Chapter 12- Can I fly?

Exactly four hours later, Naruto emerged from the brightly lit house with a smirk and a lot of blood on her previously black clothing. Most of it was unnoticeable, but quite a lot of the red liquid that was still fresh and gleaming showed up bright against the dark metal.

Well damn. She was going to have to do some serious washing when she got home.

"Oh well. It was worth it," she thought, chuckling slightly in sadistic glee at the thought of what she had done in the past few hours.

"You did well, kit. I don't think I could have done better," Kyuubi commented, smirking proudly at Naruto.

"Thanks, Kyuu-chan. I learnt from the best," the smile returned to Naruto's face and she turned away from the house.

Leaning forwards, she sprinted off again at her maximum speed. Naruto needed to arrive home and clean this, or she would be spotted and there would be trouble.


In Suna later that day, news reached Gaara's ears of a child killer who was murdered in the neighbouring country, Kawa no Kuni. It had been said that it was a six year old girl, dressed in black shinobi uniform, with blonde bunches that had killed him.

The killer had left a curious calling mark carved into the victim's forehead; a red star drawn in blood with a halo above it.

However, no-one really knew who had killed the man.


Naruto grimaced as she neared Konoha. It was coming up to 8 o'clock, like planned, and so the streets were full of people and ninja. Normally this wouldn't be a problem for her, but since she was now all bloody, the higher level shinobi would be able to tell that she was there by her scent.

So the blood needed to be disguised, now.

Stopping in a tall tree about 5 minutes away from the gate, she pulled out her emergency kit bag from her storage seal, and pulled out the soap.

Using her elemental chakra control practice, Naruto pulled the water from the air around her inwards towards all of her clothing. It was drenched as she easily controlled her second element to clean herself, and then she scrubbed at all of the bloodstains with the bar of soap.

It came away pink, and the bubbles covered her outfit almost from head to toe as Naruto dragged the same amount of water into her clothes again. In, out, in out, in, out...

She mindlessly controlled the water until it stopped coming out tinged with pink or red.

Water fell to the ground as she released her hold on it, using her invisibility genjutsu (A/N is it my imagination, or does Kurenai have one of these in canon?) to cover herself.

With a wide grin she suddenly realised something.

Her futon practices involved levitating items from around her. So in theory, Naruto was able to fly.

And what better time to test it than now? If the blonde fell, and was seen by someone, well her clothes were henged on top of this outfit anyway so Naruto could pretend to have been doing some sort of prank that had gone wrong and ended up with her being catapulted over Konoha.

It had happened before.


Half an hour later Naruto wobbled slowly out of the tree. She had tried to control her flight, but wasn't very good at it, and was not very happy with the results.

She had just crashed to the floor every try.

Needless to say, Naruto was just going to walk back and work out the whole flying business later, probably with Kage Bunshin, after she had met up with her team and done the missions for that day...

Wait, team?

Damn! Why had she decided to work on this now?

"Hell if I know kit," Kyuubi smirked at the expression on Naruto's face as she remembered the time.

Naruto rolled her eyes at the demon kitsune as she thought out her action plan.

Her team was meeting at 9, and however much she disliked the idiots that made up her team, Naruto knew that she needed to be there on time in order to avoid any more suspicion from Kakashi.

It was bad enough that Naruto had been heard as a fly (needed to remember that for future henges) let alone if she was caught with the scent of blood on her clothes.

Checking her watch hurriedly, she realised that she only had 10 minutes until Kakashi-san would arrive. Oh dear.

Looking around quickly, Naruto pulled her fingers together in a shunshin seal, with her two fingers pointing up and the rest in a fist.

A swirl of wind surrounded her, and when it fell away she was gone.


The Sandaime pulled out his crystal orb, and said to it very clearly

"Uzumaki Naruto,"

Inside it a cloudy mist swirled, and when it whirled itself away, an image of Uzumaki Naruto, the loud-mouthed genin that Sarutobi had grown to like, was shown in vivid colours in the sphere.

He chuckled as he saw Naruto in a tree, presumably on a training field, trying to do something. The Hokage leaned forwards curiously as he saw Naruto close his eyes, focus... and fall of the tree.

Sarutobi laughed as he spied Naruto's expression, halfway between pouting and frowning, as Naruto proceeded to walk back up the tree using his feet (when had Naruto learnt to do that? He needed to keep a close eye on him) and... Fall off again.

What was the poor boy trying to do anyway?

It was about 5 more minutes before Naruto stopped at the bottom of the tree and attempted to walk away. He wobbled quite a lot, probably tired of crashing so many times, and his expression grew blank. Chuckling quietly to himself, the Sandaime watched as horror crept across the young boy's face.

He checked his watch.

Oh, that was it. He was late for something, maybe a meeting with someone? Or was it... oh, it was his team. It was almost 9 o'clock, and on a Kakashi schedule that was the perfect time to show up after arranging to meet at 6.

Sarutobi watched with his attention split between the amusing figure in the ball and his damned paperwork (how had Minato ever done this?) and so almost missed the hand seal that the boy pulled up, and after looking around him, vanished in a swirl of wind.

Shunshin.

Stunned, the Hokage sat back in his chair. Who had been teaching him? The reports from Kakashi showed that Naruto had no great skill in shinobi training, and that his jounin sensei himself had taught Naruto nothing more than some simple taijutsu pointers. It was Uchiha Sasuke that Kakashi had mainly been teaching... (A/N I'd like to point out that I KNEW IT! Kakashi was teaching Sasuke extra... wait a sec, I just wrote this. *Face faults*)

But again, Kakashi had been suspicious of something about Naruto, something about him seeming artificial?

Well, he could just ask team 7 to come to his office and check out what Kakashi had reported now.

A messenger bird was picked from the perches in the adjoining room, and Sandaime scribbled a quick note to Kakashi.

It was firmly tied to the leg of the hawk and sent to find Team 7.

Finally there would be some answers to the enigma that was Konoha's number one most surprising ninja... or would there?

A/N Sorry it's so short! It's a filler, because it's Christmas and I thought I could get some good updates in and then what happens? Writer's block.

I'll try and make an extra long one tomorrow- Merry Christmas eve!