Mwuahahahaha! I bet you thought you would never see me again, eh? Thought I had forgotten this story, right?! Well, guess again! You haven't seen the last of me yet! God, I know that feeling, though... were you see this story, and your reading it, and you want to know what happens, or at least get enough to make it up in your head, but the writers like "HA! Screw you" about it, and drops the story in the begining. I WILL finish this story, curses! It just will take... um... a bit... expecially since my computer hates me and decided to get rid of Microsoft Word. ... ... ... So... Yeah. I have to use somebody else's computer to type. And the school wifi won't let me get on Fanfiction. So this might... take a while. But I really have no escuse to be gone so long, do I? Sorry, so sorry... really, I am. Let's see if this works, hm?

Chapter: Stealing from a Thief

A few hours later, after saying good-bye to that helpful deer-summon, Nikushimi Chigatto was on her way! It was actually surprising nothing happened to write about while she was out- they hadn't even found the deer's summoner. He just followed the path she made, until they got to a real path. Then she woke up, and they parted. Nice and simple! Though, he did say he would keep in touch.

Chigatto hummed as she walked along, feeling more free than ever before. There was no foolish human boy to watch over; there was no paperwork to do, or people to cater to. Out here in the mortal world and away from Naruto, she didn't really have anything holding her back- except for the human body, can't forget that, it might pose some problems later.

Since Naruto was now officially a ninja, she didn't have to watch over him all the time. Besides, Kitto was with him. And if she coddled him his entire life, he wouldn't actually learn anything, nope. She wasn't worried about the fact that now he could technically get deadly missions, or challenge people who were way over his league, or that he was still just a little kit and didn't know enough to be able to do anything and his chakra control is terrible, and-

Heaving a sigh, Chigatto forcefully turned her thoughts to more positive things. This would give him experience! He would make friends with other people. Kitto was watching over him. He coul sign the contract, so if anything went wrong everything would be fine. Being alone would teach him to be more responsible. It would teach him to fight, and be powerful, to learn his place in the world! It would teach him to- to...

'What is that smell? Is that blood? That's blood! Something is bleeding over there!' Maybe there was something over there- was a mortal in danger? She wasn't one of those demons to help mortals, though; nope, no way, not even a little bit, no. But if Naruto was here, he would help, wouldn't he? And a lot of very important mortals liked him, so maybe if she helped mortals then important figures would like her and then she could do anything because Naruto could get away with anything be- Was she rambling? She was, wasn't she! Oh my, she must have had too much Ramen- salt always made her hyper. Something about the chemistry of ice demons... and being in the mortal world messed everything up!

But right, back to the blood smell! It smelled a bit brambish- a human was bleeding! And not too far away. Oh, dear.

Chigatto sniffed a few more times, wished the human body didn't dilute the senses as much as it did, and turned a bit to the right to walk off of the trail. Following her nose -in a figurative and literal sense- she made her way slowly over to the source. No need to rush, not really. She pushed branches out of her way quietly, and stepped over a few low brambles. She was careful to aviod any thorns- those hurt in this type of body. Why did she take a human body, anyway? Oh, right, because it hid her youkia. She remembered now.

Her mask bounced on her hip with every step, loosely tied to her belt loop. She didn't really need it now, since no one was around. But it did look kind of cool, hanging there, with it's white porcelain against her dark pants. She bet Naruto would- Wait! Back on topic! Blood smell- yes, why was she so distracted recently? She bet it was Naruto's fault. It was always Naruto's-

Suddenly, a flash of color caught her eye, making her pause. The smell of blood was everywhere now, fresh and coppery as it settled onto her tongue and in her nose. Something red and blue was just on the other side of this next bush up ahead, and she could see the colors through the leaves. This probably meant that if it was a person, they could see her- white-blonde hair was not the easiest color to hide with. (Not that it was impossible- she saw a ANBU with the even brighter hair color of silver, and he was very good at hiding!)

Slitting her eyes, she crept forwards, gently bumping branches out of the way. Easing her way into the bush, Chigatto peered forwards. There was a male human there, propped up against a tree, and barely breathing. It's head had fallen forwards onto it's chest, so she could not see it's face, but it's hair was white, even whiter than hers! She could barely feel a flicker of chakra in it, though. The red color she saw earlier was it's shirt- and was the splashes of blood on the tree, and the ground, and the bush, and oh Nine it was everywhere there was no way it could all be his, humans just didn't have that much blood! And human blood smelled disgusting, that didn't help.

The reek of it was overwhelming, now, and she had to cover her sensitive nose with her sleeve. Peering around, she looked to see if there was anyone else around. There had to be an opponent somewhere, the large gash on the human's leg could not have let it get far. It must be a very stupid human, though- you should keep a wound above the level of your chest, or the blood would come out faster. And the wound wasn't covered at all. Maybe it passed out as soon as the battle was over? If so, where was the- wait, what was that!

There was a foot sticking out from behind another tree a little ways away, and if she tried very hard she could smell the faint scent of death over in that direction, practically smothered by the blood. 'Oh, ick.' The sleeve was then placed over her nose again, and she started breathing through her mouth. The foot didn't move at all, it's toes pointing towards the sky. The person was probably, most definitely dead. But she would check in a bit, anyway.

Still wary, and all of her senses besides smell on high alert, she carefully creeped out of the foliage. Her eyes were still narrowed, and the hand not covering her nose was inching towards that little thigh-pouch of kunia that she stole off of an unlucky ANBU before she bounced out of Konoha. A few steps later, she was crouching in front of

the human, trying to decide what to do. Should she kill it? Should she heal it, or just leave it alone? If she healed it, then she would have to take care of it, be responsible for it, feed it until it's all better and then let it go back to it's home- if it even had a home, or wanted to go home. If she killed it, she could potentially be killing an ally of Konoha- not that she cared, but it was he little brothers village. If she left it alone, it wouldn't be much better than killing it, not really, since it wouldn't last long enough to have another human come and heal it, unless one was already almost here.

She paused at this. Usually, human ninjas traveled in packs, right? Of three, or sometimes four. This one looked to be alone. Was it from a village that didn't work in packs? Was it even from a village? Maybe she should check, since that might also influence her decision. There was a headband or something around it's forehead- she figured that was it's village symbol. Shrugging to herself, she reached forwards to push the humans bangs to one side and catch a glimpse of the headband- and maybe it's face, also.

... ... ... Huh. She didn't know there even WAS a village of "Oil." Well, if she healed him, then he would tell her about it, right?

Clicking her tongue at fate's design, she gently let her hands fall onto the human's -she should start calling it a he, not an it, since that might not blow over so well- chest. She willed a tiny, tiny amount of chakra into her hands. It couldn't be too much, the human can't handle very much. Smaller then that, smaller, smaller... there, maybe that was small enough. Satisfied with the amount she was able to NOT gather, she pushed it into the -man- and prayed -he- accepted it as easily as Naruto accepted the Kyubii's chakra when he was healing Naruto.

It didn't really occur to her that he might accept it a bit too well.

She was startled as the human seemed to grab onto the chakra and pull. What in the five layers- it wasn't even awake! How could it just take her chakra like that?! Chigatto panicked a bit as more chakra rushed forwards before she could get it under control, and in a desperate attempt to do something practically smacked the chakra into doing what she wanted while it was in the poor human. It roared into his chakra pathways, it smashed closed his wounds, and it was really, really hard to get under control.

Apparently, this must have been a bit painful, because the guy jolted awake. It's head came up, it's eyes locked with hers- both with a paniced, pained look on their face. And then, the connection was cut. The chakra stopped flowing into her hands, and no more got sucked brutally from her. But, she wasn't going to take back the chakra the human already stole, since it seemed to settle into his own chakra system. Now, wasn't that strange?

The human blinked at her slowly, before it closed it's- his- eyes again. Since they didn't open again, she assumed he fell back asleep. But she wasn't staying to find out! After that, she was getting out of here! There was no need to stick around, the human was fine, and blast it she could find out about that strange headband from somewhere else! That chakra-stealing mongrel was on his own!

With a mixture of anger and panic and a bit of confusion, Chigatto bolted back towards the road she came from, and took off down it as fast as she could. She didn't bother with civilian speed, and skipped "ninja-fast" speed to go to "Ultra-fast something-or-other-that-looked-like-a-ninja-but-was-to-fast-to-tell" speed. She had never come across a human that could steal a demons chakra while they slept, and she never wanted to again!

Somewhere, the kami looked down upon their frazzled creation, and laughed at what they had in store for her. And in another version of this universe, Jiaryia was not healed, and was found by a woodcutter in a few minutes. The woodcutter carried him home, where, since there was no medic ninja around, they had to heal him the normal way. Jairyia took weeks to wake up from his coma, and months to get back to Konoha, just in time for the Chuunin exams. Instead, the woodcutter woke up Jairya, who made it to Konoha in a few hours.

This led to three things: In the next edition of Icha Icha, there was a new character; a pale-haired heroine who was a nurse and a skilled healer, and an amazing plot-twist because of her, which made Icha-Icha more popular than it ever was before.

It also led to him getting into the Hokages office just before he had signed the Team Assignments, and suggested a few changes. A few people were swapped around, and the teams changed.

And, finally, a little village to the north got an unexpected visitor at their gates. Too bad for them.