurts. She wasn't even sure she had enough space inside her dresser for all of it.

When they got home, climbed the stairs after her and put all the bags in her room to do what she wanted with. Naruto went through all of them, putting the things she would most likely wear in the first drawers and the most unlikely in the bottoms. Like she thought there wasn't enough room and she ended handing a few of the dress on the wall. She didn't have a closet so it was the best she could do.

Despite how tiring their shopping trip had been Naruto was still restless. She was meeting with her team tomorrow and it made her think she should take some time to train at least a little before then. It has been an eventful few days off, and beside her match with Hinata, Naruto hadn't at all worked on any of her jutsu or fighting. When she went back downstairs she found Aki lighting new incense at their grandfather's altar and offering some fresh fruit. He looked up when she came down and smiled at her.

"Where are the others?" she asked, taking note of Taka's and the twins absence.

"Miki and Nikki have a team meeting, they'll be out for a little while," he said.

"And Taka is outside. He got some seeds while we were out and he's trying to get a vegetable garden started."

"Okay." she said. "Well, I'm going to be downstairs. I want to train a bit."

"Don't push yourself too hard!" Aki shouted after her on the way out.

There was something exciting and joyous about having someone worry about her. She grinned as she started feeling excited about things again. And more than anything else she was really happy to have a family, to go shopping with them, to have them worry about her and ready to defend her at the drop of hat. Naruto felt good and giddy. The world for the first time in her life, felt perfect.

She couldn't stop smiling, even when sweat was dripping down her brow and she struggled to catch her breath. She wasn't going to be alone anymore; she didn't have to do everything by herself. There would be people waiting for her to come home and ask her about her day and love her for all she was and that just made her so happy. She never thought she would actually get to feel this way. She just figured that she would always have to fight to be acknowledged and it felt so good to just have people see her, know her and lover her immediately. That possibility had only been a dream; one that she had always believed would never come true. But here she was, a sister with four older brothers and a mother who's was alive and waiting for her.

Of course she couldn't say any of this in front of Aki, he would be weird about it and she would look so uncool. But when she got back upstairs and saw that everyone was back and helping out with dinner, she gave him a hug. But it was short, pulling back before he could cling to her. He looked confused but when he saw her smile and how happy she looked he decided not to question her sudden affection.

"I ran the bath for you, and it should still be warm." he told her.

"Thanks, bro!" she said and ran to the stairs, leaving the four boys shook.

"Did she just call me-?" Aki started, slacked jawed as he watched their sister go.

"Yeah!" The twins exclaimed celebrating with a high fived. Their sister had just called one of them 'Bro.'

At dinner Naruto was a chatterbox talking about her team. She raved about some pink haired girl Sakura that was on her team and how smart and pretty she was. No one questioned her tone of affection, but seemed to calmly accept it with amused smiles. Though for them, no one would ever be good enough for their sister, they just hoped this girl was as great and as deserving as Naruto apparently thought she was.

Naruto talked next about Kakashi-sensei and how he was always late and had his nose in this one book of his. That seemed to upset Aki a bit; after all he knew their father had trained him better than that.

What really upset Aki and even Taka about Kakashi, was that all this time, before he had been assigned to be Naruto's team leader he had been a stranger to their sister. He had to know who Naruto really was, so why would he have kept his distance instead of being with her and protecting her. They all saw the small signs, the body language the shifting of eye contact. She smiled, and sometimes that was really hard to see past, but they noticed the miniscule symptoms of a person who had gone through long-term abuse. Kakashi had to know about it, so why wouldn't he have gone to her, what would have kept him from her?

He stayed silent about it. He would confront Kakashi eventually. Then she told them about Sasuke, her voice high with annoyance as she talked all about how she couldn't stand him, telling them pretty much everything she didn't like about him. Taka just gave a little smile because it sounded very familiar to how Aki was with his one of his own teammates.

It was probably the most comfortable dinner that they've had together so far because Naruto was finally out of her shell, unrestrained and genuinely cheerful. They knew she had a long way to go to recover from the things she had endured, that it would be awhile before she trusted them completely, but she was trying hard and they could see and appreciate that.

After all of that, she told them that she would have to go out in the morning to meet her genin team and she wasn't sure when she would be back. In her head she kept thinking about the chunin exams and what Kakashi-sensei would have to say when she asked him about it.

Naruto could barely sleep that night when they all went to bed. For hours she tossed and turned in her bed until she finally managed to get her thoughts to slow down enough for her to doze off. When Naruto woke, she woke groggy as anyone would be. She turned over in her bed and looked at the clock on her nightstand.

She leapt from the bed when she saw the time.

She had overslept!

Naruto jumped out of her bed, landing unsteadily on her feet as she sprinted over to her dresser, quickly pulling them open to grab anything clean to wear. But the only clothes in her wardrobe were all dresses. She knew for a fact she had put all of her pants and shorts in her dresser yesterday, so that had to be in one of the drawers but even after pulling them all out and turning all of her clothes out on the floor all she could get see were all dresses.

"AKI!" Naruto shouted, infuriated.

Even worse she didn't have the time to actually get him to give her the rest of her clothes back. She looked at the pile of dresses and grabbed a teal one that had big flowers on one side of the skirt. It was the most reasonable and least embarrassing one that she could find to wear. With that on she grabbed one of the dozens of hair ties that they had bought and tied her hair at the base of her neck as she ran from her room. Unable to take the extra time to actually find her clothes.

As she ran down the stairs, she found her brothers at the kitchen table, helping to lay out breakfast. When Aki came out of the kitchen, Naruto did a drop kick into his gut.

"You jerk, I can't believe you swapped out all my clothes!" she yelled over his crumpled body on the floor. "I'm late to meet my team and I don't even have time to find the clothes you took." She gave him a toe jab before rushing to the entry hall, where she grabbed her jacket from the closet and tossed it on before rushing out the door. Thus leaving a trail of dust behind her as she ran as fast as she could through the village.

Naruto resisted screaming to the sky, not believe how bad her morning was going. Not only was she late, but she still hadn't even thought about how she was going to explain to her team why she was showing up in a dress or that she was, in fact, a girl. In truth, she had probably thought of that yesterday. At least she could put off the whole brother thing for a little bit. They would be too focused on what was right in front of them and depending on how well that was she would get to the whole 'no-longer-an-orphan' thing.

When Naruto arrived to their meeting spot, she was out of breath and had to brace herself on her knees as she tried to catch her breath again. Already she had Sakura and Sasuke's attention on her arrival alone, but as she stood up straight and they could see her better, that's when she really had their attention.

Her cheeks were flushed and her big eyes were bright from the run, lashes collecting a little sweat from her forehead and making the glisten. Her ponytail had fallen over her shoulders some when she had been leaning over, and when she pushed her shoulders back and put her hands on her waist as she finally felt her breathing was under control, it brought focus to the sundress that she was wearing.

"Is this supposed to be an aged down version of your sexy no jutsu?" Sakura asked, squinted her eyes as she examined Naruto's appearance closely. "Why are you using it now?"

"At least he put clothes on this one." said Sasuke, actually joining the conversation.

"But what's the point of this version? I hate the other one, but at least I get what you were going for." Sakura said, poking at Naruto, testing the henge durability. For someone who had such crappy chakra control, Naruto managed to maintain her sexy no jutsu for a long time.

"Ow, will you stop poking me it's not a henge!' she swatted Sakura's probing fingers away.

"What are you talking about, idiot?" Sasuke pushed off from the railing of the bridge, narrowing his eyes at her.

Naruto swallowed, nervous but knowing she had to tell them. "I mean, I really am a girl. It was the boy part that's been the henge"

"You're kidding right?"Sakura sneered at the joke. "You can't be serious."

"She's telling the truth, Sakura-chan."

Sakura spun to look behind her, even Sasuke turned his head as their sensei finally arrived.

"Ha!" Naruto let out a shout and pointed at Kakashi-Sensei. "I'm still not the last one here!"

Naruto gave a sigh of relief, her concerns misplaced where they should be focused on her teammate's reactions to her and not that she was late.

"Perhaps, but you were still late." he tutted and waggled a finger in Naruto's direction.

She scowled, not feeling so happy now.

"If he-" Sasuke started, but realized he was using the wrong pronoun. "If she was under a henge, then why didn't I see through it when I activated my sharingan?"

Sasuke felt more upset that his eyes couldn't see through the deception rather than the actual deception itself. That was his foolish, Uchiha pride for you.

"Because the henge that Naruto was using wasn't like any that you've encountered. It's near impossible to see through, not only using chakra but also medically enhanced in pill form to allow a longer period of wear. Even I wouldn't have noticed."

"But you knew, didn't you?" Sakura looked hurt and enraged at their sensei. "You knew he was lying to us, why didn't you say anything!?"

"She wasn't lying to be hurtful, she was doing it for her own protection." said Kakashi with a sigh, his visible eye staring sympathetically at Naruto.

"What are you talking about?" Sakura raged, her inner self-floating up for them all to see.

"When you were little, and this village was in chaos, when the crime rate was at its highest and bad men did bad things to little girls you had your parents to protect you but she didn't." Kakashi looked at Sakura with a harsh glare that made her step back and nodded in Naruto's direction.

"There was barely room in the orphanage anymore, few willing to take children into their own homes, she would have been on the streets." he lied easily, almost rehearsed.

"But the Sandaime's always had a bit of soft spot for Naruto so he took extra steps to try and keep her safe." It didn't sound fair to the other children, but Kakashi was trying to help Naruto as much as he could to smooth things over between her and the other two in their team. With what was about to happen, they would need to be a team more than ever.

That was when he sensed the incoming bodies.

"I'm sorry, Naruto." Kakashi said, his shoulders slumping as he bowed his head, he wasn't sure how to explain this next bit for her.

The Sandaime had given Kakashi the courtesy of telling him about Kushina and his shock at the news was like getting a thousand punches in the gut at once, he couldn't breathe. So many feelings had begun to flood him, at the forefront was joy and right behind it the nagging feeling of regret that had haunted him for years.

The Sandaime had never told Kakashi that Kushina and the boys were alive. He had been still detained with the other young ninja. It didn't matter that he was ANBU rank, he was still a child and the priority was to make sure the next generation lived through the destruction to rebuild and bring forth a new era if everyone else fell. So he wasn't there at the hospital, he was as clueless as everyone else.

The third had told him that the reason he never told Kakashi the truth about Kushina and the boys was because he knew that Kakashi would have left the village to go after them. They were the only family he had left. Minato had taken him in, treated him as a son or younger brother, so he was devoted to the Uzumaki-Namikaze family. After already taking a great loss of shinobi, the newly reinstated Hokage selfishly made sure they didn't lose one of their greatest soldiers.

He only cemented Kakashi's stay when he told the young man that someone had taken Naruto, and he believed that they were still in the Village, hidden somewhere. Kakashi had devoted himself to finding the baby girl, for years infiltrating them until finally, he was lead to the lead he needed to find her. Itachi Uchiha had been that lead.

For years Kakashi felt Minato and Kushina had haunted him as he searched for Naruto, their last living legacy. His search kept him motivated through the pain of his personal loss. He was alone without them.

Thank god for Gai's persistent rivalry and friendship, a bright beacon that always showed at the right time to pull him out of the grasp of a deadly darkness. That's what Sasuke needed.

And sometimes it seemed Naruto did just that for him. But Sasuke was even more stubborn than Naruto in his wish to isolate himself from his teammates and belief that he didn't need them.

He was the spitting image of Kakashi at his age. It was because of that and Sasuke's relations that Kakashi as their sensei leaned more in his favor. He had full knowledge of Sasuke's past and his capabilities with the sharingan, no one else could teach him like Kakashi could. But that was only an excuse that Kakashi liked to feed himself.

He knew the truth. It was far easier to work with someone who was nothing like the people lost than to work with a child that was many people in one body. Minato-sensei, Kushina, Obito, she carried traits of each of them that made it unbearably painful to work with her. She was a constant reminder of the deaths in his life.

But so were the rest. Sakura and Sasuke, Rin and himself. Being their sensei was like jumping into the past and it was awful. He was so afraid that they would make the same mistakes, it's why he tried so hard to push them to be a team, to force them to work together but none of it seemed to be working. The chunin exams were the last thing he could think of that would get them to reevaluate the worth of each other as more than just people they were stuck with on missions.

"What are you sorry for?" Naruto scrunched her nose, confused.

She was far more incredible than he would ever say out loud. She was boneheaded and near annoyingly hyper. But those weren't always bad things.

Naruto was much like her mother and even her optimistic father.

When he had first seen her, he hadn't believed this small, near shriveled child was theirs. She had a long, stapled cut down her chest from being pried open, her insides examined like a lab animal. He was grateful later that the Kyuubi never allowed her body to scar, or she would be littered with them all over. He wasn't sure if anyone, even Ibiki could come back from torture like what she endured as a child. He didn't even understand how she had come out of it. He only surmised she had repressed the memories.

However she managed it, she suppressed the memories or just forgot them and moved on. She was such a happy little girl, mischievous but sweet. She had her father's kind heart too.

He watched her one winter, the ground had become icy and an old woman had some difficulty making it down the road. Naruto had rushed to help her, a hand on her back and another on her arm to help steady her. The woman had looked down, ready to thank the child and when she saw it was Naruto had screamed and wacked the girl with her cane. The old woman had fallen and she blamed it on Naruto, saying the demon had pushed her and was trying to lure her away to attack her.

People had quickly rushed to the woman, helping her and circling Naruto. She denied it of course, because she had done no such thing and had no such plans. She had just wanted to do a good thing for another person. The people didn't listen, called her names and looked ready to jump on her. Kakashi had been about ready to step in when Naruto managed to squeeze through the ring of people and run away. He followed her to make sure she got to safety and witnessed her alone and crying behind some trash cans, asking why.

But she still wiped her tears away, smiled and got right back up to try again. She was an inspiration.

"Them." he sighed, and then Naruto heard it, her name being called and she went rigid.

Oh no.

"NA-RU-TO!?"

The girl wanted to cry. This morning couldn't get any worse. This had to be Karma for defacing her dad's face on the Hokage Monument, it was the only valid explanation for such bad luck, as if it was a divine fatherly punishment.

"Who is that?" Sakura asked a mix of curious and annoyed.

"Those," Naruto let out a sighed. "Are my brothers."

She cringed and pointed in the direction of the voices, just at three figures were coming into view. It would be one thing if it was just Aki, but the twins had come too.

"WHAT!?" Sakura may have screamed, but it was the look of surprise from Sasuke was the worst, he looked mad. Really mad.

"I didn't know about them and a few days ago, when I got home from our last mission." she tried desperately to tell them, to get them to believe her. But they both looked betrayed by her, like she had just killed one of their dogs or something.

"Naru-chan, I made you lunch." Aki finally got to them. He was out of breath as he held out a bento in his hands. Wrapped in a colorful, floral cloth.

"Thanks, but you didn't have to come here just for that." she said, hurriedly trying to get him to leave.

"Yeah, but we think you might need this." Nikki came up, not as out of breath, and tossed Naruto her Kunai holster.

"Oh, yeah, this I do need. Thanks guys," Naruto forced a smiled, her eyes pleading with them to go the hell away now.

The twins shared a look, and then they glanced at Aki who had caught his breath and was standing straight, glaring at Kakashi.

Naruto had almost forgotten that Kakashi-sensei had been their dad's student.

What Naruto had expected when the two met was not the resentment in which Aki looked at Kakashi with. It scared her. But there was something else in his eyes, like he was both mad and happy to see him again. Was he going to try and fight Kakashi-sensei like he had Hinata's dad?

But he didn't. Instead he did something much more hurtful.

"Father would be disappointed in you." those words sent a chill down Naruto's spine.

Kakashi just bowed his head, posture relaxed with his hands in his pockets.

"So you think so too?" Kakashi said softly, resigned and disappointed in himself.

"And what's this I hear of your reading those perverted books, Jiraiya-sensei is now writing?!" Aki's mood turned fiery, pulling Naruto to him as if to shield her from her sensei.

"What sort of pervert have you become, Kakashi-kun?"

"Kakashi-kun?" Sasuke gave a scoff like laugh, looking at their sensei with amusement and mockery.

"How do you know them, Kakashi-sensei? Did you know about this, that Naruto was lying to us about being an orphan too?" Sakura accused angrily, so quick to pass judgement on others.

"My sister is not a liar!" Aki said in snappish tone, insulted for his sister. "We got separated when she was born, during the chaos of the Kyuubi attack. We thought she was dead, so we left the village."

"Why couldn't you find her, what happened?" Sakura questioned, curious and untrusting about their story. She was looking for holes. It was not unnoticed by Kakashi.

"After she was born, she was with our father. He took her for a walk right before the nine tails attacked. He died, killed by sudden falling ruble, but Naruto wasn't with his body. The Hokage says a crazy woman from the hospital escaped during the destruction before they lead the nine tails away, and took Naruto from his body"

"Why did she take her?" the twins glared at the pink haired girl, wondering why she was so damn persistent about this.

"She was deranged, the Hokage says she was in the psych ward of the hospital for trying to steal someone else's baby," he told her. "This time she succeeded. She took Naruto and hid with her for months, our mother was heartbroken. We thought that Naruto was just crushed, so we left to mourn and move on. We recently found out she was alive and well, the Hokage had found her some time later after we left but we were hard to get in touch with."

"And how do you know Kakashi-sensei." she poked, looking at them.

"Family friend." Kakashi stepped in, putting a hand on Sakura's shoulder, his smiling mask telling her that was enough with the questions. "I knew their parents when I was a little older than you."

"Satisfied?" Niki asked, getting in Sakura's face. The poor girl blushed at how close he was, bending her back uncomfortably to get some distance from him.

"Or are you going to keep interrogating us?" Mikki asked, looking more than annoyed with he girl.

"Uh," Sakura flubbed, uncomfortable and a little scared of them. "I'm-"

"Niki, leave Sakura-chan alone!" Naruto stepped in, pulling at his arm until he stepped back from her.

"She gives you any more trouble Naruto, you let us know." He told her very seriously before grabbing his identical twin and walking back down the path.

Aki didn't follow right away.

"I trust you can take care of the rest from here, Kakashi-kun?" Aki asked.

The man nodded at the younger. Satisfied for now, Aki disappeared in a spout of water which fell with a splash once Aki was gone.

"You might not care, but I was really, really nervous about today. I don't want you to hate me, or think I liked not being able to tell everyone the truth. And the whole brother thing? It's as shocking and weird for me as it is for you." Naruto turned and looked at Sakura and Sasuke.

"From what I can tell, you're still the same loudmouth, idiot. That much hasn't changed." Sasuke said, with his signature, arrogant smirk. Though there was a tension in his forward, giving away that there were some things about this that he was still having trouble with.

Sakura looked between Sasuke and Naruto, before her eyes stopped on Naruto and glared.

"Come with me!" she said, grabbing Naruto's hand and pulling her away from the bridge, Kakashi weakly calling after them, no real effort in his attempt to stop them.

Sakura brought them down the road and then pulled her into the trees, now they were out of hearing range and sight.

"Ok, so let's get one thing straight. Sasuke-kun is mine, you might have the advantage of having kissed him and your girl now on top of it, but I won't lose to y-"

"Oh my god, Sakura-chan, stop!" Naruto waved her hands around, trying to get her attention from her speech.

"There is so much wrong with what you just said. I do not like that jerk, you couldn't pay me all the money in the world to like him." Naruto said, making a disgusted face, lips curled, nose scrunched and tongue stuck out and shivered.

"I mean, I thought I made it pretty obvious that the one I like is you," Naruto said, scratching the back of her head and averting her eyes, face red.

"But you were just pretending to me a boy." Sakura reminded her. "So I just thought that meant you were pretending about that too."

"I wouldn't do something like that. Pretending to like someone is really mean." Naruto said. Playing with someones feelings like that was not cool.

"And I guess I don't get what being a boy or a girl has to do with liking someone" Naruto shrugged, kicking the ground with the tip of her foot, feeling awkward and shy. "Why do people keep asking me that type of question?"

"But that's-" and Sakura's expression started to turn sour, as if she was tasting something nasty on her tongue.

Hurt and rejection burn at Naruto's heart. "It's fine, I get that you don't like me. You didn't like me as a boy and you don't like me as a girl, you like Sasuke."

Naruto rolled her eyes, not seeing what was so great about that jerk. "But I'm still going to like you until I don't, I think that's how first love and stuff is supposed to work. I'm not really sure."

Naruto ended with a half cocked grin and a shrug of her shoulders.

"But, if it makes you that uncomfortable to be liked by a girl, I'll try not to be so forward like I was before." Naruto looked away, wanting this to end already.

"Do you only like girls?" Sakura asked, a little weirded out to have another girl like her romantically.

"I don't think so." Naruto said, frowning. She was tired of those type of questions. She didn't get how that really mattered.

"But you don't like Sasuke-kun?" Sakura said slowly, looking at Naruto very seriously.

"Hell no!" Naruto said and grinned, feeling the atmosphere had lightened just a little.

"Fine, I believe you." Sakura said, putting her hands on her hips. She looked much calmer and relaxed now.

"We should get back." she said, tossing some of her long pink hair over her shoulder and walked back out onto the path.

"I was wondering if I had to go get you two." Kakashi said when they came back, seemingly happy to find they were on better terms after their talk. At least he assumed they talked as none of them were sporting bruises.

"Now, I know we've had some pretty big surprises today, but I have one more." Kakashi told him students, and they all looked at each other. Naruto just shook her head when Sakura looked at her as if she knew what it was.

"I've recommended all three of you for the chunin selection exam." He said very nonchalant, as if it was no big deal at all.

"Good one, Sensei, you almost had us." said Sakura, unable to imagine their teacher would actually think they were ready for something like that. She remembered their encounter with the ninja from Suna. All three of them had been terrifying, especially the red haired one.

Even Sasuke looked a little disbelieving. They hadn't been genin that long.

Naruto on the hand had stars in her eyes.

"You just have to fill out these applications." Kakashi held out the three sheets.

Finally Naruto was unable to contain herself. She leaped at her sensei, wrapping her arms around his neck and clinging like a monkey.

"Kakashi-sensei, I love you!" she shouted right in his ear.

"Alright, Naruto, get off…. Seriously, you're embarrassing me." He said a bit pink-cheeked.

Naruto let go and snatched the paper from his fingers, holding it like it was something precious she giggled in glee and grinned from ear to ear.

"This is completely voluntary if any of you don't wish to compete then that choice is yours. If you do wish to enter then turn in those forms the day after tomorrow to room 301 at the academy by 4pm." he explained, though it was all on the paper if they took the time to actually read it.

"Are we not going to train at all today or tomorrow," Naruto asked, looking disappointed.

"No, if you do take the exams you don't want to be tired or sore. That's all." and then before any of them could say or ask anything else he was gone, a few leaves floating in the air where he once was.

Sasuke didn't wait a whole minute after Kakashi left to leave himself. Of course, Sakura was the first one to notice him walking away and ran to catch up with her crush. She chattered in his ear, asking him what he was going to do. Sasuke answered that he was going to enter. Really, that should have been obvious.

Sakura asked Naruto, who had started to follow behind them. She grinned at Sakura, happy she was talking to her.

"There is no way I'm not taking it!" she shouted. "There has to be a lot of strong guys and I want to take them all on. Once I beat them there's no way they won't make me the next Hokage!"

Sakura smiled and rolled her eyes but she looked at her own paper with uncertainty.

Neither Sasuke or Naruto took notice, too wrapped up in their own thoughts about the exams.

Naruto considered going and practicing some moves at the training grounds, she considered what Kakashi-sensei had said about not exhausting themselves but Naruto didn't feel right not preparing at all. She waved goodbye to Sakura and Sasuke and instead of running home ran the opposite way. When she got to a spot not being used, she folded the signup sheet and tucked it deep in her pocket. She worked on some warm ups, and once she had worked up a sweat she moved on to target practice. She never hit the bullseye and most of the time it wasn't even close, but she kept trying at it until her fingers hurt. When she was done with that she did chakra exercises, going up to a high tree and sticking herself upside down from a branch, she had even improvised to make it more intense by doing upside down squats.

After she trained her body and her chakra to some degree she worked on her ninjutsu. Kakashi hadn't taught them much, and the library didn't let her in, so she had to ask Iruka for some scrolls and books. Just basics and a few more difficult techniques. Nothing like the scroll of sealing that she had stolen.

She only really knew Shadow clone, and henge and even that she only had mastery over her sexy genjutsu. She had to know more or she wouldn't stand a chance. Sakura had mastered all their genin techniques and Sasuke new that fire ball jutsu. It wasn't fair. She was falling behind again.

She closed her eyes and conjured up the hand seals, seeing them in her mind first before performing them. She took a deep breath, held it and then on the last hand seal she blew out a puff of air. But instead of leveling the area, she only managed to let out a strong enough gust to rustle the grass. She pouted and tried again. She kept trying until her lips and lungs hurt from blowing so much air, and then finally she managed to knock down a small tree.

She still had some way to go with the Wind Release: Great breakthrough technique, but she had at least made some progress and that was enough to get her to jump a little in joy. Satisfied, Naruto decided she had spent enough time training and headed back home.

At first, her body started going in the direction of her apartment before she realized that wasn't exactly her home anymore. She smiled and thought about her brothers waiting at the house on the hill, of her cool and pretty room, the place where her family was. With a grin she ran towards home. When she got there she stopped and grinned at the house before taking the stairs two at the time. The door was unlocked for her and she went right in, only stopping to take off her shoes and put them in her cubby.

"I'm home!" she shouted down the hall, her voice carrying.

Aki was the first to peak out of the living room, a big smile on his face as he welcomed her back. He gave her a hug and she let him, though she didn't return it.

"Did everything go well?" Taka asked as he took cups from the coffee table. Naruto didn't see the twins around. She wondered if they had gone to meet with Tatsuki and their sensei, or they could just be in their room.

"It went ok." she shrugged and then glared at their oldest brother. "Aki and the twins showing up really didn't help things."

"They were just trying to be helpful." Taka tried to help Aki out. His older brother gave him an appreciative nod.

Naruto just rolled her eyes and started towards the kitchen. She was thirsty. It still felt weird, walking without hesitation through the house, the layout still foreign territory. But she also didn't want to tiptoe and shyly ask for things either. She knew her brother wanted her to feel at home and move around freely like she was.

So she grabbed some water from the fridge then went back into the living room and flopped tiredly down on the couch.

Wow everyone, again thank you to by awesome beta for looking this over for me while I work on the coming chapters.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it was an interesting one for me to write.

I'm stocked on pepsi and I'm posting this at the start of the weekend so rest assured I am working hard to bring you more chapters with my beta.