The silent forest morning was interrupted by the ecstasy of a girl dancing around on the water. Yes, you read right, on the water. The girl went by the name of Setouchi and had, after various events started traveling with a blond host going by the name of Naruto. Together they were southbound for the village hidden in the leaf, Konoha. After all time never slowed for anyone, and the time for the chunin exams had arrived. Unlike with Zabuza, sending a duplicate would not be enough, Orochimaru could not be taken lightly and the host couldn't decide on a plan, every action would have consequences, immutable, cold, hard consequences. Though right now, the training of his traveling companion game his mind some rest from the worries and horrors which were still fresh in his mind. The company was invaluable, at last he wasn't alone anymore. Not to say the fox didn't count, without it, the blond would have lost his sanity long ago, but having a living, breathing, friend with him let take a breather and endure. Right now though it frustrated him.

"So impressed?" she chipped coming back from the water. He looked over her and there wasn't a single hint of water, the moment she had started feeling the chakra flow she had had a complete control over it. "Jealous." he replied sighting. She looked surprised and sighted herself. "For some reason that doesn't do anything, ah well." she laughed. She just had a happy aura about her, it just felt good. Not only that but she was a quick study, a very quick study. In fact, her inborn chakra control was so exquisite that she could do basic techniques without hand signs, which served as catalysts to balance out physical and spiritual energies. "You have any idea how irritating it is for someone who has the worst control in history to watch someone controlling it like a master instinctively?" he moaned resting against a the tree. Her only answer was to stretch.

"Say..." she started slowly. His eyes opened slowly, he was greeted by a leaning forward, hand putting her hair behind her hair again, gentle smile. All in all it was very cute. "Ah… and so, what do you want?" he asked. Naturally she faked being surprised and innocent. After all this was her standard "I want something, so I'm laying the ground work first" pose. As sweetly as possible she crouched to his level and blushed looking at him in the eyes and away. It had to be said, she was more cunning than any fox and an unassuming stranger would fall for the trap headfirst. "I was wondering… you know… if you could teach me how to summon the fox like you did." was not something the blond had even remotely considered would be her request. His surprise was not lost on her who was as surprised as he was by his reaction. Letting her be ahead too long would be dangerous though, and he'd pay later. "Hmm…" he started, having regained his posture, acting as though he would consider her request. He nodded to himself twice making her smile. A smile and thumbs up came her way to fill her with joy at the good news. "No." "Eh?" "No." Realizing he'd outsmarted her she sighed. Her head dropped as he sat back. Following his lead she sat down against the tree next to him. "Here" she said and hit him in the arm. Moments went by as they sat in silence. "Say, then, how about you tell me about the ninja world? I don't know anything about it..."

This time he agreed, after all, if she was to train as a ninja, she'd need to know the ninja world. "Well… where to begin… (ah yes! Hobbits have been living and farming in the four Farthings of the Shire for many hundreds of years." "Hey! You said you'd tell me! Be serious." she cried. "Oops, wrong world. My Bad.) Well, as a traveling merchant, you know of the different countries, the Land of Fire, Land of lightning and so on and so forth. What you don't know though, is that some of those countries have hidden villages which are the ninja villages. For the land of Fire it's Konoha, the village hidden in the leaf, it's where I grew up and where we're going." She nodded. "There are six major shinobi villages, Konohagakure, Sunagakure, Iwagakure, Kumogakure, Amegakure and Kirigakure. These six have been the stage of many wars in the past. I can't speak for the other villages for sure, but it's pretty much the same for any village. You have the civilian branch that assure the functioning of the village, chefs, farmers, traders and stuff. And then there is the fighting branch. In theory anyone can become a ninja, and anyone can decide not to be. But actually, nearly all kids born from shinobi become ninja's themselves and most kids born from civilians, stay civilians. When you're born, you have a set quantity of chakra, the quantity you have will determine how much you will have. As you grow so does your chakra pool, but a baby born with a small amount of chakra will never have more chakra than one born with lots. Now all that's theory, there's probably an exception, but then there's an exception to everything relating to ninjutsu. In general males are born with more chakra than females." "Of course… cheaters…" she whispered which earned her a smack on the head. "That doesn't have to be bad. The main results of your chakra pool is your fighting style and your abilities. For example…" he started before getting up and walking over to a tree. "If I want to mow down this tree for some reason, having a big pool of chakra, I can just use it as such as a destructive power." as he was talking, what seemed like a blue fire started surrounding him before rushing forward towards the tree. The results left no room for debate, it had been pulverized. "But that doesn't mean someone with less can't do the same thing. Chakra on it's own is a very… strange thing, it's incredibly potent, and yet it's terribly inefficient. I can blow away another tree with not even a tenth of the chakra I used previously." he finished as he thrust a blue orb into another tree, having the same result. "Jutsu's mold the chakra to the users intention. The downside is, the more chakra you have, the harder it is to control it, on the other hand, the less you have, the easier it is to control it." "Wait… does that mean I have almost none at all?" asked the girl sounding defeated. "No, it's too early to tell for you how much you have or don't have. Your chakra in your body flows by network intertwined with your organs, blood vessels and stuff. But it needs use to maintain itself. If one doesn't use it for years in a row, it has tendency to "fall asleep". Most of your chakra pool isn't available to you yet, as you train, it'll wake up and then you'll know how much you have." He finished before sitting down again. "The gain of a good control is, as you already know, you can use less chakra to execute a technique. A perfect control though, where you can mix the exact amount of energy necessary, is nigh on nonexistent. You seem to have it though, and as you saw, you can use jutsu's instantaneously, without hand signs. In combat that's invaluable because it means you can attack and defend faster than your opponent which is stuck with going through signs, sometimes ridiculously long symbols which often leaves them vulnerable. Not only that but it enables you to do stuff I can't do." "Really?" "Yup, healing jutsu's are immensely difficult because you're messing around with a living body. If you want to close a wound, you have to be able to control your chakra on the cellular level. A bad control means you could do heavy damages instead of helping. Like I said earlier, chakra is annoyingly potently inefficient. But if you're healing and lose control, the chakra could easily burn other cells and destroy them instead of replacing a healing the ones you meant to." "Uh huh." she nodded to show she was still following.

"Back to shinobies, your strength is defined mostly by chakra control and techniques mastered. Every technique pretty much has strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes a jutsu is created specifically to counter another one. To master many techniques takes time, some require more or less chakra to execute. This is why generally younger shinobi's are weaker than older ones, because they've haven't finished expanding their chakra pool, their chakra control hasn't been trained and they haven't learned many techniques. But there is no absolute rule which means that older is stronger. As such ninja's start by the rank of genins. They're fresh from the academy where you learn the most basic of chakra controls and techniques. Mostly it's boring history and protocols and stuff. One you become a genin you're put into a four man squad generally determined to ally strength of the members. Three genins and one jonin which is the highest shinobi level. The jonin then takes over the training until the chunin exams which allows you to pass to the intermediate level. Until then you just train and go on easy missions to acquire experience and develop your chakra. Then once you're a chunin the squad is disbanded and you might get sent to missions on your own or in squads depending on the particular needs. Training is up to you then. You can then do as you wish, you can become part of the "army" of the village. Unlike most ninja's they are not sent to missions, they serve as the striking and defending force of a nation, the one that goes to war. Or you can stay a chunin and become an academy instructor, and perform missions. Most want to pass the jonin exam though. Each village tries the hardest to be the best in missions that are assigned to them because that's their main income source, each time a village accepts a mission request a certain payment is demanded depending on the particular mission. A good reputation means more contracts which means more money. Unfortunately not all contracts are good and then it's up to the village leaders to decide what to do. Say you hate your neighbor, you can go to a hidden village and request an assassination mission on them. Some decline, some accept. That's the sad truth that many people ignore about shinobi. Like everyone some have morals, some don't and do the most unspeakable things in the world. Torture isn't forbidden and no international laws exist, there's no central overwhelming power in charge, so no one can force countries to comply with some moral..."

"What about you? Would you torture someone?" she asked, their eyes locked. Her stare caught him off guard, it seemed to burn through him, if he lied no matter how small she'd know. "Depends on the situation I guess… A soldier can be called innocent, he's just someone doing his job, it's nothing personal. But if the suffering of one can save the lives of many… I don't know, maybe… On the other hands, I have no qualms about torturing someone who deserves it." he finished his voice dropping cold. "What would qualify as torture worthy for you?" "Actions, so… rape, mindless slaughters, I don't know, things where I consider it's uncalled for and inexcusable." "I see..." she said softly. "I was expecting you to… well be against me." "Huh? No… I don't think I could ever torture anyone no matter the circumstances… But there isn't a single 'right' opinion to have, circumstances change, you can't foresee every possible situation… I felt you were a good person, I still believe that and it's not up to me to judge you, all I have to do is trust you." she finished with a gentle smile which made the blond feel fuzzy. "You're evil you know..." he said quietly. "What? Why?..." she questioned quickly, which made him smile. "Not telling." "Tell me more again sometime ok? I want to know more about the ninja life and about all the things about you you're not telling me." she asked getting up however silence was her answer. "You don't have to tell me now, just when you're ready, I'll listen to you, I'll be here." she finished. He sighed but accepted defeat and nodded, after all, he didn't particularly want to hide or lie to her, he'd just take it as it goes along.

Back on the road, they walked in silence. The road was still long, they would still need about a week to get to Konoha at the pace they were going. Her training had now started being physical. She would spare on the way with one of his clones. At first he had gone easy, not hitting her which rubbed her the wrong way. She had chewed him out, arguing that a real foe would not go easy or pull his punch. He had conceded her point and while the clone was only a fraction of his strength, it did take the fight seriously, earning her bruises and cuts. The atmosphere wasn't displeasing though. They were growing closer by the day, what had started off as simple chemistry had developed into real ties.

"How strong are you?" she asked one day after a spar. "Huh? Well… I don't mean to boast… put I'm the strongest ninja in the world!" he laughed pointing at himself, smiling ear to ear." "Ah, so!" she replied and sighed. "What about the fox?" she followed up. "He's… theoretically half of the most powerful being in the world." "Theoretically? Half?" "Yes, theoretically because he's the one who has the most chakra in the world, but right now he's only half of the being he once was, through… events he was sealed and lost half of his chakra." "You're saying that that fox is Kyubi and you're his host?" she asked nonchalantly. His foot froze in the air. Noticing he stopped she looked back and his surprised expression let her know what he was about. "Huh? You know, there's no one in the world that hasn't heard about the attack 14 years ago. And after seeing the fox, I was suspicious, but this doesn't change anything you know." she said pinching his forehead. "You're an idiot, so what? I learned a long time ago, the official story, what happened, who did what, who didn't do something, unless you're there you can't know for sure, and even if you are there, what if you've been duped? I judge everyone I meet on who they are, not on what some idiot says. I've met a sweet, sad, half empty guy who's got a fire prepared and only just needs a spark for the fire to go ablaze again. The fox saved my life, I have no reason to fear or hate you, so far the only thing I feel is that I like you for the person you've shown me you are." sealed any sensation of fear the blond had had. No one had ever said something like that to him before and the effect was not lost on him. Hiding his eyes behind his hand in embarrassment he walked over to her and bonked her on the head. "Hey-!" she cried, unable to continue as shoved her face in between his neck and shoulder. "Thank you" was all he said. Two arms snaked around his waist and held him tight. "Anytime."

"I'm hungry!" she moaned. Groaning was her answer. "There's nowhere to stop around here… It's just a traveling route..." he answered, his stomach growling to reveal him being in a similar state. "I know!" She snapped quickly, before moaning again, "I am a trader you know, I know the roads, and road stops." And so their journey continued silently. "Hey, how about a race?" she chirped. "Huh?" "Yeah, a race, like that we go faster and it passes time… say until that water over there." pointing towards a small creek near the entry to the forest. "No chakra, and no cheating." she finished. "Why not..." replied the host, he wasn't particularly in the mood for it, but it seemed wise to go along with her when she was running on empty. "Ready! Get set!" she started. The blond froze stiff as she pecked his cheek before running off laughing. The trick had worked, as he wiggled his head back into action, she had already taken the lead by far. A low pitch laughter resounded from inside the blond. "She got you there." the fox chuckled. "You saw that did you?" Naruto sighed "The whole works, she's a lot more cunning than you are kit…" No answer came, because nothing was to be answered, it was undeniable, every time she did something, he hadn't expected it. As he ran up to her she stuck her tongue out and laughed. He couldn't help it, he did as well, she was as merry as it got.

"Still though… I'm starv-" before she could finish, he grabbed her and hid behind some foliage. "What's going on?" she whispered quickly, alert. "We're not alone, and I didn't sense them before they were real close, I don't like that..." came the reply. Sudden appearances usually were some shinobi appearing. This land was far from any hidden villages, and was free, no country had hold over it, it could be rogues, and bandits. "… Are you serious?" she asked incredulous catching his attention. "…?" he looked at her, she knew something he didn't. "It's 'normal'." she started especially insisting on normal. "This forest messes with ninja's, chakra has a hard time going in or out of it, the stronger the ninja, the more it affects them, or so the story goes. You didn't know about it?" she asked. And indeed he didn't, he had never passed through this forest, there was a more direct route, but this one being remote and scenic ensured he wouldn't be seen when he didn't want to. A horse emerged from the forest followed by a cart. Her laughter left him embarrassed. "This!…" she tried between fits. "Come on!" she said grabbing him by the arm. Running back to the road she got in the path of the cart as the horse stopped inches from her head. "Some say blocking a merchant will bring about the curses of the world." The old man said scratching his beard. "Others say refusing help to a poor young and pretty lady is a crime." she answered as the stare off went on leaving Naruto to feel more and more as an awkward scenery piece. The staring contest broke as both parties shared a laugh confusing the third person present even more. "Set! It's good to see you." the old man started getting off his cart. She ran to him and they shared an embrace. Unwillingly, witnessing the action made him stiff up. "Pouhahahaha! You're jealous! Wahahahah" burst the fox "Am not!" barked back the blond the red rising to his cheeks beyond his control. "Jealous of an old fossil, of an old man!" "..." no answer was to be had for despite disliking it himself, he couldn't deny to himself that, it did… in a small way… to some extent, in some part of his being, rub him the wrong way.

"It's been a while girl!" the old man laughed, "where's Lawrence that old rascal!" he continued, immediately regretting his words. "Oh..." "Yeah..." she said quietly. "You alright lass?" he asked "Yeah!" she quickly replied, for she was honestly alright, losing her father had been a blow, but that was how life went, she knew that too well. "How about him then who's he?" he asked nodding downwards in recognition of Naruto's presence, the blond doing the same. "He's… My tea drinking, race partner, laugh sharing friendlish friend." "Friendlish?" "Friendlishly friendlish!" she laughed. His gaze wore heavy on the blond. "What's this sensation… I've felt it before." "Ai. Tis the same heavy judging gaze someone's father gave you the first time she introduced you to her old man." "Well if little Set approves of you, I have nothing to say about it." came the judgment. "Now you old geezer, you got anything edible?" she asked a devilish grin on her figure. "Ai, there I recognize you, as much a shark as your old man was… What'll it be? I have quite the fancy load today, raw salmon, some foie gras… caviar." he finished as her expression turned to disgust. "Eww." she replied. Small little eggs aren't for everyone apparently. "Well you know what, that foie gras as you say it sounds… smells pretty attractive. Yup I'll have half your load of it and salmon, any bread to go with it?" "Sure." "Some chocolate to finish up." "You sure you're not writing a shopping list?" he asked untying the cargo he was hauling on the cart. "I'll get to writing the contract." she announced bringing out a pen and some paper. "Lass, you don't need to..." he started " "A good trader never takes or gives, he trades, always." " was her answer. "Stubborn girl." he mumbled setting down the right crates. A signature from both parties and the ledger was done. "That's half the debt you had over me." "Ai, that was half the debt lad." she replied mimicking his accent for a small laugh. "Well young folks, a storm is brewin' and I ain't gonna be in it. Want a ride?" he asked. "No but thanks for the offer, we're going to Konoha, it's the other direction from where you're going." she declined a small smile on her lips. The old trader got back on the cart and settled in position. "Twas good seeing you girl." he said with a warmth that only old people had. "Well stay out of the rain, and out of trouble! May the blessings of fortune go with you." "Try not to get six foot under too fast you old geezer." she replied. "Hpmf. C'mon Lumpy y'old girl." With a flick of the reins, the cart started as he waved them farewell.

"Who was he?" Naruto asked, finally walking over to her. "Well no one knows his actual name, he was a ninja in the last war or so we think and has no memories himself. But he was a friend of my father's." she said "Let's bring this under the trees before it rains." The food was brought over and with a few handsigns from the blond, a cheap, dirt cabin appeared. Naruto sent a few clones away to gather wood and quickly enough they were under a roof with a fire going. "Shouldn't we have asked that old man if he wanted to stay?" he asked. "Well… It's not raining yet and he needs to make good time. He's trying to get as far away from the sea as fast as possible. Fresh fish is harder to come by in places with no water so they fetch a better price." The host nodded. "Then what about the don't accept and don't give thing?" he asked. "Well, I don't have anything against giving, it's just that if you give, you're not turning a profit, in other words you're not being a merchant at all. It's just shy of pure loss. As for never accept for free… When you trade you have a contract, it's something quantitative, it's something you can clearly see how much is owed. On the other hand, if you accept something for free, then you own the giver a favor. That isn't quantitative, there's no way to define how big of a favor is owed. It's a risk, what if he then asks you to smuggle something in repayment for the favor? You can decline, but in trading reputation is a big part of it, mess it up and it's gonna be loss later. As much as possible you want to have as many people owe you favors without owning anything to anyone. It's then a delicate balance, be too kind and people will take you for a pigeon and you'll lose profit eventually when people stop taking you seriously, on the other hand, be too strict and you'll be labeled a shark, people will then look for ways to get back at you, balance is the key, remind them they owe you, but only ever call in small easily achievable favors at a time. That way people don't fear being in your debt and you always have cards to play." she explained before chewing down on some foie gras spread on some bread. "Here have some." she handed him a piece of bread. "I'll just be happy with some salmon." he replied. She sighed and gulped down on her own piece. "I said… have some." she insisted before grabbing the back of his head and shoving the bread down his throat. He was about to shiver and complain about the bread when he stopped himself. "Actually..." he thought to himself. "Not bad huh? You have to get used to it, but in small quantities, it's actually really really good." and as to prove her point chucked down some more. "Sliced samon with bread and some butter is also… reallllllllll good." she purred.

The pair continued with small talk in their improvised shelter as the heavens opened and dirt turned to mud.

A/N: Heya guys, another easy going chapter. Things get spiced up next time though! Trying to improve my writing, so hope you enjoy, but I have a long ways to go to be even remotely able to compete with the awesome writings here on FanFic. Well that's it, cheers!