Chapter 11

Exploration and Strangers

'Single quotations' = Thoughts

Italics = Untranslated Japanese

x

Over the next week, I came to slowly but surely expand my horizons, and become used to a schedule of sorts.

Every morning, I would wake up at 6:00. I would wash and tidy myself up, and work fruitlessly on seals for a little while before giving up. No matter what I tried, I wasn't able to get a reaction from the seals. I'd even tried the exact same Google Translate seal of the past, but even that had no result.

At approximately 7:00, the preteens would arrive. Sasuke would open the curtains and sit on the windowsill, Sakura would plop down on my bed and curiously study my latest seal attempts, and Naruto would happily babble away to me while I politely nodded every few seconds or so. I had no idea what in the world he was talking about, but well, I didn't have the heart to ignore him.

Around 7:30, the preteens would play rock paper scissors. The loser would have to go fetch breakfast. Unfortunately for Naruto, he was more often than not the loser. I was pretty sure that the other two were cheating somehow.

While I ate breakfast, the preteens would warm up with a few laps up and down the wall outside my window. Around the time I finished with breakfast, they were usually working out in earnest. Naruto, after I expressed extreme interest in his clones, delighted in sparring with them for my amusement. Sakura focused usually on chakra control exercises such as walking or standing upside down. Sasuke was the most diverse of the three. Sometimes he practiced his fire breathing. Other times he practiced his hand-to-hand combat or knife throwing.

Between 9:01 and 9:35 Kakashi would finally arrive and then the training would really start. Unfortunately, my training would begin as well.

For lunch, thanks to my newfound freedom, we took to eating out as often as possible. Naruto especially delighted in showing me his favorite ramen stand where he introduced me to the chef and the chef's daughter.

After lunch was more training, but not back at the hospital, but at a separate, surprisingly private, training ground.

At 4:00, training ended and the preteens would drag me around the village again, and later to find dinner. The first time this happened, Sasuke tried to sneak off, but Naruto and Sakura had managed to somehow guilt him into staying. Kakashi however always disappeared no matter how hard the preteens tried to keep him around. He usually reappeared at about 8:30 to walk with us back to the hospital to drop me off if we weren't there already.

So this was my usual schedule, and though I was constantly and frantically worrying about my Papa underneath my smiling mask, the busy days helped dull the pain.

x

By June 23rd, after a week of fruitless training, Kakashi had pretty much given up on me. He realized that my stamina was nonexistent (no thanks to my anemia) and that my hand-eye coordination was completely abysmal.

The only time when I felt as if I was keeping up with the preteens was when I used chakra to help me. However, my reserves were so pathetic that Kakashi and Ren soon banned me from using it altogether.

By the way, dear, sweet, amazing, wonderful, fantastic, magnificent Sakura got me a new shirt. It was a simple burgundy high collar sleeveless shirt, and I thought I looked positively chic wearing it. It went well with my coloring I think. I know that I'm gushing, but I can't help it. After the dress-length man shirt fiasco, the new shirt was heaven sent.

Oh, and Death Cat was still watching me. While at the hospital and training grounds, he made no effort to hide his presence and openly sat on a tree branch nearby. I wasn't sure what he did all day. Sometimes, I was sure that he had turned to stone, or at the very least, fallen asleep. However, due to his mask, it was impossible to tell.

"Fei, try one more time." Kakashi lazily ordered me.

'Come on Fay. You can do it! You've been throwing this hunk of metal for the last week you know.' I told myself.

Gripping the kunai firmly, I shifted and coiled my muscles in anticipation. My posture was perfect, my grip was superb, my aim was right on, and my release could not have been more on time. However, the kunai wobbled and fell short of the target once again. My muscles were just too weak. If only I had more chakra, I could have reinforced my muscles, but alas that was not to be.

With a sigh, Kakashi plucked the kunai off the ground. He hesitated. For a second, I was sure he was going to give me the kunai again, but instead, he flipped it away with an effortless snap of his wrist. 'Show off.'

The gray haired man scratched the back of his head wearily as he studied my dejected expression. I didn't want to be a ninja. I didn't want to fight and kill and be all sneaky. However, this didn't mean that I wasn't discouraged by my lack of improvement. I may not want to be a ninja, but it didn't mean I wanted to fail at everything Kakashi was trying to teach me. It was embarrassing.

Smiling gently, Kakashi ruffled up my hair with a fond pat. I didn't even bother working up a glare, as I knew it had no affect on him. Instead, I sighed and made my way over to the preteens who were practicing with their shuriken.

Of the three, Sasuke seemed to have the most familiarity with the star shaped weapons. I noticed during spars that he liked to mix his shuriken with his fire breathing technique. Not for the first time, I wondered how in the world the ninja's were able to do what they did.

A few days ago, I had made Naruto extremely uncomfortable by poking and prodding one of his clones. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but my curiosity got out of hand and I had almost made the poor clone cry when I started pulling out his hairs to see if they would stay solid once apart from the clone.

Today I wanted to see how Sasuke's fire breathing worked. All in the name of science of course…Ok, I admit it - I was just bored and curious.

"Sasuke." I called out. Said dark haired boy paused in his shuriken throwing to look at me blankly. Shifting my weight nervously, I shuffled closer to the boy and gave him my best puppy-dog eyes. He tried to act like it wasn't affecting him, but I saw the subtle twitch in his eyebrow and the slight grimace of unease. 'Hah! Gotcha!' I thought victoriously.

Bringing up one hand, I made the hand seal Sasuke used for his fire breathing technique, and blew a quick puff of air over my fingers in a weak imitation. Naruto and Sakura had also paused in their training to watch the development.

Sasuke looked extremely confused. I blew over my hands again to really hammer in the message. The boy closed his eyes and gave an aggravated sigh, but he did as he was asked.

"Katon Goukakyuu no Jutsu!" Sasuke yelled as he made his hand seals and breathed out a stream of burning hot fire.

With wide eyes I studied the exit of the flames from Sasuke's mouth. I realized with surprise that the fire wasn't actually coming from his mouth but was forming just past his lips around his hand.

Once the technique ended, Sasuke gave me a look that seemed to say, 'Well, are you happy now?' In response, I grabbed his hand and studied it.

'Hm…no burns on his hands. Not even particularly warm either.' Next I leaned nearer towards Sasuke, to Sakura and Naruto's horror, and looked around the edge of his mouth. Sasuke leaned away from me with a wary look on his face.

'No burns around his mouth.'

"Sasuke, Ahhhh." I ordered the boy, opening my own mouth wide so that he could clearly see what I wanted him to do.

By then, Sasuke was glaring furiously. Hn'ing, he backed away from me and firmly shook his head no.

'Oh well…I knew he wouldn't agree with that last one.' I thought with a mental sigh of disappointment. I really wanted to see if he had any extra glands full of flammable gas or something in his mouth.

x

For lunch, the preteens decided on Ramen…again. Truthfully, I think it was because Naruto wouldn't shut up about ramen so the other two just gave in. We hadn't had ramen for lunch in a while so I was okay with it. Not to mention, I wanted to try the miso flavor.

We were walking, in Naruto's case joyfully bouncing, towards Ichiraku Ramen when Kakashi suddenly paused and looked up.

Circling in the sky was a hawk of some kind.

"Hm…sorry, seems like I won't be able to join you guys for lunch after all." Said Kakashi. And before anyone could question or even protest, he disappeared with a poof.

I gave the preteens a questioning look. Sakura and Naruto shrugged in response.

We started heading in the direction of the restaurant again when we noticed a square box with eyeholes following Naruto. I think the box was supposed to be a rock…but I wasn't sure.

Naruto at first tried to ignore the box, and then he tried to shake off the stalking box before finally losing his temper.

"That's the worst disguise of all time! There's no such thing as square rocks! It's completely obvious!"

There was a mumbled reply from the box before a sudden bright flash of light and smoke blinded my vision. With a loud bang, three children appeared from the smoke, two boys and a girl. They all had goggles on, and were coughing their lungs out from inhaling the pink gas that formed.

Immediately concerned for their health, I rushed over to make sure they hadn't hurt themselves.

"Daijoubu?" (Are you okay?) I asked in Japanese.

"Cough-we're-cough fine. Too much gun powder." The boy with spiky brown hair managed to say through his wheezing.

"Konohamaru! Why are you guys following me?" Demanded Naruto.

"Boss! You promised to play ninja with us! Remember?"

"Uh…" Naruto mumbled while awkwardly scratching the back of his head, "Did I say that?"

"You did!"

With a sigh, Naruto said, "Sorry guys. I don't have time to play with you; after all, I'm a real ninja now. Anyways, I have to train, and I'm on a mission right now."

"Mission?" The boy, Konohamaru I believe, asked. He looked around him. First, his gaze fell on Sasuke, who looked positively pissed off about the whole situation, then it fell on Sakura who just looked exasperated and annoyed. Finally, he looked at me.

"Hey you! Where's your headband huh?" He asked me. I of course just blinked at him blankly.

"Idiot! She doesn't have one because she's not a ninja! My mission is to protect her, believe it!" Naruto half yelled.

Konohamaru just squinted at me suspiciously. I gave him my best cheerful smile, but it twitched in the face of his fierce stare.

"…Is she retarded?" Konohamaru asked after carful consideration. Immediately the mood of the preteens shifted to anger, and to my surprise, Konohamaru was on the ground clutching his head after three fists bashed into him.

"Tsk. Annoying." Sasuke grunted.

"You shouldn't say that about others! It's very rude." Sakura scolded.

"Brat! Fei nee-chan isn't retarded!" Yelled Naruto.

"Gahh! All right already! She's not retarded." Konohamaru grumbled while clutching the top of his head gingerly. The boy glanced in my direction. I just stared at him with wide eyes before asking him once again, "Daijoubu?"

Konohamaru eyed me skeptically. "Mentally challenged then…" He muttered to himself.

I don't know what he said, but it seemed to irritate the preteens once again. Sakura especially looked livid. The chakra from all three preteens spiked dangerously, and Konohamaru seemed to sense this as he paled.

Picking himself off the ground, the boy immediately sped off like a bullet while Naruto and Sakura gave chase. Sasuke's glare followed the boy, but he just scowled and walked off in the other direction.

Not knowing what to do, I exchanged confused glances with the other two kids and followed after Naruto and Sakura.

When I rounded the corner, I came upon a very strange situation. Konohamaru was being held in the grasp of a tall dangerous looking teen whose face was painted with purple paint, and Naruto was glaring at said teen. A girl with blonde hair stood a little behind the face paint boy, she looked exasperated.

I felt anger bubble up when I saw poor Konohamaru being manhandled by the big bully.

"Hey! Let go of him you bastard!" Naruto roared, his hands balling up into fists.

Sakura, ever the diplomat said, "Naruto! That's not going to help." She then turned to the strangers. "I'm sorry, it was my fault. Please let go of him."

"Heh. So this is Konoha's genin. What pathetic excuses for ninjas." The bully taunted.

"Bastard!" Naruto roared as he launched himself at the stranger. To my shock Naruto was suddenly flung back despite the fact that nothing had seemed to touch the blond.

"The heck?" Naruto wondered while looking around in confusion.

"L-et me g-go!" Konohamaru croaked. The boy's face was screwed up in obvious pain. He couldn't breath!

"Let's deal with this kid first." The painted boy sneered.

"Kankurou, you can't be serious."

"I'm just having some fun Temari. Anyways, I've got to teach these brats a lesson."

A sigh from the girl, "Fine, but I had nothing to do with this."

When the stranger pulled back his arm to punch Konohamaru a rock suddenly smacked in to his hand causing him to drop his hold on the squirming boy. I started and spun around to see where the rock came from.

"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura squealed. Indeed, the brooding boy was tossing a few rocks in his hand – his holier-than-thou smirk firmly in place.

I was thankful that Sasuke had arrived, but at the same time, I was worried that the situation would escalate into a full out battle. The preteens were ninja, but the strangers were too. Not to mention the strangers were taller and older as well.

"You!" The painted boy snarled.

Before Sasuke could reply, I decided to try to defuse the situation.

Stepping forward, I made my way towards the strangers with wide eyes. My sudden appearance seemed to throw everyone off-guard, especially the strangers.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! Nee-chan! Don't go near them!" Screeched Naruto.

"What the hell do you want?" The stranger asked me with a warning growl in his tone.

Instead of answering, I held up my pointer finger and gave him a scolding look. "Bad. No ouch to my friends. Understand?" I admonished.

There was a pregnant pause.

"The F-ck?"

'Well…it seemed that my plan worked.' The tension and battle lust had faded away to confusion (from the strangers) and apprehensive exasperation (from the preteens).

Unfortunately, the confusion from the tall boy switched to annoyance and anger. I could practically see a vein throbbing in his forehead.

"Are you mocking me? Is this your idea of a joke?" Growled the boy.

'Uh oh…crap, retreat! Retreat!' I took a quick step backwards trying to bring myself into the fold of the preteens but found myself unable to move back any further. I didn't know what it was, but something was restricting my movement.

I gave a small yelp of distress and immediately Naruto and Sasuke drew their weapons and readied themselves to fight. However, before the two boys could start World War Three, a cold voice cut in.

"Kankurou. Stop."

I jumped in surprise and glanced up to the tree Sasuke was crouching in to see a red haired youth hanging upside down on a branch. It seemed that Sasuke hadn't noticed the red haired boy's approach either, as there was a irritated expression on his face. An expression I knew he often put on when trying to seem unaffected.

"You're a disgrace to our village."

"G-Ga-ara!" The boy, who I surmised to be Kankurou, stuttered out. I could practically see the sweat dribbling down his face.

There was a terrifying aura around the new stranger. I felt just a sliver of his bloody, burning chakra and immediately pulled in my chakra in terror. Not to mention, thanks to having a sensitive nose coupled by a convenient draft, I could smell a hint of metal off of the boy. It smelled remarkably like blood.

When I experimentally tried to take a step back, I realized to my relief that my mobility had returned. Mentally berating myself for the screwed up diplomatic mission, I hurried to stand behind the preteens knowing that I was useless in battle.

In a whirl of sand, the red haired boy with the gigantic gourd on his back disappeared and rematerialized next to his two teammates. The boy…he had no eyebrows and had the wildest dark circles I'd ever seen.

'Panda…or perhaps a raccoon.'

I noticed the character for love was tattooed on his forehead. Perhaps while doing the tattoo something had gone wrong and permanently destroyed the eyebrows? Who knew?

"Why are Sand shinobi here?" Sasuke asked icily.

'Brrrr. I can literally feel the cold, Sasuke.'

"We're here for the Chuunin Exam of course." The girl answered.

"Huh? Chuunin exam? What's that? I don't know about any exam?" Asked Naruto with an adorably perplexed expression. He looked like a curious puppy. He even had his head cocked to the side in question.

Rolling her eyes and smirking, the girl drawled, "Oh, I don't doubt it."

"Boss, isn't the Chuunin exam what the genin take in order to become Chuunin?" Hissed Konohamaru.

"Hey really? Yeah, Chuunin exam, I'm totally up for that! Sign me up! Believe it!"

The strangers just scoffed, turned around and started to walk away.

"Hey wait. Who are you?" Sasuke called after them.

I almost snorted in laughter when the girl spun around with a hopeful, flirty look. "Oh! Me?"

"No. Him."

The red haired boy's eyes narrowed a fraction as he replied, "Sabaku no Gaara. And you?"

Another cocky grin from the dark haired preteen, "Uchiha Sasuke."

'Ah…so they were exchanging names. So I guess the red head is Sabaku no Gaara.'

With that, the three blurred as they leapt away faster than my eyes could follow.

A/N: So there you go. The Chuunin Exams are starting soon! Now things are really going to begin. You don't know how much I wanted to skip everything and just jump to this part of the story. Thank you to all the reviewers! Over FORTY review! OMG! I wanted to update quickly to thank all of you. Like I promised, since the review count just passed 200, another quick extra. Enjoy.

POV: Death God…who was demoted to Death Cat

A/N: So you know, I always thought the whole idea of ANBU being called by their animal masks to be impossible considering the manga never did this, and because there are too many ANBU with the same animal mask. So I decided to give the code name Daiki to Death God.

"Hokage-sama." Daiki intoned impassively as he kneeled subserviently in front of the Hokage's desk.

"Ah. Daiki. How are you feeling? Wound's have all healed?"

"Yes, I am fit for active duty."

"Hm…" The Hokage shifted thoughtlessly through a few papers, his mind clearly on another topic.

"How would you like a vacation?" The old man suddenly asked.

Daiki stiffened in surprise, then wary apprehension. Somehow, he just knew that the Hokage was planning something; he could see it in the geezer's wrinkly face.

"…I would be…honored to accept a vacation."

The corners of the Hokage's mouth twitched and Daiki couldn't help but to despair. He was screwed. No doubt about it. Daiki feared that the Hokage had caught on to the fact that he had been one of the people to spread the story of how the Hokage had fainted from Naruto's sexy henge when the blond had stolen the forbidden scroll.

A glint of malice twinkled in the Hokage's eyes, and Daiki flinched behind his mask. He knew! No doubt about it, the Hokage knew.

"I think a nice easy C-rank mission within the comfort and safety of Konoha is just the thing, don't you?"

"Of course, Hokage-sama." Daiki managed to mumble out blankly.

"Yes…Hm. I hereby assign you as babysitter and caretaker of one Jonzu Fei until I deem otherwise."

Daiki felt his heart drop with dread. That meant he had to hang around the annoying banana head, the pink-haired rabid fan girl and the angst driven red-eyed revenge boy. Kami, he had to work in the same vicinity as Kakashi-senpai.

Despite his inner horror, Daiki gritted his teeth and respectfully answered with a blunt, "understood" before he disappeared from the room.

x

Daiki was bored. He was so bored that he had resorted to reading over Kakashi's shoulder from a distance. Of course to all onlookers, he was silently sitting on a tree seemingly staring off into space. There was more than one use for his mask you know.

After a good hour of reading along with Kakashi, Daiki realized with dismay that the book was actually really interesting. Groaning internally, he pried his gaze from the book and instead focused his attention to Kakashi's brats and the girl, Fei.

The girl was fruitlessly trying to throw shuriken at a tree stump to no avail. She had a miserable 1 out of 7 success rate. However, Daiki wasn't surprised. The half-hearted attempts to see if they could make the girl into a kunoichi was bound for failure from the very beginning. She was just too late to start, too delicate and too…civilian. There was a reason why shinobi were trained from a young age. It wasn't just the physical aspect, but a mental one as well. Shinobi had to be taught from a young age that fighting and killing was acceptable, something the girl obviously was never trained in.

"Yo."

Daiki twitched at the voice.

"Kakashi-senpai."

"Hm… you know if you want, I can lend you the book. It was just about to get to a really good part. Don't you want to know what happens to cute Aya-chan?"

This was why Daiki couldn't stand Kakashi-senpai.

"No thank you." Daiki replied shortly.

"Oh? Are you sure? Well, your loss then."

The silver-haired man went back to reading his book. There was a few minutes of silence where Daiki continued to watch the girl interact with the students.

As he watched Naruto bounce around the girl, with an evident look of happiness on his whiskered face, Daiki couldn't help but frown. His gaze next shifted to the brooding female wet dream, Sasuke. He was actually demonstrating how to hold the shuriken properly to Fei. And Sakura, she was far more mellow and mature around the universe-hopping girl.

"Kakashi-senpai. Isn't this dangerous?"

"Hm?"

"That girl, she's wriggled her way into your team. If this keeps up she'll have the Jinchuuriki, Konoha's last Uchiha and those two guy's precious female teammate, Sakura, in her grasp."

Kakashi was silent for a while before saying, "I don't think Fei would do anything to hurt the kids."

"You don't know that for sure. How did this happen anyways."

"Well. It's complicated."

"Try me."

Sighing, Kakashi peered up from the book to gaze at the girl and his students.

"In Naruto's case, it has a lot to do with his personality, his lonely childhood and his last mission. He's the type of guy who just accepts people. Starving for attention you could say, and Fei is very kind in giving him that attention that Naruto craves."

"You mentioned mission?"

"Ah. You heard of how our mission to the Wave went south?"

"Of course."

"Well, Zabuza's partner, a boy around their age befriended Naruto. Then I killed him. The failure to protect his friend scarred him more than he realizes himself. So when it looked like he failed again when Fei was taken away for interrogation, he went ballistic."

"Okay, what about Sakura."

"Simple. They're both female. Fei relies on Sakura more than she relies on the boys. They bond as fellow females, and Sakura gets to take on a lot of responsibility. It's helped her mature."

"Brooding boy?"

Kakashi smirked at the brooding boy comment before answering. "Sasuke's an orphan. He's lost a lot. Most of all, he feels guilty for being unable to save his clan. People don't know it, but he's very protective. Did I tell you, he jumped in the path of what he believed to be a fatal attack just to protect Naruto? And just look at her…she looks like she wouldn't be able to withstand a strong gust of wind. Hm…kind of tempted to see if she'll really fall over from a little wind jutsu."

"Don't even think about it."

"Mah mah. I'll resist the temptation…for now."

A/N: And that's the end!